Farmer Willie’s Inc. is creating some buzz in the craft-brew scene thanks to rapid growth in sales of its alcoholic beverage: ginger beer.
Juan Nicolas “Nico” Enriquez started the Pawtucket-based business with his friends Max Easton and Willie Fenichel in 2014. But the idea was brewing for about a decade. At the age of 12, Enriquez met Fenichel over a game of volleyball on Cape Cod.
“They became like a second family to me,” Enriquez said of Fenichel’s family.
By the age of 16 – and he swears he didn’t know it was alcoholic – Enriquez tried the family recipe for home-brewed ginger beer.
The effects were lasting.
“I hadn’t had real, fresh ginger, lemon and nutmeg together and that smell represented everything that their house and the Cape was to me,” he recalled.
Fast-forward to sophomore year of college at Brown University, and Enriquez and his schoolmate Easton were trying to figure out what to do with their professional lives. Easton, a political science major, wanted to create a party-themed app, and Enriquez, a cognitive neuroscience major, had his own ideas.
But suddenly, it clicked.
“I told him, ‘My friend Willie makes the best ginger beer ever,’ ” Enriquez said.
Easton expressed interest, and the next day Enriquez submitted the then-half-baked idea into an entrepreneurship contest at Brown and was accepted.
What started on a whim quickly became a passion. Easton and Enriquez sought advice from anyone and everyone. The duo interviewed truck drivers about distribution, brewery owners about equipment, venture capitalists about raising money and sales representatives about generating revenue.
“We tried to get a map for what this industry was and how to build a product that would fit in,” Enriquez said.
The team, under the directive of Fenichel, started scaling the home-brew recipe, fermenting and canning small batches. Volume was scant, so the team targeted distributers, liquor stores and farmers markets. The unique potable, which Enriquez says uses real ginger, sourced from Hawaii, and about 75 percent less sugar than most ginger-beer sodas, quickly started catching on.
The team went to Foolproof Brewing Co. in Pawtucket and bought some tanks to work out of their brewery, but before long outgrew the space and recently became a partner at Isle Brewers Guild, a brewing co-op on Main Street in the city.
“Now, we can scale as large as we want,” Enriquez said.
Enriquez declined to disclose sales figures but did share growth numbers by volume. During its first summer in business, Farmer Willie’s sold 120 barrels. Last year, sales grew to 700 barrels and this year the brewery is on track to sell 2,500 barrels.
Looking forward, he’d like to see continued growth, but says a big part of that success will depend on their ability to educate consumers.
“We’re trying to build a new segment in craft beer and promote this idea that ginger beer is a real clean beverage that’s not just beer or cider,” he said. “Let’s give people something that’s unique and interesting.”
OWNERS: Juan Nicolas “Nico” Enriquez, Max Easton, Willie Fenichel
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Ginger brewery
LOCATION: 461 Main St., Pawtucket
EMPLOYEES: Six
YEAR ESTABLISHED: 2014
ANNUAL SALES: WND
Eli Sherman is a PBN staff writer. Email him at Sherman@PBN.com, or follow him on Twitter @Eli_Sherman.
