A few months back we went to Colombia on vacation. We had an amazing time. Hopefully sometime soon we will have a chance to write up a post about that. Here is a sneek into what went down:
Only a few days after we got back, we were contacted by Fortaleza Brewery about a beerfest happening a mere 5 weeks later. We were super happy and accepted to join! It would be the first craft beer fest in our province and our first festival ever!
So after our first group meeting one week later, we realized that we had very little stock for a 3 day event where there were potentially 1000 people per day. That is when panic set in.. haha… well sort of.
In order to brew enough for the event we estimated we would need about 1000 bottles, (waay over estimated). So Roger set out to brew and bottle pretty much 24/7 for the following month. For anybody that knows how long brewing takes, well, then you would sympathize with the amount of work Roger set out to do.
Another volunteer joins our crew!
Luckily he showed up during the panic time of non stop brewing, which was super helpful. Made us realize how busy we tend to keep ourselves. Thank you so much for all the work you did Boris!
More Beer Tastings!
We had another crowd come for a tasting. One guest was just leaving after having been here for months living in Cotacachi. It was awesome hearing how much she loved this tiny town and how she hoped she could come back to live here again. Wherever you are. Glad you really loved our beer!
Soon enough we’re hoping to get our hands on a few more tables, chairs and umbrellas and actually have a legit beer garden going on. Once the rain stops and Roger gets a chance to cut the grass at least.
Bonding with our kitty
Only days before heading to Colombia we had rescued a little kitty. So we were happy to find that Raine was fitting in quite nicely with the dogs and somehow with the other two grumpy cats.
Our first fair!
We got invited to an artisanal fair in town before the beerfest so we had planned to have enough stock for two days of the fair. So this pushed us to get some actual marketing material printed. We even tried doing a photoshoot with some glasses that we hadn’t pulled out since we moved from Toronto. Some really nice GTA Brews beer glasses.
It was a great opportunity to mingle with other vendors, make new friends and generally support the theme of buying local. It also gave us a chance to brush up on our selling. Our dream was to have a hostel brewery, but there are so many roles one has to play when running a business. So we are still learning how better present our beer, explain aromas, flavours, ingredients and generally teach people more about beer. Truly one of the best parts!
Our third volunteer, who showed up right as we needed some help!
Sometimes the world works in interesting ways. On Friday before closing up our booth at the fair, we had a young lad inquire at our neighbouring vendor about a hostel. Our next door vendor was a baker who had extra food so he had handed Erik a sandwich and afterwords pointed towards us. Meanwhile we are packing up our stuff and as he asked questions we handed him a beer to finish off. And that was the start of some busy weeks and stayed long enough to help us out at the “Cerveza Entre Volcanes” beerfest.
Our first beer festival!
After we brewed like mad and transferred and waited and bottled and waited, we actually realized we didn’t have enough space for all the beer! Time for another beer fridge perhaps? Make a cold room, or maybe it’s time for the next phase of our journey. Kegging!
So yah we’re gearing up for them thar kegs now, shopping around for taps and towers, chilling units, the works.
In the meantime Eric and Roger worked ridiculous hours over the festival weekend, barely sleeping. It was a great experience in many ways. Lots of ups and downs. Lots of exposure, lots of conversations, lots of Spanish practice for Roger and lots and lots of people enjoying our beers. Lots and lots of lessons learned as well.
The Friday and Saturday were a bit cold and rainy.
Ok a lot cold and rainy.
Many people opting to huddle inside Fortaleza’s restaurant to stay warm. And as many beer festivals go: people try several beers from every brewer and eventually settle on what they like to go glass after glass on. We had quite a few repeat customers as the afternoon wore on into evening. We found a lot of our flight-sized jam jars and our full-sized mugs in the main dining area.
Our Mango Pale (8.4%, tentatively called Ghosts of Mangoes Past) and Darth Lager (5%) went over exceptionally well those chilly first two days.
Sunday though was as perfect a day as you could hope for to sell beer. Hot and sunny, barely any clouds in the sky. Just One Mora bottles pretty much ran away from us in that heat. A fan-favourite for quenching thirst and still giving a satisfying buzz at 5.5%. It goes down easy but sneaks up on you.
It was a crazy weekend we’re glad to have been a part of. And couldn’t have done it without Eric and our buddy Bill (coffee man!) without whom we don’t think Eric and Roger would have gotten home alive on Sunday.
One HUGELY MAJOR IMPORTANT goal of the weekend was to fill one of Roger’s steins with our signature orange bottle caps. We’d brought them from Canada and have only used them for batches exclusively for the festival so far. We don’t even have labels on our bottles yet so figured this would be a good way for them to stand out.
We all may have been sampling each others’ wares through the weekend…..a bit.
Meanwhile Malena enjoying beer in the US and Canada.
Malena was away for a work week in Santa Barbara and then Vancouver and Pender Island. So she wasn’t there to help out at the beerfest. She definitely took advantage of all the beer options available while travelling.
Also, sunsets in Cotacachi are beautiful. <3
What a wonderful adventure! I hope to visit your little hacienda!!best of luck to you!!e