For Nepalis who have a deep love for their traditional liquors, the first beer in Nepal was produced only in the early 1970s. Back then, people only drank local liquors or rice wine popularly known as chhyang. But that all changed after Star Beer was launched; and now we have a total of nine breweries producing English style lagers.
One of them is Sherpa Brewery, a craft brewery which produces Nepal’s only craft beers. The terms ‘craft beers’ and ‘craft breweries’ are still unheard of in Nepal as the beer industry here is quite boring with the same players developing similar products in the market.
Sherpa’s craft in craft brewery
Since Nepal has only had two or three big players that used to provide very similar beers, opening a craft brewery was a no brainer for Phurba Sherpa.
Craft breweries are relatively small, independently-owned commercial breweries that employ traditional brewing methods and emphasise flavour and quality.
“In Nepal, they only produced lagers as the beer drinking culture hasn’t developed, a reason why we are bringing craft beer into the market,” says Sherpa, adding he got the idea of opening the company after he heard foreigners complain about the quality of beer in the market in his home in Solokhumbu.
When asked why they haven’t produced any bottled beer, he gives an interesting answer. “Beer’s biggest enemy is light; a reason why most bottles are translucent but as we wanted to be environment friendly I thought it would be good to go with cans which would preserve the taste of the beer along with the environment.”[…]
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