The third Good Beer Week has brewers travelling to Australia from Europe, Japan, New Zealand and North and South America. The representatives from the last of these are from Bodebrown in Brazil, who won the Best New Exhibitor trophy at the 2012 Australian International Beer Awards.
A blogger who has written for The Crafty Pint in the past put us in touch with the founder Paulo after visiting him last year. We invited him over for the week, helped resolve some visa issues and now await the five strong Bodebrown party.
Given knowledge of South American craft brewing in Australia is tiny, we thought we should find out a little more about the award-winning brewery. And when we did, we liked what we discovered. A lot. After all, Californian brewing demi-gods Stone don’t just brew with anyone, or go on revolutionary train journeys with anyone either…
Name: Paulo Cavalcanti
Brewery: Cervejaria Bodebrown
Where is your brewery located? Curitiba, Parana, South of Brazil
When was it started? We start first with homebrew school in 2007 and the brewery was started in end of 2009.
What did you do before brewing? I am an Administrator and Manager of Sales (pharmaceutical packaging products) and Samuel has studied Chemistry and has another company (importing pharmaceutical products).
Are there many craft brewers in Brazil? I think about 70 to 100 craft breweries, but many make only german beers (Pilsener, Dunkel and Weizen). I think we have about 15 breweries making really good beers.
Was it a struggle to get people to drink your beers? Sometimes yes, because we normally brew extreme beers, high alcohol, high IBUs, put in so many hops… We have no economy for putting [in so much] hops, malt, but all the time we brew beers which we like to drink.
Sometimes it’s not so hard because many of our customers were our students. We have school of brew and homebrew supplies store and a small library for supporting the local beer comunity. When we started to win some awards, it help our sales so much. Craft beer culture is growing so fast here.
Tell me about the brew with Stone. Greg Koch came here to support us! He talked with me and Samuel at last Great American Beer Festival (2011 and 2012) in Denver and we started planning. He came to sign some books and brew a collaboration beer (see the film below)
We make a beer train here: a local train, craft beers, cheese and breads onboard a train along the historical railroad with Greg.
We brewed a Cacau IPA (some prefer Cocoa IPA). It’s an American IPA with Cocoa. Fantastic beer: citrus, chocolate – very, very good beer!
Which of your beers are you most proud of and why? All our beers are special for us, each have a particular thing that’s special and a special history. But I think at this moment, it’s the Stone/Bodebrown Cacau IPA because we are such fans of Stone Brewing’s history, and we followed and we are very inspired by Stone. When I think we made a beer with them… OMG! Amazing, unbelieveble. Very, very special.
Why are you coming to Good Beer Week? Every year Samuel and I like to visit some beer festival around the world to discover new experiences, to find inspiration. Last year we were very honored to won Best New Exhibitor Trophy and two medals with our beers and we have for a long time had a dream to visit Australia. So we think, why not in this year? The people from AIBA and Good Beer Week are every time friendly and helpful.
What are you most excited about? To learn how the craft beer scene in Australia is going and to exchange ideas, knowledge and make new friends drinking good beers.
If you were a beer, what would you be and why? I think Belgian IPA: a revolutionary beer with full flavour and aroma. Because we like the tradional and the new together.
When Bodebrown Met Stone – On A Train
You can join the Bodebrown crew in the Yarra Valley when Hargreaves Hill Goes Brazilian on May 25. Look out for other chances to meet them during the week too.
