Man of Beerd Origins

I am Man of Beerd!

While living in upstate New York, I became witness to the to eclectic diversity of beards on display as I roamed the streets sniffing out the latest great taste in beer. It also became obvious to me the cultural acceptance of beards, which as an Irish man I had never witnessed before. Thats not to say there were no beards in Ireland, but it was usually your dad! I won't say this inspired me to grow my beard, but I will admit it encouraged me to be more lazy and not bother shaving. Before I knew it, I was a beard flaunting, craft beer swilling hipster, and this was before I even knew this category of human existed as a stereotype.

Stepping back pre beard era, I arrived in Saratoga Springs, New York Dec 2011. On my evenings off I integrated myself into the local community in a way only an Irish person may understand, which was to spend my first 6 months of socializing in the local Irish bar, known then as "The Irish Times". Eventually I realized I wasn't getting to see much of my new home so I branched out. On my first night out in a different bar "The Living Room" I spotted this drink called an IPA. Now being an Engineer in semiconductors, my first thought was, nobody should drink that shit! In my industry IPA stands for Isopropyl alcohol, and certainly is nothing one should drink. With this in mind I rustled up the courage to ask "whats this IPA stuff", "Indian Pale Ale" being the reply.....of course it is I thought! I ordered a pint and took my first taste and turned to a colleague and asked "who the fuck would drink this shit" Needless to say I continued to the end and in the interest of fairness decided to have another to give it a fair go. I never looked back after that in regards to my new found love of beer. Yet at that stage I had no idea of how my attitude to alcohol would change after that.

Up until then I always considered myself like many other Irish, a person who drank to socialize and didn't necessarily have a love of the beer in the way I would have had a more defined love of food and even wine. Beer was something to oil the gears of social enjoyment (I'm being very euphenistic). However now IPA was my thing and for a few weeks I enjoyed mediocre IPA's thinking I was golden for life with my new drinking discovery. I wasn't to know what was to come, and a few weeks after that discovery, I walked into the 'Henry Street Tap Room' in Saratoga, and was amused by this blank tap shennanigans with beers written out on black board (beautifully so by the way) relating to the individual taps. I being on an IPA buzz decided to rotate through their IPA selection until I got to Stone brewing 'Enjoy by' IPA. This beer blew my mind and from there my world changed. Finally I realized I could enjoy tasting beer in the same way I had been enjoying food for years.

Step Forward, and in 2014 I met my beautiful wife, we left our jobs, travelled around the US, then spent time in Bali, and Thailand before coming back to Ireland and marrying within a year of meeting (Story for another day). When I arrived back to Ireland I was full of enthusiasm to introduce to Ireland some new beers by starting a brewery, but very quickly I realized someone had already told the Irish about IPA and all these other great beer flavors I was experiencing in US. It was a double edged sword for me, on one hand I thought to myself I haven't got the capital to compete in the new rampaging environment. On the other hand I was back home and able to drink many other beers than Guinness etc. So what do I do now, well I knew I wanted to start a business doing something and as my wife can confirm I have more ideas in my heads than I can keep up with, but I felt I needed to create an image or a brand that could be used on a future business at some point in the future. I needed to tweet and Instagram etc about things I was interested in so I could gain followers who could appreciate any kind of creativeness, and have an audience for when I finally started to do something. I racked my brains for weeks trying to think of a good catchy brand, and early on I had came up with 'beard man' which changed to 'beerd man'. but I wasn't overly happy with either of them. Then one weekend myself and my wife took a trip to one of the Arran Islands, and by chance due to it being a bit chilly I happened to be wearing an Arran Jumper. As I stood on a hill admiring the view, in my Arran Jumper with the breeze rustling trough my beard, I threw my hands on my head and whipped my head around and up to one side passingly, and said to my wife "You know what? I literally feel like Man of Arran" we both laughed but I loved the pretend iconic image I had given myself and started to think maybe that could be my brand, it was a fleeting thought as in reality, not being from any of the islands, it would have been decieving to brand myself in such a way. A couple of weeks later and I really don't recall the circumstances, but it came to me in an instant while out with my wife and I turned to her and said "I am Man of Beerd". She laughed at me, but in that instant I knew that would be my brand.