Published by Leonardo Calcagno
Who are you and what is your current job?
I’m Martina and together with Peter we started the brewery in 2013.
What was the inspiration behind your brewery?
The Penedès wine region of Spain is well-known for wine & cava (not to mention olive oil, cheese, etc) and craft beer was virtually unknown – you had to travel to Barcelona to get a good beer. We were the first microbrewery in Vilafranca del Penedès (the capital of the Penedès wine region) and our mission is to make the area a destination for beer lovers as well as wine lovers
Can you give us a tour of your beer scene
Please see the attached press release. Vilafranca del Penedès is still at the very early stages of craft beer drinking; as a wine producing town we will have to convert the population one-by-one! We have a taproom at the brewery (please see our website www.beercatbarcelona.com for more information) and this is a great way of getting people to try the beers and to create a craft beer culture here. We also host the local home brewing club when they meet and we hope to become a reference point in the area for people who love good beer.
What advice would you give someone who wants to start a brewery?
The best advice we could give anyone who wants to start a brewery is advice we wish someone had given us at the start: a) take your budget and double it and b) start from the sales end and work backward. As well as making great beer that you are enthusiastic about, you need to make sure that you have worked out who is going to buy that beer and how to get the message to them.
