The story of St John Brewers begins when two college buddies quit their 9 to 5 jobs and relocated to St John, in the US Virgin Islands. Chirag Vyas, who grew up in North Providence, Rhode Island, had been living in California and working as a scientist at NASA. Kevin Chipman, a fellow UVM alumnus, was working as a physical therapist in Boston.
Life on St John started with busing tables and sleeping on an old sailboat, but soon an apartment was found and bar shifts picked up. Still, something was missing... America’s Paradise just wasn’t paradise without good beer.
So, like any inventive twenty-somethings in search of a solution, Vyas and Chipman headed over to Cruz Bay’s Public library to use the only internet connection available at the time. A few clicks later, they had ordered a home-brewing kit, and in 2001, shortly after their arrival on island, they began brewing beer in their apartment.
A few years and a lot of batches of beer later, the guys had perfected their recipe for a pale ale with a hint of mango (extract, that is; the fruit was too strong), and in mid-2004 they started bottling the Virgin Islands Pale Ale (now known as Tropical Mango Pale Ale). “We knew we were filling a void” in the island’s beer market, Chipman said. “To have locally created beer,” Vyas added, “is something we thought would go over well.”
The next big step for St John Brewers came in June 2005, when they acquired a contract brewer and the first large scale shipment of Tropical Mango Pale Ale reached the VI. Chipman and Vyas took the barge to St Thomas and back to St John, with load after load of Tropical Mango Pale Ale piled in the back of their ’89 Toyota pick-up to be hand delivered all over island.
As it turned out, the Virgin Islands were enamored with their local craft brewery, and the next several years saw still more milestones for St John Brewers: the opening of their flagship brew pub, the Tap Room, in November 2006, the launch of Island Summer Ale in May 2007, the creation of a line of sodas (Root Beer, Ginger Beer, and Green Flash, an energy drink), and most recently, the launch of the Liquid Sunshine Belgian Style Spiced Wheat in June 2009.
Currently, St John Brewers has distribution in six states; Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Florida, Nebraska and California. Chipman and Vyas spend a lot of time in their brew room at the Tap Room, working on new, boutique batches including locals’ favorite, the Island Hoppin’ IPA. Still, the impetus behind moving to the islands in the first place was to enjoy life, and that remains a top priority at St John Brewers. After all, where better to enjoy the culmination of all those brewing hours than at the beach?
