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The Beer Rats of Brazil’s Magic Island

Posted on August 30, 2024August 30, 2024 by Tastes And Tides

Written by Matt Dursum

It’s Saturday night at Ratones Craft Beer in Ponta das Canas, Brazil. The sounds of parakeets ring through the canopy of the Atlantic forest surrounding the brewpub while musician Bruno Mello takes the stage. He sets up his mixer, tests the sound levels of his microphone, tunes his guitar, and turns on his looper. Groups of people take a seat to watch him perform and order their first round of beers and food. Even though it’s the off-season for tourists, Santa Catarina Island’s resident surfers and craft beer fanatics descend on Ratones for good times. 

Vitor Capella opened Ratones Craft Beer in December 2018 after years of brewing beer as a hobby. “It all started on my grandfather’s small farm inside of the island here. The name of the neighborhood is Ratones,” says Capella. Ratones is a small village in the central wetlands of Santa Catarina Island. It’s surrounded by densely forested mountains, small rivers, and sand dunes. Capella spent his holidays, birthdays, and family get-togethers at the farm. Ratones, the village, became synonymous with good vibes. 

Photos by Bruno Abreu

It was here that Capella started brewing beer as a young adult. ”I started to make small batches. I would bring my beer to all the parties and people started asking, ‘why don’t you start a business or something?’” Capella bounced between jobs in gastronomy and administration while he continued homebrewing as a hobby, testing his creative libations with his friends at parties throughout the island.  

Santa Catarina Island is a roughly 164 square mile island off the coast of Santa Catarina State in Brazil. The island is often simply called Florianopolis or ‘Floripa’ for short, after the state’s capital city which sprawls along its western shore. To locals, it’s known as ‘Ilha da Magia’ or magic island after the legends of witches living there. Of the island’s 500,000 or so people, there are surfers, anglers, farmers, and creatives like the group of friends Capella grew up with. “There are some people who make tattoos, others who rap or started a band, a graffiti guy; all the people around are making something and having fun. And we all support each other,” says Capella. 

Photo by Pitch Lordello

After two years of homebrewing, Capella moved to Blumenau to study brewing at the Escola Superior de Cerveja e Malte (School of Beer and Malt). Blumenau is a hub for Brazil’s growing craft beer industry. With its long connection to German culture and beer, it hosts one of the world’s largest Oktoberfest celebrations outside of Germany. “I stayed there for one year studying and then I came back because in Blumenau, there are no waves and no beach. It’s a two-hour drive from the nearest waves you can get and the roads are not so good,” says Capella. 

After returning to Florianópolis, Capella deliberated on what was next. “I was kind of lost and didn’t know what to do. But, I never stopped brewing at the farm in Ratones,” says Capella. During this time, Capella got a call. “A friend of mine started a small business, a bar downtown, in an old neighborhood where people just go during daylight to work. Not so many people go there at night.” The bar Atelie 389 grew in popularity shortly after opening and one day owners Luis Augusto and Romeu Corral invited Capella to sell his beer in bottles at its Halloween event. 

Photo by Samantha Demangate

Capella soon started showing up to further events with a brand new logo designed by his friend and local artist, Leo “Mousse” Schneider. They stuck their logo featuring a rat with a hat on T-shirts and beer labels. Before long, Capella and his friends were promoting Ratones beer before they had an official brewery. “So it starts to grow and people get to know the name and the beer but don’t know where to get it. It was more related to good times, like, ‘I went to an underground party with my friends downtown and I drank Ratones.’” 

Ratones became a lifestyle as much as a brand. “We’d go out to a skate park, and I’d bring all my homebrews to people to drink there or after a surf session. I was only surfing, skating, and going out at night and brewing during the day, trying new recipes. I always brought some bottles with me, to share some beers,” says Capella. 

Photos by Samantha Demangate

Capella and his family knew it was time to take the next steps. “After two or three years, my father asked me what I wanted to do,” says Capella. The family already owned an open business space on the busy Ponta das Canas Highway on the northern end of the island. Capella ran through business ideas and settled on turning Ratones into a brewpub. “I think for our city, and maybe Brazil, this kind of business is the best. Profits are better. It’s easier to maintain. For a small business, it’s not so much of an investment at the beginning, so it’s easy to start.” 

Believing in his business plan, Capella’s family loaned him the money to purchase the initial brewing equipment. “My father said, I will lend you the money and if you don’t sell beer at all, we’re going to drink it all,” says Capella. 

Capella installed the tanks and brewing equipment, ordered the malts and hops, hired his team, and went to work brewing the first batches of beer and using his professional kitchen experience to create a menu. “At the beginning, I contracted a friend of mine to start the kitchen with me and we made all the tests, like smash burgers and appetizers. We started doing it in the kitchen at my house. I already liked to study gastronomy, so I started the business plan,” says Capella. 

