Thank You

We are so excited!

A massive, huge, THANK YOU to all of our co-owners and supporters who came out in full force and made the last 2 weeks of our share offer such a success. We had loads of you sharing our story, our vision, our links, and WE’VE DONE IT…HOORAY!

Our minimum target was £40,000. Our target £60,000 and our upper cap £100,000. Running into the last two weeks we were sitting at our minimum target, and in that short time, we've gone well above our £60,000. This is such an achievement, and we couldn’t have done it without everyone’s support and enthusiasm. We can now officially announce that Lacada Brewery is on the map, and we are ready to sail.
 
What does exceeding our target mean? Firstly, having the number of co-owners and supporters we do means together we have a lot of skills and contacts so new opportunities are already presenting themselves. It means we don’t need to rely on a bank loan to get started which is good news for us all. It also means we have some decisions to make about how to prioritise our spending. Having that little bit more might be starting off with equipment that is higher spec, which would create a more cost effective brew cycle. So all of you who are co-owners, look out for your next email and invitation to our General Meeting where we’ll be discussing (and voting on) what those priorities are.

We’ve been beavering away processing enquiries, applications and payments, getting our special co-owners limited edition beer glasses ordered, following up on premises, and figuring out how we can get Lacada out on shelves and taps as soon as possible. Head brewer Laurie has also just returned from a brewing consultation which you’ll hear all about soon.

This week holds several promising events for beer enthusiasts along the North Coast.
Monday 16th March; Wetherspoons, Coleraine kicks off its’ Real Ale Festival.
Thursday 19th March; Fairleys Bar in Coleraine host Farmageddon, another Northern Irish Beer Co-operative, for a meet the brewer evening.
Saturday the 21st March; The Sippy of Culture Craft Beers and Fine Ale event returns to Derry/Londonderry at the Legenderry Warehouse No1, showcasing their locals Northbound and Walled City Breweries.

Phew! We'll be kept busy - anyone fancy coming along?

The voyage to Belfast Beer Club and beyond...

Aaaahhh - the joys of good company, good beer and a warm train. Yes, a posse of Lacadians ventured forth on Wednesday to the Belfast Beer Club at the Sunflower and a good co-operative time was had by all. The first port of call, however, was the fabled Crown Bar, well, it is unavoidable isn’t it? We come out of the station at Great Victoria St and there lies the Crown, plumb in the middle of your vision. So, a short time later, we were happy sitting in a snug with a trilogy of “Nicholson’s Pale Ale” (the house beer made by St. Austell Brewery) “American Pale Ale” from Sonnet 43 and “Chilli and Chocolate Porter” from Wadworth Brewery in Devizes, Wiltshire. All three beers were served via a trio of 1/3 pint glasses sitting snugly in a wooden trencher, a great way to try 3 different beers for the price of a pint.

The Nicholson’s PA was a decent swally and the APA from Sonnet caused some brow furrowing and questions such as "is this an APA?"  But the Chilli and Chocolate Porter was a peculiar delight.  First you get a super nose, then the chocolate runs over your tongue and last of all there is the chilli burn at the back of your throat. And that was the same for every mouthful. Why it didn’t mix up in your mouth and eventually give you chilli burn all over and only chocolate in your throat is a complete mystery. That was until Phil started explaining about taste receptors on your tongue being variegated.

A quick dash to Wetherspoons on Dublin Rd and some Butcombe Bitter followed; this was very nice and does what it says on the pump clip. A pint of Elland 1872 Porter was purloined and by the wonders of 3G we discovered that this beer had, that very day, been awarded Champion Beer at Camra’s Winter Ales Festival. We were delighted to discover that this is so far the only porter that matches up to Lacada’s. Yes, yes, we know... conceit, unsubstantiated claims of greatness, b*llsh*t detector on full. Well, if you don’t shout no-one will hear, but we DO have a damn fine porter recipe that we have honed and tinkered and we know it’s good.

Onwards to the Sunflower, a bright spot in a dark street somewhere. Lovely place - lovely people & lovely atmosphere. We quickly ordered a pint of Hilden Twisted Hop from the cask and went upstairs to the Belfast Beer Club where we had a good old fraternal time of it with our Boundary Brewing amigos, some of whom are also co-owners in Lacada! It’s a great thing to have two new local co-operative ventures working together and having strong links through people. Matt Dick was full of greetings and helpful information and it was clear from his MC role that the man is much loved (yes, I don’t think that is too strong a word) by the people present. It felt like a room full of friends... and it was full with approximately 40 people.

The beers were from Wild Beer Company from Somerset, they of the antlers on their labels. Now, these are beers Jim, but not as you may know it. I’ll ‘fess up and say I did stir a bit of controversy by suggesting they were just the beer side of vinegar but that was really only to see how lively the locals were. It worked and ‘man at the door’ (Hi Michael) wasn’t having any of it, and quite right too. It was great to see the love of a good beer ran deep with these people. Wild Beer Company love to do beer that is beyond the Kuiper Belt as far as voyages into the unknown go. Many of the beers are brewed with wild yeasts that are culled from the locality (think orchards of Somerset). Not content with that, the brewers also use numerous additions that are clearly not run of the mill e.g. Hibiscus, cucumber and mint. I think the best description was from Matt himself who, after asking the audience to shout out what tastes they could detect, announced that really with these type of beers you were entering a ‘dark void’ of taste experiences. In other words, you could get lost... somewhere wild.

Unfortunately, we could not stay for the whole voyage because of the need to catch the train up. So it was a quick goodbye to Matt and also to Pedro the friendly landlord of the Sunflower, and we departed a super evening with the floating notes of the downstairs music session in our ears.

Cheers!
Laurie

Hello World!

As the story of Lacada went public with our press coverage in December, and the launch of this website on Christmas Eve, our Share Offer took off. The Press have been in touch, people have been liking, sharing, and craft beer bloggers have been blogging. We’re even beginning to source some elusive second hand dairy tanks (otherwise referred to as hen’s teeth) to build our brewery plant in Portrush.

It seems like the combination of brewing craft beer and the co-operative business model has piqued the interest of many!

The recent public meeting at Portrush Town hall (07/01/2015) attracted a great bunch of like-minded individuals. It was a fair mix of those who had invested, those who were interested and all were willing to get involved in the discussion. They gave us some great advice and ideas too! Sadly, there was only tea and coffee imbibed but that was welcome on a typical wild North Coast evening and that’s going to change soon, once this brewery gets going!

Co-owners are over 60 in number now – certainly a strong, message from the community! The message is clear – ‘Yes we want to brew beer in Portrush to be proud of, and yes we want to employ local people and support our thriving hospitality market.’

With that in mind, the board are rousing working groups to set wheels in motion so that we can hit the ground running when our newly extended Share offer closes on Friday 6th March, 2015.

If you are interested in being part of any of our working groups which cover Planning & Premises, Equipment, Finance, Staff & Policy, Marketing/Networking, please get in touch.

There are lots of ways to get involved with Lacada Brewery;

1. Become a co-owner; Our minimum shareholding is just £100 - click here to apply.
2. Help us source plant & machinery (click here to download PDF list of brewing vessels required as at Jan 2015). I’d like to call them cauldrons but Laurie won’t let me!
3. Help us spread the word by sharing this post on your social networks.
4. Like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter - Please share and Retweet our posts.
5. Contact us if you would be interested in stocking our beer in your lovely hostelry, bar, restaurant, or off-license.

Thanks for reading – and stay tuned for the latest!
You can sign up to our mailing list newsletter using the form below.

Cheers!
Heather