As with all great stories, there was no intention to buy a brewery!
Andre, the elder of us, has been known to come up with some crazy ideas and has always been looking at “innovative” ways to invest in Port Alfred. These have ranged from introducing a “tuk-tuk” service to cater for parking problems to purchasing some “fix-im-uppers” to sustainable fish farming. Interesting as these are, we never really managed to get any of his ideas into a workable outcome.
Late one Sunday night, I get this call from him suggesting that he has now come up with a winner! He was watching a TV series set in Maui, which is part of the Hawaiian archipelago, and produces and exports pineapples. Ok, so just down the road from Port Alfred is Bathurst which is also known for producing pineapples and has the biggest one in the world, so there is a correlation of sorts.
So, the food guy (called Guy) wasn’t in Maui for the pineapples, but rather for a by-product the pineapple industry – liquor production. Some clever clogs came up with the idea to use the offcuts of the pineapple production systems to act as the sugar source required to produce alcohol in the form of vodka’s, gin’s, rum’s, etc.
All seemed like a great idea so far – take the same logic and start up a distillery in Port Alfred that produces various types of spirits – Sugar, water, yeast and we are all good to go.
Let the distilling begin!!!!
The only real problem with this whole idea was the fact that in order for this to work, we would need a distillery … and as fate would have, there was none in Port Alfred. So, we had to take a little trip down to the coast to find a suitable location to build a distillery.
Joburg -> quick flight -> Gqeberha -> Port Alfred-> look for awesome location.
We looked at several possible “distillery” locations, however none seemed to fit what we wanted. In our minds, we wanted a location that would be able to function as a distilling plant but also offer a place where people would also enjoy the town and provide facilities for “tasters” and an accompanying food options.
Remember, at this point we are looking to find a place to distil spirits and provide some form of experience to go with.
Becoming somewhat despondent with what was available and running out of options, we both thought that this awesome idea was starting to become a distant memory.
It was at this point that the agent casually mentioned “Oh, by the way, the brewery is up for sale. If you want to, we can go have a look. If nothing else, you can have an ice-cold local beer.”
A month or so after visiting the Little Brewery on the River, we meet with Ian and in principle the deal was done (much like the old way of doing business by handshake).
Several months go by and boom, we are now the proud owners of the local brewery in Port Alfred.
Let the brewing begin!