Blonde, redhead, or "brunette" (stout). There is a Moura to “delight” all tastes. Moura is an Algarve craft beer, so Algarve that one of its ingredients is carob. The product arrived on the market just over 20 days ago, and in force, in such a way that the stocks sold out.
Originally from Tavira, where Sebastião Afonso and Ivânia Lourenço are from, Moura has a “legend” that dates back to the end of 2013, when the couple decided to go to Porto to take a course in craft beer production.
“[The course] is the first step. He [Sebastião Afonso] had a bar, which we closed. I work at the Hospital and we were both unhappy with our personal situation and wanted to find an alternative. A colleague of mine told us that there was a course in the port of craft beer production. I got home, talked about it, and we went straight away, almost overnight. We learned how to make beer and what it could be made with other ingredients. We tried to reconcile this with the products of our land and we remembered the carob», tells Ivânia Lourenço to Sul Informação.
Even before going deeper into the production of craft beer, in a course in Barcelona, where the couple acquired notions not only of production, but also of marketing, legislation, or construction of a microbrewery, Moura was already being “drawn”.
«We did a test, we experimented with the production and, in the first time, we achieved what we are doing today. We did it several times to improve ourselves, but we liked the first recipe and it was just like the final one. We started by making the blonde, the pilsen. We liked the taste and then moved on to other varieties in which the carob flavor was well connected. we made the stout and the redhead who, at this moment, is almost the star of the company. It's a beer that, from the outset, pleases everyone, even those people who said they didn't like beer», explains the couple.
The name for the beer was chosen, according to Sebastião Afonso, with the same criteria as the main ingredient, that is, the reference to its origins. «Moura why? After the local ingredient, we wanted a name that had to do with our land. We remembered the Moura Encantada de Tavira. We managed to relate everything to our land: a typical ingredient, brought by the Moors, the Moura Encantada story of Tavira, hence the name Moura, hence the decoration, hence the motto: “Artesanal de Alfarroba, Cerveja de Encantar”». 
Twenty days after Moura's entry into the market, stocks ran out. The couple were confident in their beer, but the interest surprised them. “We never doubted the quality, as we are also appreciators, and the opinions we received gave excellent indications. But for a tree so fast, we weren't prepared. O stock it disappeared. We are producing it every day, in small quantities because all the beers are made with a lot of love and care and a lot of perfection», explains Sebastião Afonso.
At the moment, around 50 bottles are being produced per day, but increasing production is a short-term goal. “We are already working on increasing production. It is a lengthy process, the equipment takes time to arrive and the space has to be adapted. There is also difficulty for suppliers to guarantee the raw material. Every week there are festivals, fairs, and there is a lot of demand».
For now, it is possible to find Moura in Tavira, Olhão, Faro and Almancil in some restaurants and gourmet stores, but there are also orders for Portimão and Aljezur. «This is not a common or industrial beer that is sold in the café. 
We target restaurants, shops gourmet, hotels, golf courses and medieval and craft fairs. We will also participate in the Alameda Beer Fest, in Faro, and at a gourmet party in Vilamoura, with “hand-picked” products, one of them being our beer. It's better to work with fewer resellers ensuring that when they need it, they have the product there».
Moura is still taking its first steps, but Sebastião Afonso and Ivânia Lourenço are already preparing the future: «We want to create new products, we want to create beers. We have revenues in our portfolio to be released in the future. We want to solidify this project first and then launch different projects, with different names, so that whoever looks at this bottle will know that it is made with carob and that it is a different beer», concludes Sebastião Afonso.
To find out if Moura delights your palate, the cost of a bottle costs, on average, 3 euros.
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