Bhutan is a difficult place to get to, purposefully so. About 800,000 people live in this landlocked Himalayan kingdom, which is roughly the size of Switzerland. Bordered by China and India, the world’s most populous countries, tiny Bhutan has long looked inward, seeking to preserve its traditional Buddhist culture.
Television was banned until 1999. Photos of the royal family are ubiquitous, both on the outside and inside of buildings. The government encourages the wearing of traditional dress — the gho for men, the kira for women — through law. Tourism is tightly managed and restricted. The country is guided by the philosophy of Gross National Happiness, which places well-being on par with economic development.
Gyeltshen’s goal is not to build Bhutan’s first brewery, or even its first craft brewery. In 2018, the craft beer wave has already reached isolated Bhutan. Instead, Gyeltshen is seeking to brew a truly local beer and, in doing so, to create a modern, Bhutanese beer culture.
I visited Gyeltshen’s still-under-construction Namgay Artisanal Brewery in April. The brewery was already supplying kegs to a handful of bars in Paro and Thimphu and was nearing completion. As he awaited canning line certification, Gyeltshen was overseeing the final stages of construction, hiring bar and restaurant staff and working with his team on distribution.
The lineup currently includes a flagship Red Rice Lager, a Dark Ale, a Wheat Ale, a Milk Stout, an IPA, a Pilsner, and an apple cider. I wanted to know what it would become.
Dorji Gyeltshen is the son of an entrepreneur, a rarity in a country that relies primarily on agriculture. Subsistence farming has only recently begun to give way to urbanization in parts of Bhutan.
His father worked in construction, import/export, retail, and eventually hospitality. The family currently operates one of the nicest locally owned hotels in the country, and Gyeltshen studied hotel management at Les Roches in Switzerland in 2003. In his time off he was exposed to European brewing traditions. Mindful of Bhutan’s farming traditions — barley, wheat, and other cereals are common — he began putting together a plan to one day open a brewery.
In 2009, Gyeltshen returned to Bhutan. He spent half a decade working at his family’s hotel while homebrewing on the side, but remained committed to the idea of producing a “100 percent local” beer. In 2015 he had a finished business plan for the brewery. The initial idea was to brew perhaps 300 liters per day. As he spoke to investors, that changed.
“I met some people to help me with my business plan, to help me look for investors,” Gyeltshen says. “They said maybe scale it up to 500 liters. Then, as I was shopping around, my father came in and he said I can help you with the finances, but you have to scale up more. So we scaled it up to about 1,000 and then from 1,000 we went up to 2,000 liters a day.”
The reason for the outsized ambitions? “The idea was to have a five-year plan,” Gyeltshen recalls. “But my father always believes if you have a plan of what you want to be in five years, why not do it right now and just get it over with. I said yeah, I’m up for the challenge.”
A plan in place, and an initial investment secured, Gyeltshen leased unused family land from his mother. Bhutan’s remoteness, along with its extreme altitude and resultant temperature swings, presented unique challenges. He sourced brewing equipment from India and Europe.
Following a chance encounter with Steve Hindy, Brooklyn Brewery’s famous co-founder, Gyeltshen decided to focus on a uniquely local lager. Red Rice Lager is the brewery’s flagship, made with red rice sourced from partner farms in the area. Red rice, which has a nutty flavor, is common in Bhutan, as it is better suited than white rice variants to high altitudes.
Namgay’s Red Rice Lager is at the heart of what Gyeltshen is hoping to do, both philosophically and commercially. While he won’t name a favorite beer among the pilot brews — “I’m passionate about all of them and want to see what we can bring out from Bhutan” — he knows that the Red Rice Lager will serve as a gateway for locals and a calling card for […]
