If you are a beer lover, then you will have been to Nimman’s favourite beer house, Beer Republic. Meet owner Patinya ‘Joon’ Srisuk and get a little glimpse as to how she came to own one of the most popular beer pubs in the city.
“After my graduation in the late 90s, I began working in the Food and Beverage industry,” Joon explains. “Primarily in distribution to hotels and restaurants in the north of Thailand, those catered to western food tastes. Over the years this continued to grow at such a rate that we began importing some of our own products as well; especially wines and beers. Actually, this is how I met my husband Christian. He came by our office with some wonderful wines from Spain and I fell quickly in love with him and his wines. But I can’t tell you which I fell in love with first.”
Haha, we won’t ask.
“We were already a major distributor, so some people wonder why we even opened Beer Republic,” she told Citylife. “As a distributor of food and beverage to all major hotels and restaurants in Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Lampang, Lamphun, Pai, Pitsanulok and Mae Hong Son, we soon noticed that there was nowhere in any of these cities where someone could order from a great range of imported draft beers. So we decided to build one which promised 15+ international draft beers on tap. And since I love food as well, we wanted to create a menu that would especially suit our range of beer styles.”
“It was interesting, in Beer Republic’s first year, we had a lot of requests to franchise. But I loved it so much, and felt like it was my personal pet project so did not want to share any part of it. But I have since allowed others to be involved and we are in the process now of building two new premises in Kao Yai and Pitsanulok with two franchisees. So exciting times ahead.”