Cisco Brewers Taps New Beer For Hurricane Helene Relief Effort

Cisco Brewers has tapped a special beer on Nantucket to help raise funds for the Hurricane Helene relief efforts in western North Carolina.

The beer - dubbed “Neighbors Stout - is being sold only on Nantucket at the brewery, and the proceeds from its sale will be donated to the “Pouring For Neighbors” program initiated by the North Carolina Craft Brewers Guild.

For brewery CEO Jay Harman, it wasn’t just a way to help out a region that was devastated by flooding after the hurricane. It was also personal.

“Our ex-brewer Jeff Horner who developed the original Cisco Woods Series (barrel-aged sour program) moved to Asheville in 2014 with his family,” Harman said. “He lost his brewery to Hurricane Helene. It was really sad to hear. He had such a cool brewery on the river and made some really nice beer.”

Horner opened Brewery Cursus Keme in Asheville four years ago. According to a GoFundMe page set up by Horner earlier this month, “Brewery Cursus was shattered into a million pieces and spread throughout the waterways of Western North Carolina by Helene on September 27th. We have been picking up the few pieces found downriver and will continue until we have located and preserved as much as possible. The landscape is ever-changing here making it impossible to create a concrete path to recovery. Cheers to sharing beautiful pints on a beautiful bend of the Swannanoa River.”

Back on Nantucket, Harman told the Current that Cisco Brewers tapped “Neighbors Stout” last week. The 6.3 percent abv stout has notes of chocolate and coffee, with a clean, dry, and smooth finish.