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.

Whether you were a member of IrishCraftBrewer.com (ICB), or are a new visitor, it's worth pointing out some of the new, and indeed the old features of the Beoir.org website. Those of you who have moved over to Beoir.org from ICB will be familiar with the Articles section and it's subcategories. These are pretty much self-explanatory, and all of the content from ICB has been brought over. The former ICB Knowledge Base, now renamed to Brewing Knowledge, is firmly aimed at the home brewing community, and we hope that this will continue to grow as members share their knowledge with the community. Likewise, the Community forums contains a section dedicated to home brewers, under the banner of Irish Craft Brewer. This is where home brewers can ask questions, discuss and share home brewing experiences. The former sections from IrishCraftBrewer.com have been merged into a general Community section, with fora for discussing beer, bars, food, events, trading and general chat. This, and the Irish Craft Brewer section, is open to all registered users of Beoir.org. There is also a hidden forum accessible to paid members of Beoir. This is provided to discuss the internal operations of Beoir, organise events and plan campaigns.

A new feature is the Beoir Directory, which replaces the lists that were formerly published on ICB. The directory aims to list all microbreweries and the pubs, bars and restaurants selling craft-brewed Irish beer on the island of Ireland. With the growing interest in craft beers, this is no mean feat, and it will continue to be an active community project, as all registered members will be able to submit new premises, or mail the Beoir.org admin team to provide updates. Guidelines on what information is needed to make a submission can be found here.

As with all community-based websites, Beoir.org will continue to evolve over the coming years, and we look forward to the challenges of a new organisation seeking to promote our native breweries.