John Tannous is aiming to connect customers with locally crafted beer, and also to the process behind it all.
The founder of Tommy’s Brewing Company, a restaurant and micro-brewery opening on Monday as the latest addition to Movietowne Port of Spain’s Fiesta Plaza, is sure to attract a slew of new clientèle – ranging from the Trini hipster circle seeking out micro brews, to those who want a fun or family environment with excellent food and in-house crafted beer.
Starting in the beer business in 2008 with the importation of Coors Light, Tannous went on to develop a full portfolio of imported beverages and brands in a market that immediately embraced them for their youthful feel with strategic marketing that went around the traditional approach to connect with consumers. While successful in its own right, the new entrants to the market faced stiff competition from the existing local breweries determined to maintain their market share.
He explained, “Besides having to face higher tariffs and other non-tariff barriers, we faced a slew of challenges as the incumbent local beer producers began to muscle their way back in to the market share we had won over.” That led to the idea, that a locally-brewed beer brand would help to overcome this challenge while offering something new and fun to the market.
“Tommy’s Brewing Company is a small-scale restaurant and micro-brewery that places an emphasis on quality, flavour and brewing techniques. After travelling around to a number of similar microbreweries internationally, particularly in Denver, I realised that this is something that would work well here. We craft our beer, which is different to manufacturing it. In manufacturing, there is a focus on cost-efficiency over say, quality of ingredients, so while we do focus on the science behind it, we are really placing an emphasis on the art of beer-making. It’s been a passion of mine to create something like this and share it with patrons and the market,” he detailed.
“While we do have locally manufactured beer and also do have a number of imported craft beers, Tommy’s brews are made right here at our Movietowne location and can be consumed fresh from the micro-brewery.” When asked about the size of the investment, Tannous responded lightly noting, “It wasn’t insignificant! This new establishment will create permanent jobs for 50 people with another 20 part-time roles as well.” The founder also noted that while entrepreneurial activity is high in TT, much has to be done to foster this type of activity that goes beyond the status quo, to businesses such as his that have placed an effort on stimulating local production, employment and perhaps even fostering positive changes to the current foreign exchange situation.
Patrons of Tommy’s will immediately notice the massive steel tanks located in the restaurant space but separated by a glass partition – which means that customers will actually get to witness their international award-winning brewmaster Saty, at work on the next batch of brewed options – and there will be lots of options.
“For our opening, we have selected six house brews that will be available year-round ranging from traditional pale ales to IPAs to stouts and Dunkels, but we will also take note of seasonal options, so you may at one point find us brewing a beer with hints of real mango or sorrel – this really is just the start of the journey for us,” Tannous commented.
That journey has seen him come up against as many as 18 governmental and regulatory organisations and laws related to the industry that were instituted at the turn of the 20th century; an adventure that was two years full of 24-hour-days of work and commitment. “There is also an extensive menu of food items… we partnered with well-known restaurateur Peter George of Prime/Trotters/Buzo fame to bring the best options to pair with our beers, forward,” he pointed out. “The choice was clear when it came to bringing his experience of the food market and the best quality to the table for our patrons too.”
Menu items range from shareable platters to bison burgers, Shepherd’s pie, tacos, and salads for the discerning. The space too, has its own charms – with a rustic but modern finish, smartly using a mix of concrete with lots of local wood and local craftsmanship to complement the industrial feel of the micro-brewery which is part of the charm of the dining experience. Tannous added, “We want people to feel at home here – almost as if it’s a family on the inside and definitely a space where people are excited to interact with our staff and learn about crafted beer and the food that goes best with it. There is the opportunity to learn, to have fun too and put down the phone and interact with your table or other customers at the bar, that’s what we intend for it.”
More than anything, patrons will immediately notice the quality of flavours and notes in each offering, something that is only possible by offering the freshest crafted beers that only have to make the journey of a few feet, direct from the micro-brewery to the bartender’s tap.
As for the inspiration behind the brand, the name and the logo of a shipwrecked sailor sitting atop a beer keg lost at sea, Tannous owes that to his grandfather, from whose journal entries he’s crafted an entirely new casual dining experience, taking patrons across the world with a mix of food and beverage as they sit either in the cosy interior or outside on picnic style tables astride turf grass and under hanging Edison bulbs.
There’s nothing quite like Tommy’s and with the innovations planned, the team behind the brand will surely have an adventure of their own to tell, in the years to come.
Source: Newsday, July 29, 2018

