The Beara Irish Brewing Company (BIBC) is run by Michael Potorti and his wife Louise who hails from County Cork. On the couple’s many vacations back to Louise's home over the years, they were impressed by the quality of local dairy produce and in particular, the grain products. They came up with the idea of making their own beer back in New Hampshire, using Irish Barley from Beara. And thus, the Beara Irish Brewing Company was born.
The couple now import genuine Irish Barley malt and make a selection of finely crafted beers using locally sourced ingredients. Their current offerings include the Award winning Castletown Honey Brown Ale. Named after Castletownbere in Cork, the brew is an Irish ale malt base with flavorful grains and pure honey. Their Baruil IPA (Irish Pale Ale) has an Irish malt base with other grain additions from Munich/Vienna and is made with three different hops in the process. The Hungry Hill Hefeweizen, made with Irish barley and German wheat/yeast, is their latest development and will be available in the near future.
Speaking of the popularity of their craft-beer, both believe it is down to the simplicity in it's production.
"There's a huge interest in going back to basics", says co-founder Louise Potorti, "Simple farming, beer with no chemicals, no preservatives."
"We are already working with local honey-makers, maple producers " said Michael "We are looking to fuse the American ingredients with Irish barley as a base. I think it is a fantastic combination"
Last year, so as to meet the demand for their beer, the couple successfully ran an online fund-raising campaign on the popular crowd-sourcing website, KickStarter, which helped them move their operations from their New Hampshire home to a leased facility.
"We did our original KickStarter and we just got a tremendous amount of support from everybody" said co-founder Michael Potorti. "That got it started."
This time round, the couple, are hoping to raise enough money to purchase equipment for their ever expanding brewery.
Speaking about the need for a second campaign, Michael said "We have a lot of interest locally from bars and restaurants and stores that want to carry our product but we are short of kegs, we also need a keg-washer which is really very expensive."
KickStarter.com is a website where people can give life to their projects through funds raised from the public. The couple are hoping to raise $30, 000 however KickStarter campaigns are only successful if the target is reached i.e. if Beara Irish Brewing Co. raise $29,999 or less then the funds are returned to those who donated.
Contributions, no matter how small, will go a long way to helping the Potorti's reach their target amount and pledges can be received up until August 17. All those who donate to their campaign will receive a gift in return for supporting the craft-beer brewery.
With just over one-month window within which the target of $30,000 has to be raised, Michael and Louise are looking for support from the public.
"Your support with filling in the gap is key in making this dream a reality!" says the Irish American couple.
To find out more or to pledge to the Beara Brew Co KickStarter campaign, you can visit the Beara Irish Brewery website www.bearairishbrew.com. You can also follow the company on Facebook/Twitter to keep up-to-date with the latest events.
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