The plan to start a craft brewery in Rwanda came about as part of Beau’s turning 10. Being a purpose-driven brewery, Beau’s co-founder Steve Beauchesne was looking for a legacy project to mark the special milestone. We were connected with an organization called The CG Group that was working with women entrepreneurs in Rwanda, and was seeking help for one of the women, Fina Uwineza, who wanted to open a craft brewery.

Inspired by the ideas of empowering women, bringing craft beer to Rwanda, and creating positive economic impact on a global level, Beau’s took on the challenge. We launched a Kickstarter campaign with the challenging goal of raising $100,000 for a bottling line. More than a thousand backers graciously contributed to hitting and even exceeding this goal. We were also able to negotiate the donation of a brewhouse to the project, which was a major accomplishment.

What’s happened since the Kickstarter?

A team from Beau’s travelled to Rwanda with Christian Riemerschmid von der Heide, a master brewer with experience brewing in Africa, to do some location scouting and to learn about locally available brewing ingredients. We are still working on identifying the best location for the brewery and have found help on this effort from Kelly Doran of Mass Design Group. Kelly is a Canadian architect living in Kigali who loves good beer and reached out to us to offer his support on the project. Beau’s Brewmaster Matthew O’Hara has also been doing R&D on brewing with sorghum and banana and has developed a beer recipe that uses up to 70% sorghum in place of malted grain. And Beau’s CFO Tanya Beimers has been working with the team on a business plan.

Building the first craft brewery in Rwanda was a project we knew would likely come with a few challenging twists in the road. Fina decided to step away from the project to focus on the needs of her family. We have since been actively recruiting new leadership with the help of Christian and our new “boots on the ground” in Kigali, Jessi Flynn, and we are looking forward to the skills and ideas that will bring to the project. And unfortunately, the brewing equipment manufacturer who offered to donate the brewhouse has gone into receivership. To overcome this setback, we are now in talks with other brewing industry businesses to seek a new commitment.

We have had very exciting and promising offers of support from new partners who have heard of the project and will be announcing those as their commitments are worked out.