Line breaks in excerpts of Portfolio Items?

Hello,

Is there a way to add line breaks in excerpts of Portfolio Items?
I’m using Tiles with Fade having the excerpt on overlay and I tried using those in custom excerpt box without success: <br /> <br> </ br> <p>

</ br> works for excerpts of standard Post types though but not for Portfolio.

My problem is that I need 3-4 very short lines in there but with line breaks otherwise they display all one after the other.

Thanks.