Philippine craft brewing pioneers Joey & Marco Viray of Joe’s Brew have been forced to leave their brewery’s current home in the Poblacion district of Manila, but they have found a new opportunity with fellow industry stalwarts Pedro Brewcrafters.
Alcohol sales in the fashionable entertainment area where Joe’s Brew have brewed and run a taproom for the past 3 years have plummeted during the coronavirus pandemic due to a lack of visitors to the area and restrictions placed on the sale of alcohol by the Philippines government.
Taprooms and entertainment venues have been forced to shutter their doors with many not re-opening. Polilya, home bar of the Philippines’ largest craft brewery Engkanto officially closed in mid-July followed swiftly by popular bar and nightclub Nokal (also operated by the Viray’s).
With their landlord looking to redevelop the building that houses both their brewery and taproom and stubborn landlords refusing to drop rents in the area Joey and Marco risked having nowhere to produce their popular brews.
Enter Jaime and Nadine Fanlo from Pedro Brewcrafters who operate a larger facility out of the main city in the San Pedro (Laguna) area.
With taprooms on the same street in Poblacion Joe’s Brew and Pedro had already been helping each other out, combining resources for logistics, collections, and deliveries to help reduce their overheads as well as producing a number of collaborative brews together.
They have now decided to take this relationship to the next stage. Explains Marco Viray “The full on partnership was an idea we were slowly exploring, and because of the whole pandemic it just fast tracked our partnership to help each other out.”
“The idea for now is to move our equipment to their facility and slowly build our brewery to complement whatever equipment they have. We’re looking at combining the equipment and use both brew set ups to complement each other” he continues.
Jaime & Nadine Fanlo of Pedro Brewcrafters are looking forward to the new partnership
Jaime of Pedro Brewcrafters is excited by this new opportunity to partner with another one of Manila’s early movers in the craft beer scene “We are very excited to welcome Joey, Marco, and the rest of the Joe’s Brew team to work and brew together with us under one roof … Joining forces will help us share our talents and resources and get us better positioned for the future.”
With the coronavirus showing no signs of slowing down in the Philippines Marco is nervous for the immediate future of craft brands and the bars that serve their brews.
The food and beverage sector has received very little help from the Philippines government and liquor bans are still in place in some areas of Metro Manila and the provinces. “I can see a lot of challenges coming our way … we are all tasked to slowly rebuild the craft beer economy. I think for us craft beers, it’ll be extremely difficult as establishments that carry our brands are deemed non-essential” he notes.
With sales down to 10% pre-coronavirus levels for some craft breweries there’s a long way to go to re-build a market that was already struggling to fulfil its potential, but with like minded breweries working together this will be an easier task.
Relishing the opportunity to work with the team at Pedro, Marco observes “the best way to move forward is to work with people you care and respect. The guys over in Pedro are the type of people we want to surround ourselves with especially in this time. We look forward to working with them and look forward to what the future holds for both our breweries.”
