Sanja Milosavljevic: Okay, so…hi, hello, my name is Sanja Milosavljevic and I’m going to be your host today. My dear friend Paulina from Mexico is going to be our guest today, and she is very young and very passionate woman. And she actually, she runs a small brewery – craft brewery. So, enjoy our conversation. Hi Paula, how are you? 

Paulina Perea: Hi, Sanja! Thanks for inviting me to this meeting, this talk show. How are you?

Sanja Milosavljevic: Well, I’m fine, I’m actually excited because I have the opportunity to speak to all my dear all over the world. Just to see- not just to check how they are but to see how they live and what is happening with their businesses and what does their everyday life look like. So, can you please introduce yourself? Can you tell something about you? Like what is your educational background, where do you live, first of all, what do you do and just- one small thing, in Serbia at the moment we are very fond of craft beer, so…the stage is yours.

Paulina Perea: Well, my name is Paulina, I am from Tijuana, Mexico and I have a background of renewable energies engineering and I am currently studying a Masters in Environmental Science in the same university. I am the co-founder of Olvera brewery and I am starting to use CSD certificate in brewing.

Sanja Milosavljevic: That’s interesting. How did you decide to become a brewer? Is it something that is like a hype, or something that is popular right now in Mexico, or is it something like a family tradition or just your passion?

Paulina Perea: Well back, like 5 years, I started to drink craft beer. It was just about the middle ages in the history of craft beer here in Tijuana. In San Diego was like, kind of like 25-30 years currently and here in Tijuana we were kind of in diapers, to baby steps – you know? Kind of like that. And I started drinking famous brewery here that’s called Ramuri and they had crazy stouts and liars so I fell in love with that. And I was, I am really kind of like questioning everything and I wanted to know how was that made. So I started doing homebrew and then I associate with an uncle so we can create this new brand for restaurant chain. And this is now the beerhouse of all the rest of ours. 

Sanja Milosavljevic: Nice, nice. I remember when you said that you’re a co-founder, I was like jeez you’re so young. How come you actually have the license to drink. Because when we first met I thought you were even younger than you are. So tell us, you said you are in the Masters for renewable energies. 

Paulina Perea: Well, I’m actually 26 and I’m gonna be 27 in about five days. So yeah.

Sanja Milosavljevic: Nice. So, what is renewable energies for you? What do you think- when you think about that concept, what is the first thing that crosses your mind?

Paulina Perea: Well it’s to help the environment using the things it gave to you itself. The wind, the Sun, the geothermal power. So you use- you create energy through that and you have- of course you have a CO2 footprint, the carbon footprint, but it’s less than when you use oil or gas.

Sanja Milosavljevic: Nice. And do you know anything about the circular economy? I remember we were talking about – you know I’m in the pasta business and I like flours and I like alternative sources of protein or whatever. I actually managed to make cookies with the byproducts of beer production, which is kind of a circular economy. So what do you think- do you think, actually about the circular economy? Do you practise something of the methodology that the circular economy is promoting?

Paulina Perea: Well, you can actually do that in the brewing industry because you have a lot of materials that are just waste, but are actually compostable or you can actually have them as a meal or as a snack. And many people are- you can infuse them in soap. And many people are doing that – are using the- the used malt. Because it’s about 50 kilograms- no? 50? No, 30 kilograms per a thousand liters of beer produced. You have 30 kilograms of used malt. So, it has to go somewhere, so if you- if you dry it, you can meal it and have flour and with that flour you can create cookies, or create snacks for your dogs and- or, you can use it in soaps or you can use it as multiple- as compost for many plants. Or I hear that in UCSD, you’re actually using it to create bio-gas. So you have many alternatives with kind of like- waste, with that waste. And you can actually do a circular and help environment by reducing your carbon footprint and water footprint too.     

Sanja Milosavljevic: Are you motivated to use something of those- or introduce some of these products you mentioned to your market? Or for people that come to your tap room or restaurant?

