After leasing brewing facilities in Montreal for nearly two years to manufacture their products, the trio co-owner of OverHop Craft Beers has decided to set up its own brewery in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu at the start of 2020. Since the manufacture of its first batch of beer in its new premises in July, the company of Patricia and Ricardo Rios and Tatiana Fulton has the wind in the sails, having brewed 35 different recipes in less than a year.
Impossible not to linger on the imposing wall lined with hundreds of multicolored beer cans as you enter the shop at the entrance of 650, rue Gaudette. Hazy, DarkHop, Zythos, OneLove, Chromatica, Blonditta, MadManu, Hop-Man, Turbulence, HopGoddess, Keep on Lovin ‘, Mango Jelly, read the rows of eye-catching cans.
“We constantly have to create new beers, our customers are always on the lookout for new things,” says Brazilian Patricia Rios, 41, responsible for sales, marketing, communications and human resources. At the time of our meeting earlier this week, nearly 10,000 cans of beer were waiting to be picked up and distributed. “All of our current inventory is sold, we can’t keep up with the demand because our sales are increasing every day,” she adds.
Housed in an open plan office at the back of the room adjacent to the store, operations and finance manager Tatiana Fulton scrambles over the phone to try to find a technician who can fix their broken kettle. Close to her, her dog Dominique, “employee of the month” according to the poster on the wall, sleeps peacefully in her bed.
The glass doors that separate the shop from the production area reveal huge mirror-polished stainless steel tanks, in which the process of mashing, boiling and fermenting the beers is complete. Thanks to the acquisition of three 3000 l fermenters and four 1000 l fermenters, the brewing partners were able to increase their production by 30% between 2019 and 2020. “We are expecting six new 3000 l fermenters”, underlines Mme Rios.
The two women at the helm of the company will have to work harder to meet demand. “My husband works full time elsewhere and now only intervenes occasionally in the company, when we acquire equipment or we have technical needs,” explains Mr.me Rios, specifying that her husband, a naval engineer by training, made the technical design of the brewery, contributed to the layout of the premises and trained their chief brewer.
An OverHop fut
Mme And Fulton, 1000me Rios met twenty years ago at the Hard Rock Café in Rio, where they worked while studying at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Their friendship led them to consolidate their business relationship a few years later.
“I moved to London after college and then to Toronto in 2014 because my sister had been living there for a few years,” says Mme Fulton, 37, graduated in organizational psychology. After completing a college program in international business in Toronto, she wanted to start a business. “I didn’t know what I was getting into! Laughs Mrs. Fulton.
At the same time, Mme Rios and her husband Ricardo, parents of three, brewed their first house beer in Brazil. “It all started on our balcony in 2014,” says Mme Rios, graduate in literature. “We brewed beer 24 hours a day, until it worked,” she says.
Thus was born the first craft beer of Cervejaria OverHop in Brazil, which won two gold medals at the Mondial de la bière in Rio in 2016 in its first year of activity, with beers later named Hazy and DarkHop, still brewed today. “We registered the company and brewed four batches of beer, only to be able to participate in the festival. We didn’t even have labels back then! »Relates Mme Rios.
The iconic skull, which has become their trademark, was designed by a friend of the couple during a party, where the couple’s very first beer was served. “As our beer didn’t have a name yet, we named it after a song by Bob Marley who was playing at the party,” says M.me Rios, proudly pointing at the empty can of OneLove placed on the wall of the store.
Invited to participate in the Mondial de la Bière in Quebec in 2017, the Rios couple moved to Toronto, joining Mme Fulton, who would become their business partner shortly thereafter. Wishing to conquer the Quebec market, the trio of entrepreneurs moved to La Belle Province in 2018 and rented the facilities of the Oshlag brewery in Montreal to begin production of their double IPA OneLove and their IPA from the North-East, Hazy.
Casually, the company won gold again, this time at the Canadian Beer Awards in Toronto in 2019, with their DarkHop black IPA.
The OverHop brewery in Brazil is now an independent business from its Canadian sister, which today has five employees. “We continue to work together on mutual brand development and revenue, and we have an agreement for intellectual property,” says Mme Rios, which highlights the support of the Haut-Richelieu MRC, NexDev | Economic Development, BDC, MAPAQ and TD Bank for the creation of their business in Quebec.
Knowledge sharing
With great daring, Brazilian breweries lay a panoply of different recipes, combining a variety of hops including citra, mosaic, belma, galaxy, enigma and zythos, among others, with malt from barley, wheat, oats or rice husk. “We need to have a different beer for each person,” says Mme Rios laughing.
In a spirit of mutual experience sharing and with the desire to forge links between breweries, they regularly collaborate in production projects with other microbreweries in Quebec. “We each have their own specialty, we brew our beers using very different processes, so this allows us to share our knowledge and learn new techniques,” says Mr.me Fulton.
“We launched Better Together beer with the Lagabière microbrewery in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu. They are like mentors to us, they help us a lot, ”says M.me Rios.
OverHop currently produces nine ales and lagers, in addition to occasionally brewing special limited editions, through partnerships or special collaborations. Made with a large quantity of hops added in two raw hops during its manufacturing process, their IPA Hazy, the “hoppy apple of their eyes”, has quickly become a consumer’s darling.
Brew for the cause
Mme Rios and Mme Fulton highlight with particular pride their recent production of 3000 l of Chromatica, a kveik neipa with fruity notes, hopped raw with red beard, azzaca, el dorado and citra hops. Resulting from a collaboration with blogger connoisseur of beer and Instagram influencer Émilie Leclerc, Chromatica was created “in the image of a strong woman”, to break stereotypes towards the fairer sex in the brewing industry.
“We wanted to support Émilie, who was criticized for her way of representing microbreweries on social networks. There are people who judge that she shows her body a little too much, however, people criticize her as much when she dresses very conservatively, ”says Mme Rios, stressing that the brewing sector remains a “very sexist” field.
“It’s very difficult to gain respect as women in the industry, it’s a male dominated field. People don’t believe us capable of creating our recipes and running the business. When we attend meetings or events, people ask to speak to my husband or only approach him to congratulate him on the achievements of the business, ”she laments.
Women brewing entrepreneurs have their work cut out for the months to come, with several more partnerships in the pipeline.
Members of the Canadian Association Pink Boots Society since 2018, they have been preparing to launch a limited edition beer on the market this summer to help educate women in the brewing industry. Twenty cents per can sold will be used for scholarships offered by the association.
On the other hand, they are developing a collaboration with the Youth Wing of the Haut-Richelieu Chamber of Commerce and Industry, for the creation of a beer, part of the profits of which will be used to finance the 3e edition of the Helping hand scholarship. Created by the business association, this scholarship aims to help a young entrepreneur to propel an innovative project in his business.
By asking the co-owners of OverHop what their target is for their future, the daring entrepreneurs do not hesitate to exclaim with confidence: “We want to become the next dragons! “
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