››People THE NEXT GENERATION
BRINGING GOOD CHEER BY MARCO FREY | PHOTO BY LUCY CRAM
H
igh quality beer was an acquired taste for Cooper and Willie Cram, but now it has become their business. “Even up through college, I was drinking Natty Ice,” said Cooper, thinking of the watery mass-produced national brand. His brother Willie nods, reclining in a wooden chair beside sun-bleached oyster shells, the remains of years of family oyster roasts. Crickets hum in the Lowcountry heat as he takes a sip of Tropicalus, an American IPA-style beer in a pint can with a bright tie-dyed palmetto tree logo.
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“Nobody knew about craft beer back then,” Willie said. The Cram brothers of Bluffton don’t brew beers, but they are the reason a variety of unique small-batch suds can be found in Lowcountry coolers. In 2011, Cooper and Willie founded Bear Island Distributors, named after their family’s private island. The brothers are dedicated to spreading their love for local beer. These Lowcountry natives enjoy a successful partnership, sparked years ago by an internship at a large Dutch brewery in the Netherlands. They fondly recall boozy field trips spent sampling beer brewed by Trappist monks. A family friend partly owned