Under normal circumstances, Del Cielo Brewing Co. would’ve spent this spring serving pints of the citrusy pale ale Hoptinez at its bustling downtown Martinez taproom, and sending kegs of the crisp Mexican lager Órale out to bars around the Bay Area.

But with those establishments shuttered because of coronavirus, Del Cielo and craft breweries across the country have had to completely rework their business models to stay afloat.

Good thing owner and brewer Luis Castro has experience changing plans.

Castro hadn’t planned to stay in the United States when he left his home in Cali, Colombia, to enroll in an MBA program in Ohio 14 years ago. He certainly wasn’t envisioning a career in beer.

But an imperial pale ale from Delaware’s legendary Dogfish Head Brewery set him on a different course.

Castro recently took a break from brewing the Mexican amber lager Morena Mia to talk about his journey to craft beer and navigating coronavirus.

This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

Q: What was your path to getting into craft beer and starting Del Cielo?

A: In Colombia you drink, like, every pilsner or every lager — 20 years ago there wasn’t that much craft beer in Colombia. When I moved to the U.S. I tried 90 Minute from Dogfish (Head), which is an IPA, so I’m like, “Oh (expletive), I’ve been wasting my time drinking crappy beer!”

After that I just got into going to different taprooms, different breweries, trying as many beers as I can. When I moved to California, the craft beer industry here is like 20 times bigger than Ohio, so it just blew my mind all the things you can do with beer.

Everybody said, “You should start brewing at home.” I ended up buying my first home brew kit, (I spent) like $150 on it. I started brewing once a month, and then twice a month, and it got to the point where we had more beer than we could drink by ourselves so we started doing beer releases at our house.

After that I realized, maybe I can do some of this as my future job, or my career, or my side business. So I started working on my business plan, talking to people, talking to banks, talking to investors. (In) February 2017, I decided just to quit my job and start working on brewing.

Q: How is coronavirus affecting your brewery and forcing you to change?

A: Before COVID-19 we were doing probably like 40 percent cans, 60 percent kegs — now we’re like 90 percent cans, 10 percent kegs.

(Our) profit is dropping too. When you sell wholesale cans, your price is lower than what you sell at the taproom: You were selling beer at $6 or $7 per pint, and now you’re selling cans and kegs. Your profit is dropping big.

So the way we’re trying to continue our revenue is to have more beer in cans, expand (distribution territory) a little more, trying to take care of the accounts (with stores and restaurants) that have been with us for a long time.

Q: Are your fans rallying around Del Cielo?

A: Yeah, the response in the Martinez community has been huge. We’ve always been super happy to be in Martinez, they’ve always been super supportive of us — any business in Martinez they’re trying to support too.

We’re doing curbside pickup, we’re doing home deliveries, and now we’ve started shipping in California. (Del Cielo plans to reopen outdoor space at its taproom this week and indoor areas on July 1.)

Obviously our revenues are lower than what we’ve had. We are trying to keep as many employees as busy as we can. We’re in Contra Costa (County) so locally, Contra Costa has been a little more tight with the phases, which is good and bad. But I prefer to be a little bit tighter than having to close again in two or three months.

Q: There’s a lot of concern that some of the small breweries people love could be in real trouble — do you think we’ll see breweries close because of the pandemic?

A: If you were struggling before COVID-19, this is really going to hurt your numbers. If you were not financially prepared to continue operating your business without having normal revenue coming through, or the revenue you used to get, it’s going to be tough, man.

You’ve got to make more than what you’re spending to survive, so that’s one of the things we’re trying to do: Keeping our customers engaged, making sure they know that we’re open and we have different options. We have every single container you could think about — cans, crowlers, growlers, kegs. You want to take a keg home? You can do that too.

Every week is something different, you know — continually you have to figure out: what is the next step?

Q: Do you feel like Del Cielo is weathering the storm?

I feel like we’re in a pretty good place. Hopefully a lot of our friends’ breweries feel the same way — hopefully everybody’s going to be able to make it.

Luis Castro

Title: Owner and brewer, Del Cielo Brewing Co.
Age: 43
Birthplace: Cali, Colombia
Current home: Walnut Creek
Family: Wife, Cielomar Cuevas
Education: Bachelor in economics from Universidad de San Buenaventura, Cali, Colombia; master’s in finance from Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Cali, Colombia; master’s in business administration, John Carroll University, Ohio.

Five things to know about Luis Castro

Castro founded Del Cielo two years ago along with Cielomar Cuevas, his wife and the brewery’s brand director.

Del Cielo’s motto, “Beer from Heaven,” plays on a translation of its name.

Del Cielo is among just 2.4 percent of craft breweries that are owned by Latinos, according to a 2018 survey from the Brewers Association.

Many of Del Cielo’s beers have their roots in the home-brewing recipes Castro perfected during his previous career, in finance.

Del Cielo is a cornerstone of downtown Martinez’s craft beer scene, along with their next-door neighbor, Five Suns Brewing.