On Friday I wrote about a hopeful new brewery start up in Belfast. Well that dream begun 18 months ago has almost become a reality! Boundary have hit the £70,000 target in just six days (currently £75,000) with around 300 of us (mostly Northern Ireland dwellers) joining with the board to make the vision a reality. Funding will stay open until £100,000, the closer to the stretch goal, the more fermenters and thus the more frequent the collaborations and specials that can be produced.
Their blog yesterday also hinted at the purchase of multiple wine barrels via contacts with the excellent OX Belfast for ageing beers in. Matthew intends to brew the first (intentionally!) soured beer in Northern Ireland in the Flemish Red style which will be the inaugral brew on the new kit. This will then be aged in those barrels along with various monster Imperial Stouts to slumber away and be brought out on special occasions. It appears us members will be given first refusal on these special brews...it seems we will continue drinking our own investment for a long time to come.
After the keys have been obtained it will take around a fortnight to refurbish the building and install the brew kit, with the hope to be mashing in the first brew in late January. After that it'll take around 90 cases/ month to break even on overheads and after that any profits will be reinvested into the business. Matthew hopes that they'll be able to take on their first paid employee towards the end of 2016. Beers should sell in offlicences around the same price point as Kernel and Siren (as long as the "craft tax" isn't set too high), and going for 330ml bottles should really set them us apart from the competition.
The fantastic response from everyone will mean that Matthew should even be able to afford a week off for Christmas before the hard work begins in earnest in the New Year. Thank you to everyone who has helped the dream become a reality and there's still a wee bit of time left to get involved if you haven't already; you've probably got a few days at most!
Follow Boundary on Twitter to keep up to date with other new developments.
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