Paulina Perea: Yes! We actually have like- it’s pet-friendly, many places here in Tijuana are pet-friendly and we’re going to- moving forward to like a zero waste kind of community. We are taking baby steps right now, but we are moving to that. So, using this to make dog-cookies because people are falling in love with their dogs- or are in love with dogs. I think that many people are- in my generation- are actually having more dog-sons than actually sons or babies. And I think that doing this you can help the dog-friendly community and reduce the waste of the brewery because you then make a lot of money off the cookies, but it’s like a plus to give to your customers. So, that’s the kind of like – win-win. And if you have like a pet-friendly patio or something, you can attract a lot of customers. 

Sanja Milosavljevic: So you actually giving them extra-value and that is how you can keep them. That’s good! I mean, things change – especially now, these days or these months, but one thing is common everywhere in the world, we have to give extra value to our customers, or our clients. That’s the way to just be- to go before our competition and to gain their trust and to keep them as our clients. There’s one more thing I would like to ask you and please try to explain, I know that you know a lot about that. So, when I met you, I didn’t know that there is a person that is equivalent to sommelier in the wine world. So what would be- what would be- what’s the name of ‘sommelier’ for beer? 

Paulina Perea: It’s called a ‘cicerone’. It’s almost the same as the sommelier. You drink, you taste, you have the organoleptic features of a beer. The smells, the taste, the texture, the body, etc. And you can actually judge- well, you can judge a beer, not by competition or something and you…it’s kind of like a host. So you go anywhere and you can create a- a- how would you say? A…like, when you drink wine or you drink beer, but different types. You know? Like a…here it’s a “Cata”, I don’t know how you say it in English. But, you can actually conduct these kind of events and you’re actually capable of pairing a beer with any kind of food. 

Sanja Milosavljevic: Is there any type of beer like stout, or IPA or…well, IPA, or ale that goes perfectly with pasta? 

Paulina Perea: Yeah. Well, it’s- the funny thing about beer is that there’s not actually the ‘correct’ option. When you see like ‘wine goes with red meat’ or ‘red wine goes with red meat’ and ‘white wine goes with white meat’. It’s a lot of different with beer. Because you can actually combine a stout with cheese. And you’re like ‘Cheese? For real?’. But when you try it and you taste it, it becomes a lot creamier. And when you taste with…I don’t know, Bolognese half-pasta or spaghetti Bolognese, however it is named and you drink like…a sour? You’re like ‘a sour?’ but you can actually enhance the taste of the dish itself by pairing it with something that’s on the other side of the spectrum of flavors. So it’s really great part of beer, because you have so many styles that you can combine- as you have a lot of grapes in wine, but it’s not that tight. You can explore more with beer and I recommend anyone to have 5 different different beers that go with the flavor of anything – I don’t know, cheese, meat, just like- mozzarella sticks, whatever you want and just grab a tiny bite of anything and a sip of the beer and just explore the flavors. Some things are gonna be like ‘okay, this is not for me’, but you can actually extend your palate and that’s great. And when you invite someone to have dinner with you or whatever you want, you can get that guest of the house to, you know – ‘oh, try this beer with this steak, pasta or chicken’ and they’re gonna be like ‘oh okay, thank you’ and they’re gonna love it, you know. Or with a- a- with a dessert. It’s amazing to pair beer with a dessert. 

Sanja Milosavljevic: Interesting. I should definitely explore more and try to make some pairing beer with my pasta. Okay, so…how is life now, in Mexico? How do you live now? Do you have many people with COVID-19 virus infected? And how your life changed? Did your life change in any way? And when I say life I mean everyday life like your habits, your duties during the day. Do you go to work every day? What is happening to your job and your work?

Paulina Perea: Well, I don’t have much communication with other people. I am the only working full time at the brewery so I can go in whenever I want. It’s not a big- well, it wasn’t a big deal in that matter, but as anyone’s life changed – you gotta wear the face mask, you gotta put the antibacterial gel all the time, wash your hands and everything. The first time we heard about COVID-19, we were like ‘okay, we gotta prepare’ because we didn’t know what was gonna happen with our business. Because many restaurants closed their doors for about two months and we mainly…we actually- well, we were grateful because we sold the rest of the tab room that we had. We transferred it to another business, so we didn’t have to worry about that rent, you know? It was about in December when we do that and COVID, well…went off in March? So that was a good part for us. And we were like, what are we gonna do? Because we had all this beer – we had about 400 liters of beer, because we have a small brewery. But we didn’t want it to go to waste. So we had to create new innovative ways to sell it. So we had this-

Sanja Milosavljevic: Can you- can you- sorry, sorry, but can you explain or share with people what are those new innovative ways of selling, or selling channels or, can you just tell us something more about that?

