P A L AT E
Cheers
to That
Pedro Brewcrafters balances loyalty to the craft
with consumer tastes, creating flavors that just might
redefine our notions of Filipino beer
w o r ds Marcus Alianza P H O t og r a phy Pedro Brewcrafters
It was nine o’clock on a payday Friday out in the the porch of
a converted house along Matilde Street in Poblacion Makati.
I was talking to Nadine Howell-Fanlo, director of sales and
marketing at Pedro Brewcrafters, about the journey thus far
of Pedro and how the craft beer scene is these days.
“So, literally usapang lasing,” I asked, slightly incredulous.
Nadine slowly nodded in agreement and beamed.
“Yeah, as in. There was somebody who asked us, ‘Do
you have any funny drinking stories?’ The last three years
were one big drinking story.”
There were craft beer brewers in the country
before or by 2014—Privo Praha, Katipunan Craft Ales,
Craftpoint, Baguio Craft Brewery, among others—but
after that “usapang lasing” in 2014, the people behind
Pedro realized what they were actually looking for.
They wanted a brand that would be able to represent the
country, and they figured they could make it happen.
Pedro started commercial production early 2016
and, after three-but-feels-longer-than-that years,
Nadine feels craft beer has started to break into the mass
consciousness to the point they now see both ends of the
awareness spectrum whenever they go out. There’s still a lot of
educating the market to be done though; many people still
don’t know what craft beer is in the first place, and there’s
still a lot of comparison between industrial and craft beer
when there really is no comparing the two. Pedro, and all
the other craft brewers in the country, have recognized
that there needs to be a singular message on educating the
market on what craft beer is and how it’s different.
Nadine believes that that craft brewers have one unique
advantage over the industrial breweries: their leanness.
Industrial breweries can only push two or three types of beer to
the people. Craft brewers, with their relatively small operations
and the amount of choice for ingredients nowadays, have the
flexibility to do more and, ultimately, stay true to what craft
beer was meant to provide to people.
“That’s the nature of craft beer, that’s the reason why craft
beer exists - so that there’s choice. And because we can.”
Almost all of the beers in the country can be considered a
pale lager - a light, refreshing type that makes sense due to the
climate here. A major player even created variations that follow
the modern sociocultural norms of Filipino society - two clean,
crisp variants for the tired urban salaryman, three with various
levels of robustness for those in craft and labor industries.
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