Hello from the Irish Beer Consumers Association

[Irish Beer Consumers Assoc.]

Hello all! I'm Sean from the recently formed IBCA.

There has never been a better time for beer in Ireland and it's great to see the whole beer scene grow so much in recent years. Irish made craft beer and the Irish home brew scene have really exploded and are expected to continue on an upward trend.

Irish home brewers are being excellently catered for by the National Home brew Club, and long may it continue! Similarly Beoir is doing a great job at supporting the brewing industry itself by volunteering to staff at commercial events, and so on.

And this is where the IBCA comes in. As Irish beer consumers there is no organisation that advocates for us, with regards to consumer matters, outside of course of the statutory bodies. We have no conflicts of interest. Beer consumers in other countries often speak with a single voice, to good effect. For example CAMRA has run many successful consumer campaigns that are nothing to do with real ale, and we would hope to do the same: campaign on matters which affect consumers directly and indirectly.

If you would like to know more please PM me. We're not really online yet, but getting there

Hope to talk to you soon!

[Taf]

Hi Sean.

I think you'll find that Beoir are supposed to be primarily a beer consumer oganisation, although they do aim to support the indiginous breweries below a certain size. I think they are also in the process of joining the European Beer Consumers Union, so you might have more in common with them that you think. Why not pop over there and introduce yourself.

Also, do you have a website, so we can have a look at what you are about in more detail?

[Taf]

Ah yeah fair enough, I just think it would be an interesting onversation for Sean to have with Beoir!

[CB_Phil]

Welcome to the forum man

[Ciderhead]

Ah yeah fair enough, I just think it would be an interesting onversation for Sean to have with Beoir!

I have to say I'm with Taf on this one, we are just simple folk here in Wicklow and tend to pidgeon-hole so when I read on Beoirs front page

"Beoir is an independent group of consumers with a primary goal of supporting and raising awareness of Ireland's native independent microbreweries" I thought Beoir was all about promotion of choice for consumers and not affiliated or commercial entities at all.

In any case happy to let you light the touch paper and watch from the margins   

[Irish Beer Consumers Assoc.]

Thanks for the interest folks.

Firstly we are an Irish beer consumer organisation, with the emphasis on consumer. We have no bias towards macro or micro, and represent consumers of both. Presently over 90% of beer drank is from macros, consumers of which have no organisation, until now.

Secondly, we put the consumer first! So if there is a conflict between consumer and producer, micro or macro, we would hope to find an equitable solution, but the consumer is put first. We have no bias towards the industry, micro or marco. Similarly with retail, i.e. on or off sales, and also with issues concerning the law.

Taf, we hope to launch our website in the coming months!

[Paul]

Pretty clear to me that this is someone extracting the urine.

[Saruman (Reuben Gray)]

Is there a website at all? It's certainly not ibca.ie