Progress – somewhat

As of 19th November 2021 I have signed a letter of offer from eTecK for space in Phoenix Park Industrial Estate! It’s only taken 4 years or so of constant effort to reach here 🙂

I have located and have in my possession an old pilot brew house from an English brewery (in Salisbury?) that was apparently used back in the 1970s. This system found its way to Castara, Tobago and was then left there by a Brit (Iain Black?) who had attempted to start a brewery there but eventually gave up, probably due to all the red tape. Allan Bhagan purchased the equipment, refurbished it and was in the process of setting up his own brewery, also in Tobago. It was at this point that our paths crossed and we started discussing going in to business together.

Then 2021 began!

With all the lockdowns and the possibility of this continuing for a mighty long time we decided that maybe Tobago isn’t the best place for this. So we started looking at Trinidad. Along the way Allan got tied up with his other businesses and decided this won’t work and we agreed that I would purchase the equipment from him and proceed on my own.

Changing the business model came next. Rather than have a brewery with a tap room selling draught beer direct to customers I decided to go with a membership club with online sales and delivery. This will increase the initial setup costs as now I have to find a way to bottle/can the beer and make deliveries.

The regulations governing beer in Trinidad & Tobago make it much harder to brew and sell beer than it is for making and selling wine, so I can’t just setup in my house and sell from there. I need to have the brewery in a place zoned for light industrial manufacturing. I need to have a Brewer’s Licence. I can’t sell volumes less than 4.5 litres of beer to an individual. The work around for the latter is to setup a separate company that purchases the beer in volume and then has a retail licence to sell.

After a year and more of hunting I can see a light at the end of the tunnel (hopefully it’s not a train’s headlights). However it may be another year before I can get access to the property. The park was originally scheduled to be ready by December 2021 but as with all things, Covid 19 delayed its development so now it is estimated to be ready in May/June 2022. But that is without any approvals. Hopefully the approvals won’t take too long.

But looking on the bright side: hopefully by then the shipping issues and aluminium can shortages will be resolved and the price of barley might get back to more normal levels by then.

In the meantime I am doing small group tastings of beer to see which of my beers are liked.