Paulina Perea: Yes. Well, we have here in Mexico jugs of 1L or 1.2L of beer. We call them cajamones, like ‘beer trough’ I don’t know why.

Sanja Milosavljevic: We call those big bottles of beer ‘bombs’.

Paulina Perea: Bomb, yeah! So we bought about- a bunch, like 50 or 60 or those. Because with 50 you could actually feel- with one cap you could fill 51.2 liters of that cajamones or bombs. So we started to collect them, washing them with caustic sauce-

Sanja Milosavljevic: Caustic soda?

Paulina Perea: Yes, caustic soda! Yes, that’s it! Here it is sosa caustica, so…it’s kinda like that. And we started washing them, and then sanitizing them, and then filling them, boiling them with a cap and everything. And then we started selling them to particulars, and then we had this route around the city to send and thankfully we had social media. So many people ordered through Facebook or WhatsApp, or Instagram too. So we just sent a route about 2 days a week and we sold everything in about 2-3 weeks. Because we had a shortage of commercial beer too, so that helped…

Sanja Milosavljevic: How come?

Paulina Perea: Yeah!

Sanja Milosavljevic: How come, because we had shortage of toilet paper and flour and yeast, but I don’t think we had a shortage of beer in Serbia. So you had a shortage of commercial beer in Mexico? Okay!

Paulina Perea: Yeah, they started to- they stopped production at, like- at all, at about April, I think? Or May? Yes, and…I don’t think that they stopped at all or that they have exploitation. I believe at least for Mexico they didn’t sell any beer. So it was a shortage and we in Mexico are one of the- not of the top 10 but we drink a lot of beer, you know? Per capita? So people were like…pricey. So that was a good part of business because people who didn’t want to try craft beer started to do it because they had no other option.  And we started to selling them our beer and we kind of having in promotion, you know? It was like I believe four dollars the bomb, so people were like crazy buying from us. And we had a great time doing that. It was hard because we were like three people and that was it. And filling everything and cleaning and kegging, because- well kegging is another thing. When you pass from the fermenter to the actual keg you have to be really careful. You gotta be really careful in all of the beer process because if any tiny teeny bacterie enters the beer, you’re gonna spoil it. So you gotta be sure that anything gets in contact with the liquid. And then we…we all sold the beer. That was actually really quick and I was really happy because I didn’t have any spoilage at all and we opened a new market. So that is how it went for me.

Sanja Milosavljevic: Perfect, well…I think that…like, I mean in the food industry and I think that certain industries just were blooming or looming during the COVID or during the pandemic, because people actually need to eat and need to drink. Or they- if they’re staying in their homes and not going to restaurants they want to treat themselves with maybe some better or more expensive beer, wine or any kind of food. But- so you didn’t have a problem. But what about others running their small-scale businesses? What was their situation? Did they have to close their shops or their offices and did you get any kind of incentive from your government? Did they help you in any kind of way? Like, in Serbia they postponed the taxes we had to pay. But that’s it, they just postponed it – that was kind of the solution for the problem. But what is situation in Mexico? How are they treating- how is your government treating entrepreneurs and small-scale businesses?

Paulina Perea: Well you gotta fill an application form. They didn’t reduce the tax or condone the tax or give us like a time, at first. You gotta pay your taxes because they have to run the- kind of like free medical services we have. And they’re like free because if you’re working or in autonomous university you get social services and it includes hospital services and everything. So they had to keep that running so we had rents- rent tax. We call it rent tax when you have like utilities of the business and they- they get like around 25-35% of all utility you get it- of the business and they didn’t condone it. And you had to pay towards the social services of your employees. I don’t have employees so that was the good part for me, but many other people were really struggling to pay the employees because of course you can’t fire- it’s not ethical people to fire people if you have this pandemic going on. And you have to keep them and pay minimum wage but with no sales. So many restaurants declared bankruptcy and closed doors. So that was a really tragic part of this pandemic here- at least in Tijuana I know that around 10% of the business had to close their doors. Many of the restaurants didn’t have to close their doors, because they could still sell, but just ‘to go’ or delivery. But like the retail – retail business – had the worst part because they couldn’t open and they couldn’t find like a way or an opportunity to migrate their business into the virtual one because they still had to pay rent. And when you’re in this kind of situation you have to prior- prioritize?