Photos by Samantha Demangate

Almost six years on, Ratones Craft Beer is now one of Florionopolis’ most successful breweries. “I think there was a boom in craft beer all around Brazil, like 10 years ago. Right now in Floripa, we have some of the best breweries here with some of the best IPAs,” says Capella. Brazil is home to over 1,000 breweries with over 230 in Santa Catarina State alone. 

Capella focuses on brewing dependable American style Ales, IPAs, and Catharina Sours—the flagship beer style from Santa Catarina State. For his yeasts, he uses liquid yeasts cultivated by Levteck, a yeast laboratory just a few miles away. Last year, Ratones made a 100% Brazilian beer with ingredients entirely sourced from Brazil. “We called it Brazil Ale because it was like an American pale ale, same recipe, but with Brazilian hops and the yeasts from Levteck and the malt from a small maltster here,” says Capella. 

Brewers can find local malt, yeast, fruits, and herbs easily in Brazil. Hops, however, are more difficult. As of 2022, Brazil produced around 25 tons of fresh hops. The potent perennials need a specific climate to flower. Continental zones with sunny summers and cold winters, such as Germany and eastern Washington State, are the ideal conditions the plant needs to produce the aromatic oils in its buds that brewers depend on. “There’re some species that are really good for here. You don’t get the aroma that we’re looking for yet, but I think in four or five years we can get some really good ones. 

Vitor Capella in Ratones’ brewery

Photo by Samantha Demangate

Importing hops and brewing equipment are some of the biggest challenges to running a craft brewery in Brazil. Taxes are another. The Brazilian beer industry faces high taxation with small breweries having to pay a similar percentage as their big-brand competitors. “It’s complicated to understand why I’m paying this and sometimes we pay wrong because of some different laws. There’s a lot of small problems. It’s really difficult for one person to get it all together, working,” says Capella. 

And then, there are the seasons. “Winter and summer change a lot of the city. In the summer it gets packed, like 3 times the people. I think for me it is the biggest problem,” says Capella. Running a brewpub in Florianopolis’ off-season requires weekly live music and events, something Capella’s talented friend group is more than happy to provide. “All the people around me are making something and like to have fun. We all support each other.”

Photos by Samantha Demangate

To handle the intense rushes of beer-craving tourists in the summer on-season, Capella formed a tight-knit team of cooks, kitchen staff, servers, and a new brewmaster. “The sad part about having a business is that I had to stop doing the things I love most for the business. Now I do more of the administration, the stuff that’s not at all like brewing beer. I still do all the recipes and try the beer, seeing if it’s ok or what we have to change. I still do this, but the hands-on part of making the beer, I don’t do it anymore,” says Capella. 

Although he misses the fun side of running a brewpub, Capella still gets to enjoy the ocean. Ratones opens in the evening from 6PM to midnight every day of the week. This gives Capella time to surf. “The company has already grown to the size where I can stay out for a few days. It’s good for surfing,” says Capella. 

Santa Catarina Island is one of Brazil’s most consistent regions for high-quality waves. The island sits at 27° South. Throughout the year, especially in winter, low pressure systems from the South Atlantic and Southern Ocean send long-period south swell to the island’s beaches, bays, and points. Like many locals, Capella fell in love with surfing at an early age. “In Florianopolis, I think almost everyone surfs. It’s like a lot of people, way too many right now,” says Capella, who started taking lessons when he was 10. “I don’t have any other family that surfs, just my sister but my grandfather is a fisherman and my father is a sailor. So, I think in Florianopolis, everyone’s got something to do with the sea. Surfing is the most common.” 

Surfing and art are at the core of the culture Capella built at Ratones. On top of serving beers to thirsty clientele, the brewpub works with like-minded creatives and athletes to promote the brand and the beer. Creatives such as surfer and tattoo artist Thomas Don Braga, surfer Yuri Castro, and Stay Dirty Productions, a local filmmaking collaborative, frequently collaborate with Ratones. “Our sponsorships are for friends who do something that is related to the brand. It’s not like a big-brand sponsoring something. It’s just like we have the same thoughts, the same ideas we build together, but first of all, we have to be good friends just to start to work together,” says Capella. 

Photos by Bruno Abreu

The team at Ratones is preparing for its six-year anniversary party in December. “Every year, our party is bigger and bigger. It’s like the beginning of the summer, like one or two days before Christmas, so after the party starts the busy days,” says Capella, who will bring on a small team to work the busy summer months. “It’s like a training time for all the new people working to warm up, it’s great.” 

From his humble beginnings brewing at his grandfather’s farm to creating Ratones Craft Beer, one of Florianópolis’ most successful craft breweries, Capella’s journey from homebrewer to business owner has created a community. Surfers, artists, and fans of high quality craft beer frequent Ratones, as do people looking for good vibes and fun. “I just try to pass this on to our brewpub for people to have a good time, like when I did when I was younger at the farm.”

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