Your neighborhood store probably doesn't sell beer in flavors such as bird pepper, mamey, banana bread, and fever grass, but these specialty beers are brewed right here in the country - from the same company that brought you the chocolate and sorrel stouts.
But to try these new flavors, you'll need to head over to Ladyville and visit the Belize Brewing Company's new brewhouse style restaurant, built right on the compound of the Belikin Beer factory.
"Di Bruwry" as it's called is a gateway for Belizeans and tourists to share in the history and the brewing process of Belize's iconic beer - and get a starter class in beer culture.
And today, the media was able to get a firsthand look into the work that goes into that Belikin in your refrigerator and how Belize's largest brewing company came to be. Courtney Menzies has this story.
The Belize Brewing Company Limited has taken "cracking open some cold ones" to another level with their state-of-the-art restaurant-slash-brewing facility. Di Bruwry, located on the Old Airport Road, was opened in January of this year and houses both a dining integrated into a new Belikin micro brew facility.
And today, they took the media on a tour where the brew master, Nolan Michael, explained this one-of-a-kind location was born through their need to remain relevant and ahead of the competition.
Nolan Michael, Brew Master, Belize Brewing Company Limited
"The original thought was we needed to be able to be innovative. Innovate our portfolio, diversify our portfolio, we needed a pilot system in order to do that. As I mentioned earlier, we could never invite guest into our facilities, to make them a apart of who we are and what we're about, it became very hard, you're bringing people into an industrial food production facility that would require certain regulations. We decided to combine the two and then it's like you said, we will make it the home of Belize Brewing Company where we combine our cutting edge innovation with being able to invite guest, taste our beers, sample our products, eat excellent food, have a wonderful atmosphere, be able to see some incredible sporting events. So that's when we decided to pair the two together and I can tell you it was an overly complicated investment."
And it's a culmination of the past, present, and future of the company, since their first ever brewing kettles and tanks serve as functional décor in the restaurant - representing the humble beginnings of Belize's largest brewing company.
Nolan Michael, Brew Master, Belize Brewing Company Limited
"What you see before you is the original Belize Brewing Company founding equipment. We've restored, polished and shine up and we still think it looks amazing. These were delivered and installed in 1969, however we only recently found out after restoring, not recently found out, but we clarified that this equipment was actually built in 1927. When we received it, it was already forty years old. This equipment that you see in front of you, we were making Belikin and some major brands on up to the year 2000 when we commissioned out new brewhouse, which I'll show you as well."
And from there, the company has evolved to a massive brewing site complete with three-story-tall fermentation tanks, 10 laboratories, and hot brewing tanks able to produce 12,000 liters per batch.
They are now also able to experiment with different flavors through the use of their automated system.
Nolan Michael, Brew Master, Belize Brewing Company Limited
"It's a completely automated system where we can brew beer from beginning to end on this facility, in a smaller volumes of about 1000 liters per batch, which now allows us to now be able to experiment. We can pretty much make any beer style from around the world at this particular time. We can invent our own local beer styles which is some of the things we are experimenting with right now going forward."
"What takes place is you have a hot brewing tank, we crush malt from the ground floor, it's passed up, it's added into this tank, we add water at different temperatures to extract the fermentable extract and flavor that we want, it's transferred into the lauter tun where we take out the unfermented, what we call the spent grain, the materials that we don't want, the solids, the liquid then goes back, its boiled, we can add all of the different flavors that we want, say bird pepper, orange, fever grass, anything that we want, we can add to create a brand."
"You would be amazed as to what Belizeans ask us to make a beer of. Some of it I cannot say publicly on television."
And this is part of the experience, since the pipelines used for this process is built into the bar area where patrons can still and be a part of the process.
Nolan Michael, Brew Master, Belize Brewing Company Limited
"From there is passes all via all of the pipelines to one of the highlight of our facilities which are the fermenters which are position strategically behind the bar area that you can sit there and feel a part of the entire brewing."
"Those are fermentation tanks, we have beer, almost all of them are full right now with different beer that we're experimenting with right now."
And, off course, that long tour left us all parched - because, after all, what fun is it touring a brewery without sampling the products?
We all took on a flight of beer, mall servings of their various offerings - flavors ranging from bird pepper to mamey to banana bread. Michael explained that their main goal is to keep Belizeans excited and to expand their own portfolio - leaving their competition in the foam.
Nolan Michael, Brew Master, Belize Brewing Company Limited
"We welcome competition, it perfectly fine to have competition in the market, we've always had competition in the market, they've been many breweries, people are allowed to import products from the Caribbean, from all over, the only thing we have ever asked was for a level a fair playing field and competition is perfectly fine, it creates excitement, it create energy around the market, it pushes us to be greater and better and that's what we've always wanted, we want to be better, it's driven for us from the inside to be more innovative, to be better at what we do."
And - by the media's acquittal - so far, so good - based on today's taste test.
The company boasts that they were able to create permanent positions for 29 employees in the time of COVID - including their first female head brewer.