Sanja Milosavljevic: Prioritize.

Paulina Perea: Prioritize, yes. Exactly. And you go with your own rent, your services, food, clothing, it’s kind of like in the lower part of the list, but like buying new stuff when you’re struggling to make money is your least one. So that kind of is this…I know that many in the street that I work had to close. So yeah that’s…that’s what the pandemic do, at least here in Tijuana.  And in Mexico they didn’t condone like services, electricity bills. We have private gas bill so that’s a no-no for sure. And the water…many people didn’t have money to pay the water or didn’t actually get the water receipts, so…two months- like about one- a month ago, there was like a huge line, like a 3-hour line to pay for services because everybody was getting the bill for the water and that was so crazy. I was like oh my god why are they doing this, why can’t you just pay online, you know? And you can, but it’s kind of like…the service doesn’t work all the time. I tried to do it. Many people because- if you have like a…a debt with the water services, you can’t pay in convenience stores or anything, so you have to actually go to the place to pay it. It was quite crazy, you know. It still is crazy because now we have to pay a license to operate with COVID and it’s kind of like at 40% capacity right now, the restaurants. And you have to pay that license. I think- I will say around 400 dollars, I believe, I am not for sure. And you gotta pay it and then you have to put all the safety stuff you know – 1.5m away and separate the tables and the occupancy has to be 40%, they cannot stay longer than 90 minutes I believe and…what else…and you have to wear the facemask and to cover your face with the plastic thing- I don’t know what it’s called. And to have the antibacterial gel in the station and customers cannot pull out their masks off – just when they are sitting at the table. And you know, I think it’s the same thing in every country, I don’t know for sure. You can tell me. But this is like the new normality that we are living here in Mexico.

Sanja Milosavljevic:  So are you ever gonna get used to that new normality? If I want to go to a restaurant with my friends or my husband or whatever and we like to talk and we like to eat but we have to wear mask all the time, that’s kind of silly. It’s impossible. So, are you ever going to get used to that?

Paulina Perea: Well it’s not like you can get used to it, you have to get used to it. Because it’s like the- kind of a year old, at least if they get- find something new that you can actually wear or that- they find out that the virus doesn’t spread at long or something like that or that some people have immunity. So this is- I think that this is going to be a new normal at least one to two years or more, sadly. And- but you- if you want to go out, well you gotta follow this new arrangement that the Government has made for us. And many people I know that- they didn’t like it. But you have still the option to stay at home. Just don’t be harmful for others because if you have COVID and you don’t know because you are- symptoms less. You don’t want to put others’ life in risk. So, I don’t think that is that, you know, awful. Because you go in- at least here you go in the restaurant, you sit in the table and then you can put off the-

Sanja Milosavljevic: Pull off your mask, okay.

Paulina Perea: Yeah exactly. And if you go to the bathroom you have to wear it too. And I don’t know if you have to wear it in the bathroom, I don’t know…you know? And just…wash your hands, go back to your table and that’s it. It’s not that complicated. I believe that many people are just panicking. It’s like okay we have to stay together right now as human beings for the sake of the- for the sake of the less- you know…

Sanja Milosavljevic: Less fortunate ones.

Paulina Perea: Exactly! And with the weakness immune system, you know?

Sanja Milosavljevic: Okay. So can you tell us something about the state of entrepreneurship in Mexico? Do you have it for a long time or did it just start to develop? I mean, you live close to the American border, so you have- you can see what is happening there. And we know that some of the most famous entrepreneurs are actually coming from the States.  So what’s the- what’s the current state of entrepreneurship in Mexico and can you tell us something about women running their own businesses? Is it something that is usual? You- you’re a woman, plus you’re a very young woman. From my point of view. So is it normal? Is it normal for a girl that just finished high-school or university to start her own business?

