Long Ireland to Serve Up Six-Packs

Less than two years after opening its doors on Pulaski Street, Long Ireland Beer Company is expanding its production to include a machine-run bottling operation, an upgrade from the special bottle releases it has offered in the past, and one of the first of Long Island's new batch of breweries to make the jump.

Long Ireland started offering its Celtic Ale in six packs recently, using a bottling machine that came with the equipment they purchased when they started up, to pump the product out through Clare Rose Distributors. Co-owner Dan Burke said that the brewery can bottle about 15 cases per hour with the machine, allowing the Riverhead brewery to step into a share of the marketplace it previously was limited in.

"This isn't so much about geographic reach, but what it does is open us up within our existing distribution area because the draught market is only about 20 percent of the beer market," said Greg Martin, co-owner of Long Ireland. "The other 80 percent is package. So this opens us up from that aspect."

Long Ireland has offered special release bottles since opening, such as a double IPA, saison, and others, and have made some of their regular-rotation beers available in 22-ounce selections locally – though those all had to be hand-bottled, and in some cases, corked and caged.

For now, the brewery's flagship Celtic Ale will be bottled with the machine, and Burke said in time, their Pale Ale and come fall, Pumpkin Ale, will be available in six-packs.

Martin also said that the brewery is planning on purchasing three more 50-barrel fermenters after expanding production last July.