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Pitcher of Beer €13.40? They wanted €13.40 for two pints? This was completely inexplicable, none of the bar staff were topless, the beer was the same cold fizzy muck everywhere serves and the pub itself had all the charm of herpes.

But what choice do you have other than to be ripped off by Dublin city centre pubs? Are we condemned to spend our lives forking over this much while our debts circle us in an ever-tightening carousel of death?

What beer can you get around Dublin for the price of a round in the wrong pub? The beer had to be good, ideally Irish craft beer. The pubs had to be pleasant. I am far too posh to spend my time in a place filled with binmen and sailors just to save a few euro. And a strict selection criteria on who was allowed to go would be enforced.

General Articles
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I am a fan of strostrongbeer1.jpgng beers. By this I mean beers with a relatively high Alcohol content (OK, I am also a fan of weak and medium strength beers but that is beside the point).

When drinking a nice Belgian trappist beer, or the Porterhouse's fine An Brainblasta I am often asked how I can drink something that strong and frankly, I just don't understand the question.

Sure, if all you have ever drunk was 4.3% vol. beer then I could see how a strong beer would seem intimidating, but surely a little beverage called wine has crossed everyone's lips at some stage. strongbeer2.jpg

People seem to think that drinking a strong beer will result in rapid drunkenness. They fear that they will lose control and make a staggering, shouting, vomiting show of themselves.

Naturally, if you swallow pints of strong beer with wild abandon you will end up in a sorry state, but the same is true of wine.

Now, Chimay Blue, for example, is 9% Vol and An Brainblasta is 7% vol., while wine is commonly 11-14% vol. but people see wine as a civilised refined drink and do not fear becoming drunken louts from drinking it. Why? Respect. They accord wine the respect it deservesstrongbeer3.jpg, while strong beers are treated the same way as their weaker cousins, with predictable results.

Respect is the key to understanding and enjoying any alcoholic drink. Accord the beverage in your hand the respect it is due and you will not go wrong.

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Welcome to the new Beoir.org website.

Launched on July 1st, 2010, Beoir is an independent group of consumers which seeks greater choice, quality and value-for-money for beer and cider drinkers on the island of Ireland. Our primary goal is to support and raise awareness of Ireland's native independent microbreweries and craft cider-makers. Additionally, Beoir promotes and encourages amateur craft brewing, and the making of other fermented beverages. It seeks to assist amateur brewers in improving the quality of their end product through the sharing of information. Beoir.org is now the on-line presence of Beoir, providing a place for those interested in supporting Ireland's native micro breweries to join a community of like-minded people, and play a part.

Beoir is a natural development out of the former IrishCraftBrewer.com (launched in March 2007), an on-line community for beer lovers in Ireland. At a high level, IrishCraftBrewer.com was about appreciating good beer, and promoting choice in Ireland. Although not officially organised as a campaign, members of the IrishCraftBrewer.com community raised awareness of quality beer and brewing in Ireland appearing on TV and radio shows as well as in the printed media. By setting up Beoir, the intention is to become more organised with these activities, and to further increase the awareness and appreciation of locally-brewed beer.

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Reuben Gray of Beoir presents a cheque to Maudeine and Sam Black of Kinsale Craft Brewery

When Black's Kinsale Craft Brewery launched a crowd funding initiative on the Indiegogo platform it immediately captured the interest of Beoir members. Sam even adjusted the offer listing to allow those who just wanted to buy the exclusive beers he has planned.

But Beoir Chairman Reuben Gray noticed an opportunity for something bigger: at the bottom of the listings was the offer of a personalised batch of beer on the Kinsale pilot system: 200 bottles with a price tag of €1,000. Perhaps 20 of us could club together and commission a unique Beoir brew? It took just eight days to collect the necessary number of pledges, with some late joiners just missing the final places. Could we do it again?

A second round was opened and at this point Sam himself stepped in to sweeten the deal, offering a brew on his full-size brewkit and doubling the beer allocation for each pledger. This round took less than a week to fill up and on Sunday 8th September at the Irish Craft Beer and Cider Festival, Reuben presented Sam and Maudeline with a cheque for €2,000.

The beer is due to be brewed in early 2014 and the part of the batch not allocated to pledgers will be available to the public in a strictly limited edition (though the launch party has dibs on at least some of it). We're left with just one important question: what shall we brew?

The Black's Kinsale Craft Brewery Indiegogo campaign is 90% complete but there are still lots of great offers available to funders before the 15th September deadline. Take a look!

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Welcome to Irish Craft Brewer! This site has been created to be the new home on the web for people wanting to learn and share knowledge about craft brewing in Ireland. Whether you are just starting out or are already running a small brewery in your own home, we hope that you'll find this a useful resource, and contribute your own knowledge to the rest of the community.