The year was 2016 and craft beer around the world was booming! B.O.A. was in its pre-planning stages, with all eyes pointing to New Zealand as the future home.
What started out as a nonchalant trip to Costa Rica (after a tip from my sister), soon turned into the adventure of a lifetime…
Summer was rapidly approaching, and I decided to do some due diligence and check out Costa Rica as a second place option against the 99%, #1 pick that was NZ for establishing B.O.A…great weather, great people, great nature…twist my arm, right?
So, needing a vacation, I decided to lock in a three month rental in Tamarindo – essentially the main tourist zone of Costa Rica – and from there, I started my research. How is craft beer in Costa Rica? Is there much competition? What is distribution like? Is it easy to run a business here? What are the alcohol laws like? So. Many. Questions.
However, not long into the trip I had discovered a lack of quality and quantity of Costa Rican craft beers. Now please don’t misunderstand me as I mean no disrespect to Costa Rican craft brewers, but craft beer in Costa Rica is a relatively new thing. It simply doesn’t have the same history or experience as Europe or the US. The largest craft breweries here were only a few years old, and with craft brewing being such a young, new trend, inexperience showed itself in the form of oh so many unbalanced and poorly tasting beers. This alone intrigued me as, from an opportunistic standpoint, Costa Rica was ripe for a new brewery. (Quick sidenote, fast forward 5 short years and some outstanding new breweries have begun to surface, paving the way for Costa Rica to be a true contender of delicious, sought after brews!)
But I digress to the journey of B.O.A…so after months of asking questions, traveling, improving my Spanish, establishing some connections, and gauging Costa Rica as an option for building and running a mid-sized brewery, it was as though life itself chuckled at my naivety and my plans…everything began to fall in place…and as they say, everything happens for a reason.
Within a matter of months plans DRASTICALLY changed, and I found myself purchasing a home in Costa Rica where not long after, I made the permanent move. Boom.
Since that game-changing decision, new friendships have been forged, recipes have been created and adjusted, a brand new 4,000 square foot craft brewery and adjacent restaurant have been established, and a new wave of quality craft beers are waiting for the bold beer drinkers who accept nothing less than top quality.
Enter Brothers Of Ale Brewing in Costa Rica.
2016 will forever be the year of change. Marked by new friendships and life altering events. One of discovery and opportunity. One driven by passion; a new beginning of something that could only be described as the soul acting in harmony with energy, frequency, and fate…sometimes in life you just have to go for it.
