A beer carrying the label “Made of Samoa” is back on the market, following its official launch on Friday night at Thirsty Gecko’s Bar and Restaurant at Vailoa.
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Made from breadfruit and local ingredients, a limited supply of Vailima Natural was initially introduced last year to commemorate Vailima’s 35th anniversary.
This time round, the company is making the beer available at a bar or a store near you.
Operations and Site Manager, Sean Hellesoe, said the beer is a product of collaboration between the Brewery and the Scientific
Research Organization of Samoa (S.R.O.S).
“Vailima Natural is something that we have been working on for a long time and it’s a very special beer for us,” he said.
“It’s our first truly Samoan beer with Samoan ingredients and we’ve only recently got enough raw material and breadfruit flour to make it consistently.
“So it’s an exciting time for us.”
Mr. Hellesoe said that unlike before where the beer was only available in draught, the company is bottling the product so that customers in the villages could easily access it.
Asked about some of the obstacles in brewing Vailima’s newest product, Mr. Hellesoe said there were lots of challenges.
“Everyday is a challenge because it’s a very different ingredient to work with compared to normal beer,” he said
“Luckily we’ve got great partnership with the Scientific Research Organization of Samoa which actually makes the breadfruit flour.
“They have been looking at making more of it, increasing their capacity so that’s been a great help for us.”
Turning the dream into reality has also taken many years. Mr. Hellesoe said the idea about breadfruit beer was first discussed back in 2007.
“I think even back then we were leaning towards breadfruits because it’s an abundant fruit, easy to process and much easier to pick off the tree rather than pulling taro from the ground.”
There was also a realisation very early on that the product would take a lot of work.
“It’s been a very long time since we started coming up with the concept. A lot of work was being done both in and outside of the brewery.
“One of the challenges was how can we turn a small pilot, small scale twenty litre brew into ten thousand litres. S.R.O.S also had a lot of work to do with their flour technique but things have finally come together and we can make it.”
Mr. Hellesoe credited teamwork for making the product a reality.
“It really is about innovation and doing something which nobody else is doing. Being a small country, isolated from all the main markets, we really can’t compete price-wise with other countries.
But we can compete in quality and in innovation. We can do things which nobody else is doing and I think this is a great example of something which no other brewery in the world is doing at the scale that we are doing it.”
Although the immediate goal is make sure there is enough supply for the local market, Mr. Hellesoe said the company would look to export it in the long run.
And what did the guests who turned up at the launch of the Vailima Natural think about the beer?
Judging from the smiles, laughter and the chatter after a few, this product is sure here to stay.
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