{"id":19124,"date":"2018-06-14T12:31:57","date_gmt":"2018-06-14T16:31:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/?p=19124"},"modified":"2018-06-14T12:31:57","modified_gmt":"2018-06-14T16:31:57","slug":"hottensen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/hottensen\/","title":{"rendered":"Crafting a Plan: Bobby Hottensen '11"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nIt\u2019s a way of life the locals call \u201ctranquilo,\u201d and it led Bobby Hottensen to take a leap of faith and trade a fast-paced urban lifestyle in Washington, D.C., for the laid-back tropics of Nicaragua.
\nA series of trips to the beach town of San Juan del Sur brought Hottensen and fellow surfers Brendan DeBlois and Matt Greenberg to a life-changing realization: \u201cThere was no craft beer here \u2014 not one brewery,\u201d says Hottensen, a December 2011 graduate in environmental and natural resources. \u201cIt\u2019s just an awesome little tourist town, beach surfing hub, and there were no options as far as craft beer goes.\u201d
\nHatching an idea to change that, the friends went to work raising funds, developing a business plan and scouting the area. And in early 2013, New York City native Hottensen left behind his job in D.C. and made the move to Nicaragua\u2019s Pacific coast to start the country\u2019s first craft brewery.
\nAfter some initial trials and tribulations, \u201cThe Cerveceria\u201d opened in late 2014 and has grown into a bustling 100-seat brewpub that annually produces about 350 barrels and serves about 20,000 customers \u2014\u00a0an eclectic mix of backpackers, surfers, adventure travelers and locals. Construction is underway on an expansion that will double the business\u2019 production and add a bottling line for product slated to be distributed throughout Nicaragua in the late spring.
\nAfter breaking new ground in the craft brewing industry in Nicaragua, the Clemson alum and his business partners are working to share a taste of the country\u2019s laid-back lifestyle with the United States. In September 2017, Hottensen and his partners launched Nicaragua Craft Beer Co. in New York and Los Angeles. The concept: to leverage the allure of Nicaragua that they had fallen in love with and ride the wave of America\u2019s fast-growing premium import market segment.
\n\u201cIt was always in our business plan that we wanted to export and share this unique brand and story and the things we love about living here,\u201d Hottensen says. \u201cWe always thought it would translate well, especially as Nicaragua became more and more popular. So, it\u2019s always been our goal, but the real goal was just to open the first brewpub.\u201d
\nAnd the vessels for sending that \u201ctranquilo\u201d lifestyle back to the United States are 8-ounce squat cans filled with a brew dubbed \u201cPanga Drops,\u201d a crisp, unfiltered Keller Pilsner that sits at the intersection of a hyperlocal craft beer and an easy-drinking Mexican-style beach beer.
\n\u201cThe packaging is probably the most unique thing,\u201d Hottensen says. \u201cIt\u2019s an 8-ounce craft beer, which is the same footprint as the normal 12-ounce can, but just shrunk down. The idea is that down here it is so hot, and you\u2019re drinking a can of beer on the beach, and the last couple sips are always pretty warm. So, we just decided to eliminate them.\u201dWhile the initial launch was limited to New York and L.A., Hottensen hopes that the beer can reach a much wider audience. The company now has distribution in D.C. and Maryland and is adding Rhode Island, with hopes of eventually reaching South Carolina and Georgia.
\nWorking to help spread the brand\u2019s footprint is another Clemson graduate: regional marketing representative Catherine Czerwinski, who finished her bachelor\u2019s degree in marketing in 2012 after a senior-year internship for Sweetwater Brewing Company.
\nCzerwinski\u2019s father operates a distributorship, so the beer business runs in her family. But after she graduated it was a random encounter with Hottensen that led to the opportunity for the two college friends to team up.
\n\u201cThe summer after I graduated, I actually moved down to Costa Rica. A couple months later I was in Nicaragua and ran into Bobby, and I was like, \u2018What are you doing here?\u2019\u201d Czerwinski says. \u201cAnd he told me how he left his job in D.C., and he and his friends were starting a brewery.\u201d
\nCzerwinski continued living in Costa Rica for nearly three more years but would visit Hottensen in Nicaragua to follow the development of his business. After moving back to the United States, Czerwinski\u2019s location in New York made her an ideal candidate to help Hottensen and his friends launch their products in America.
\n\u201cI\u2019m still doing my non-profit work here, but also helping them expand their company through marketing and sales efforts,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s going really well. It\u2019s fun to keep those memories and that time alive with me in New York. I get to talk about Nicaragua and Central America a lot. And that\u2019s really something they try to push with the branding. It\u2019s not just the beer; it\u2019s the whole lifestyle \u2014 they say \u2018tranquilo.\u2019 It\u2019s just Spanish for chill, pretty much.\u201d
\nA Delaware native, Czerwinski\u2019s choice of Clemson came because her older sister attended college in North Carolina, and she wanted to head south for her own collegiate experience, too. She knew very little about Clemson when she applied \u2014 and had never even visited campus before freshman orientation.
\n\u201cI can\u2019t say enough good things about Clemson,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was amazing. I think it was fate that I ended up there because I totally fell in love with the place.\u201d
\nFrom a marketing perspective, Czerwinski said Panga Drops occupies a unique corner on the American beer scene as both the only 8-ounce can currently on the market and the only craft export to come out of Nicaragua.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s probably the most exciting part of all of it,\u201d Czerwinski says. \u201cIt\u2019s different for Bobby because he just uprooted his way of life and went down there to try out something totally new, but then the beer itself is just such a market disruptor that it\u2019s really interesting that he\u2019s bringing it back to the States. It\u2019s totally new here; it\u2019s something that\u2019s never been seen before here. It\u2019s cool that there\u2019s a Clemson alum behind it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s a way of life the locals call \u201ctranquilo,\u201d and it led Bobby Hottensen to take a leap of faith and trade a fast-paced urban lifestyle in Washington, D.C., for the laid-back tropics of Nicaragua. A series of trips to the beach town of San Juan del Sur brought Hottensen and fellow surfers Brendan DeBlois […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":19175,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[437,2079,2770,2772,3065],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-19124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumniprofiles","tag-brewery","tag-nicaragua","tag-summer-2018","tag-summer-2018-alumni-profiles","tag-tranquilo"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2018\/06\/Bobby-Hottensen_Profile.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19124\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19124"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=19124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}