Paulina Perea: Is it common to start a new business when you’re a woman? No. Because, well…I think that we have in common in the countries we live in that there’s like a culture of machismo. And many people have this thing that they tell the woman that they have to have children and when they finish university or if they let them finish university. Because I knew- I have like- I am a mentor, I have been a mentor with two girls. And actually one of them wanted to go to medicine school but she got pregnant and her parents didn’t let her go to the university because she was pregnant, you know? And that’s like…that’s like a set part of that of- just pregnancy. And you are- society is expecting from you many things. But being an entrepreneur is not one of them. At least not in here in Mexico. So if we-

Sanja Milosavljevic: Can you- it’s very- sorry, sorry Paulina.

Paulina Perea: Yeah? 

Sanja Milosavljevic: It’s very interesting. Can you…can you explain more?

Paulina Perea: About the situation?

Sanja Milosavljevic: Yeah. That no one is expecting from you to be an entrepreneur, to start your own business.

Paulina Perea: Many people is just expecting you to get married to have children, in about the age of getting married. Or get married because you had children, you know? And that’s gotta be it. Many parents don’t encourage their girls to go to university and get a Master’s or- you don’t, like…PHD? You don’t think about a PHD actually. Because they told you that you get a expiry date, you know?

Sanja Milosavljevic: I know…

Paulina Perea: It’s like…well, no, it’s not…it doesn’t work like that. You know? We like, you have- you’re gonna have a…roughened eggs like…yikes, what can I do? Actually no, you can actually still get pregnant at 35, or you know…

Sanja Milosavljevic: Or later…

Paulina Perea: Exactly! So you get the pressure of being a mom about- in social media, with your friends, with your family, in commercials, on television, in YouTube and you get this bombarding of ‘be a mom’, ‘be a housewife’, ‘stay at home’, you know? ‘Do things for your husband’. It’s like why can’t we just be equal, not the other way around but equal, you know? If I don’t want to have children- if the men don’t want to have children, why do women want to have children. I was actually, I went to the hospital – not a big deal or anything, just had a hormonal problem. And I speak with all the girls that were there. And I’m saying girls because they were really young about 18-25 and that’s it. They already had three children and they spoke to me about kind of like horrific situations and one of them told me ‘I have the DUI and it didn’t work for me and my baby has the- it in his arm’. And I was like oh my god, but why is the government encouraging you to use it? Even you can get pills or injections or the dispositive that goes in your arm, you know? And then they are- they told me they didn’t let them to sterilize themselves because they needed the signature of their husband because maybe- maybe they’re gonna…in the future? When they want to have more children. And I was like, well, but it’s your decision. If your man wants to get sterilized, they can have it. But if the woman wants to get sterilized they always tell you that you’re gonna regret it. And it’s like – well it’s my decision and I can do whatever I want with my body. If I want to get sterilized and maybe I regret it, I can still adopt. You know? I can be a mother anyhow. It’s not a big deal and just- it’s like, kind of my human right, okay? And we have this happening here in Mexico. I think it’s all of this, women are expected to have children and be a housewife. Even though we have one salary right now, it was nothing because rents here are going up because we have many American citizens because…well, I don’t know if you can picture it. Because Tijuana is literally just across the border from the States and the nearest town is just 10 steps of the border in the States. So literally you just walk and you get to a mall in the States. So yeah, you can shop anything you want and you just have to walk 10…well, 15 steps kind of, to…

Sanja Milosavljevic: To return home?

Paulina Perea: Exactly, exactly! So we have this situation going…it’s actually quite fun, and…so, so living this near the border you get…it’s the most transit border in the world. So you can actually see the difference between living here in Tijuana there in San Diego and so many people that work in San Diego are actually US citizens are coming here in Tijuana to live. And the rent prices are going up. So of course if you live in San Diego you have to pay 800 dollars rent. But here in Tijuana it is 400, almost a half of it, or less – you’re gonna come here and live here in Tijuana with your family. But the problem is that the salary there is 11 dollars per hour. The minimum wage. And here in Mexico we have 11 dollars per day. So you can see the difference, right? And the problem is when you are raising up the rents, you cannot live in downtown or nearby. You have to live in suburbia in small houses. There are cost- the living, in your, you know, your income. And it’s about 4000 pesos, about 200 dollars and it’s a lot. If you convert the minimal wage to the days you work. So many people- many families they have to have two partners working so, you know…with those numbers, how you’re gonna have children? Because who is going to take care of them? Because when they are little, and they have to go to- guarderia- like kindergarten, but- 

Sanja Milosavljevic: Kindergarten? Nursery? Nursery school?

