Starter Kit. Idea 137 of 500. Cluster 6
Craft beer and cider from local fruit for the tourist towns
The mechanism, from the book
Dilmah says it earns over 3 times the national average price for tea, because it does its own blending, branding and packing. The proof has been sitting inside the industry all along.
The first step
Walk round the bars and restaurants of one tourist town and ask three questions: what beer visitors order, whether they ask for anything local, and what the owner would pay per bottle for a fruit cider or beer made nearby. Then find out from the excise office what licence a small brewery needs. A list of bars ready to stock it, beside the licence cost, is your answer.
- Who pays first
- A bar owner in a tourist town whose visitors ask for a local drink and are offered only the usual brands.
- What leaves today
- Local fruit sells cheaply or spoils in season, while visitors' drink spending goes to brands and ingredients made elsewhere.
Ask first
- the local council (Municipal Council, Urban Council or Pradeshiya Sabha). Ask what approval a small brewery on this site needs.
- Sri Lanka Standards Institution. Ask what standard and labelling bottled drinks should meet.
Check before you spend
That brewing holds every licence alcohol needs, that the brewery is hygienic, and where the drink can legally be sold.
Find out these three numbers
- What will bars in tourist towns pay per bottle?
- What does a small brewery cost to set up?
- Which local fruits ferment well and come steadily?
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.