A persistence
Spanning the three generations of 6th, 7th and 8th graders, the three top brewers all have an inexplicable passion for brewing beer. They stayed up all night countless times and each accumulated more than a hundred homebrew experiences. Originally, the three of them communicated online, but these stubborn persistence made the three otakus hiding behind the computer keyboard decide to break the virtual relationship and start a business together in the spring of 2015.
Beer Head Origins
Among the three founders, only Duan Yuanjie originally had a commercial brewing background. In 2014, he won the gold and silver medals at the Asian Beer Competition on behalf of the North Taiwan Malt Brewery with two Belgian beers, "Classic Eight" and "Snow White"; A senior engineer at a large technology company, he became a brewer in the evenings and weekends, devoting his spare time to his work. He is also the author of the classic textbook "The Complete Guide to Home-Brewed Beer" in the Chinese brewing industry; the youngest Ye Yichen, He founded "Ye's Yeast" when he was in college and sold liquid yeast, an important raw material for brewing. He was well-known in the home-brewing circle. He studied yeast culture and brewing with a master's degree and became the only full-time job as a beer head after graduation. One night a week is reserved for a meeting, and the rest of the time is spent communicating through LINE to jointly develop wine recipes, which are then handed over to the winery for OEM production.
The ten thousand hour rule
Winemaking is a combination of science and art. The three of them all believe in the "10,000-hour rule" (10,000 hours of practice is the only way to success). They often stay up late to make wine, or get up at 4 o'clock in the morning and spend 5 hours to complete it. After saccharification, boiling, and cooling, the wine is poured into the fermentation tank, and then we turn around and go to work. "We are not very smart, nor are we very powerful people, but we firmly believe that it is enough to achieve one thing in life."
Winemaking is a common language among three people
Brewing is a common language among the three of us. Six or seven years before we started the business, we had brewed hundreds of batches of wine like crazy. Therefore, the beer head's ability to travel light and easy relies on his mastery of recipes and brewing. We also realize that too many technical terms can easily scare people away, so we often raise our glasses and say with a smile: "No matter how much we talk, it's actually hard to let people know. It's better to drink a glass of the wine I brewed. The winemaker pours his ideas into the wine." , you will understand after drinking it.”
Compared with the substantial growth of the U.S. craft beer industry in the past 20 to 30 years, the biggest challenge facing Taiwan's beer industry is that there are distinct off-peak and peak seasons. Chinese people do not like beer in winter and drink a lot in summer. Therefore, the beer head decided to adapt the "seasonal adaptation" of foreigners to The concept of "drinking" was brought to Taiwan, and based on the concept of the 24 solar terms timeline that is familiar to Chinese people, beers with different alcohol concentrations and flavors in spring, summer, autumn and winter were launched, "making it rational to drink beer at every time." This This is the main axis of our business planning.
Beerhead's debut novels "Lixia" and "Gu Yu" are on the market
At the junction of spring and summer of 2015, Beerhead's debut beer "Lixia" and "Guyu" were launched on the market. The former is an American Pale Ale with aromas of lychee, grapefruit and passion fruit (but does not contain any fruit ingredients) , the latter is Belgian Pale Ale mixed with oolong tea, and the flavor is cleverly blended with "Taiwanese flavor". The wine label design was made by calligrapher Wu Ming. The design and packaging with a strong cultural flavor have attracted many female wine fans. He was so crazy that he couldn't bear to throw away the wine bottle after drinking it, and put it on the cabinet as an alternative decoration.
In an era when access is king, we, the principal and bell ringer, cannot afford to support the marketing business, so we use emotional words to describe the original intention of the brand, and then rely on Facebook fan groups to promote it. "Many seniors in the traditional wine industry think that we are messing around. To be honest, we just At the beginning, we didn’t know where the channels were. Before going on the market, Ajie comforted everyone, “Give me a year, and I will sell them all.” Although these two entrepreneurial works are three times the price of Taiwan Beer, they immediately became popular as soon as they were launched. It created a whirlwind in the market and sold 10,000 bottles in two weeks. This was a miraculous moment when the business started.
Mayday in the craft beer world
Su Zhong, a senior media person in the wine industry, said, "Beerheads have given this industry a hope. They are the Maydays of the craft beer industry. Looking back carefully, before Maydays became famous, who believed that playing band would have a future and would not starve to death?" ? Beerhead proves that as long as you find a niche, you may be able to do fun and interesting things without requiring so much capital."
In order to stir up more sparks, Beerhead has also launched co-branded wines with movies, restaurants, and illustrators across borders. The one that impressed the three of us the most was the "P9" wine in collaboration with Michelin-starred restaurant RAW. Chef Jiang Zhencheng has very strict requirements. In order to get close to the cold feeling of beer he pursues, we tried many ingredients and finally decided to use mint. The chef's requirements for the design of flavor and outer packaging were complicated, and the number of proofs was numerous. The process of overturning and starting over gave us a shocking education.
Although craft beer itself originates from the West, each of the 24 solar term beers launched by Beer Head has as much as possible an ingredient produced in Taiwan: "White Dew" extracts the aroma of fresh citrus peels, and "Spring Equinox" uses Taiwanese green plums as its main ingredient. , "Dashu" and "Xiaoshu" use fresh jasmine flowers from Changhua, and "Xiaohan" is blended with Pingtung cocoa beans. "We don't dress ourselves up as foreign girls. We hope to make beer grown on the soil of Taiwan." This is our original intention.
The beer head wants to write a story about the combination of local Taiwanese and craft beer.
"When people all over the world are brewing IPA (India Pale Ale), what makes what we brew different from others? The beer head wants to write a story about the combination of local Taiwanese and craft beer."
Beerhead's works have successively achieved success in Olympic-level beer competitions in the past six years: World Beer Cup, World Beer Award, European Beer Star, and Japan International Beer Competition. (International Beer Cup) and other international competitions, winning more than 80 awards, opening up the visibility of Taiwan’s craft beer industry.