Paulina Perea: Nursery, nursery school! Exactly. But they eliminated the nursery school that was free. Because I told you that we have social services and one of them was free nursery schools. So you can put your children there. And about it was like the full time you were working. But now they are giving you the money instead of putting the kid in the school. It was a lot of corruption going on in that area, but I believe that it wasn’t the right solution to just kill the program itself and give the money to the families because I still need a place to keep my children, you know, safe-

Sanja Milosavljevic: Safe while you work.

Paulina Perea: Exactly. So it’s…a lot going out here in Mexico, a lot of changes, you know?

Sanja Milosavljevic: I believe you. I mean it’s very interesting that you live very close to the States and you can see- plus you are old enough to see the changes that happened in maybe 10-20 years, so…I think it’s challenging times for you in many levels. Not just COVID. I think you have some other issues that are important as much as COVID is important. So what will be your message? What would you like to share intimately or, whatever, with people in Serbia and people in the rest of the world.

Paulina Perea: Well I can tell you that you follow you dreams. I didn’t’ came with the right family, you know, and I still managed to get my degree and now I’m doing a Master’s and I have a business. So just follow your dreams, don’t let anyone to discourage you from doing so. And if you can- if you have something it’s worth fighting for, just do it. Get up early, have seriously believe you have to- I didn’t ate anything, you know, because I had to save my pesos, my teeny tiny pesos to pay for the school bus to take me to university.  So I didn’t ate in the whole day – I know it’s wrong, I know. But I wanted to pursue my education, it was worth more and I just had like a meal in the whole day and I was set. And I…I gotta wake up early and then walk about 10km to get to the bus because I have a scholarship for the bus and in return I didn’t have the scholarship for the return bus so I had to pay for the transportation. So that’s why I was saving the- any income, any kind of source of money that I had. And then I had to start working and going to school and that actually helped me a lot, because at least I didn’t have to worry about tuition fee. That is not a lot here- well, if you heard it’s about 150 dollars, you can imagine it’s not a big deal. But if you have a lower income or no income at all it’s really hard to pay it for. So when you start working, many of us students had to work and study at the same time, so you don’t have any sleep because you have 8 hours of studying and 8 hours of working and then 4 hours in making your school work, you know? And then you have to wake up early and that’s it. All week long. I am not complaining at all because it was all worth it. But I’m just saying it because if you want to do it, you make your way to accomplish your dream, you know? And maybe you can get a credit or maybe you can ask- be in- how do you say- in a startup? Or you can go to- not to a private university but a public university, I don’t know if you have those in Serbia.

Sanja Milosavljevic: Yes we also have the private and public universities, it’s the same.

Paulina Perea: Okay, so…and you have to know your reality. Because if you want to go to a private school but you don’t have the money to pay it, the- if you don’t have the scholarship, the possibility that you’re gonna drop out in two or three semesters is gonna be so high. And if you don’t have enough money and you know that a public school is just as good as private school you can go to the public school and it’s not gonna be a big deal. You know? We have a saying here in Mexico that a parrot who is a parrot wherever is green. You know? When you are good, it doesn’t matter where you are, you’re gonna be good at anything at any place. 

Sanja Milosavljevic: Yeah, correct. Thank you, Paulina, thank you so much. I really enjoyed our conversation. It’s just we live so far away and we come from different cultures and it was…it was very nice seeing you, hearing your story and sharing your story to the world. Thank you for your time, hugs and kisses from Belgrade. Cao!

Paulina Perea: Thank you so much, Sanja! Hugs and kisses from Tijuana, cao!

Sanja Milosavljevic: So, thank you all for staying with us, listening and watching Paulina from Mexico. You can always follow us on social media like Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn and you can subscribe to our YouTube channel. Stay safe, stay in good health and see you in a week.