A tale written in Trinidadian Creole that was inspired by the true story of a family who cremated a baby in the wilds of the island, has been plucked from more than 5,000 entries to win the Commonwealth short story prize.
In Passage, Kevin Jared Hosein writes of a man who hears a story in a bar about a family living away from society, and sets out to find them. “A man is so small in the wilderness, believe me. The way how people is now, we ain’t tailored to live there. So when Stew say he stumble across a house in the middle of the mountain, my ears prick up. I take in every word as he describe it. A daub and wattle house in the middle of a clearing, walls slabbed with sticks and clay and dung and straw, topped with a thatch roof,” writes Hosein, in Trinidadian English Creole, a choice he had initially thought would put people off.
“Originally I was afraid – I didn’t think people would understand the Creole,” the Trinidadian author told the Guardian. But the novelist Sarah Hall, who chaired the award jury, said Passage was “immediately and uniformly admired by the judges”.
“It balances between formal language and demotic, ideas of civility and ferality, is tightly woven and suspenseful, beautifully and eerily atmospheric, and finally surprising,” said Hall. “It is, in essence, all a reader could want from the short story form; a truly crafted piece of fiction that transports the reader into another world, upends expectations, and questions the nature of narratives and narrative consequence.”
The annual prize is awarded to the best piece of unpublished short fiction from the Commonwealth. Stories can be submitted in Bengali, Chinese, English, Malay, Portuguese, Samoan, Swahili, and Tamil, with 5,182 stories entered from 48 countries this year.
Hosein, who received his £5,000 award in Cyprus on Wednesday night, first learned about the true story behind Passage when he was 15. “People were aware there was a family living along a trail – they had older living customs that wouldn’t be acceptable today. Their baby died, and they had a custom to send its spirit off by cremating the body. That is what drew attention to them, and the two parents were put in an asylum, and the older children into a foster home,” he said.
“The last thing on the news was that when the children were brought into society and saw a television, they couldn’t stop screaming. I remember it hanging in my head as a child for a long time. People just wrote it off as madness, but I thought it had more to it than that and I wanted to explore it.”
AdvertisementA science teacher as well as a writer, Hosein was a Caribbean regional winner for the Commonwealth prize in 2015. “Winning in 2015 was pure validation – I didn’t really put my writing out there before that,” he said. “But just the fact that I made it on to the shortlist told me that my work could resonate with people outside my region. You always have that doubt: ‘Am I really good?’”
This time, “I just felt pride – not just in me but in my country … There is not much opportunity in the Caribbean to make a name for yourself. I think the prize has helped with that,” he said.
Hosein is the author of three novels: The Beast of Kukuyo, which won him the Burt award for Caribbean literature, The Repenters, which was shortlisted for the Bocas prize, and Littletown Secrets.

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​Chaguramas last week...  Look at the beautiful scenery in Trinidad.. sad to see this

Carib Queen Jennifer Cassar of the Santa Rosa First Peoples Community has died.
Cassar, 66, died on Thursday.
Arima mayor Lisa Morris-Julian extended condolences on behalf of the Arima Borough Corporation.
Morris-Julian said the loss of Cassar was a blow to Arima’s foundation which is rooted on the contributions of the First Peoples. 
She said the council laments the loss of a phenomenal woman who was of Carib descent.
“The council is thankful that she assisted in extensive work to keep persons of First Peoples lineage untied and thriving in the Santa Rosa First Peoples Community. It recognises her decades of labour which assisted to create a space in the Borough where the first Peoples are acknowledged and respected” she said.
Last year, the Government allowed for a one-off public holiday for the First Peoples Community, where Morris-Julian said the late Carib Queen was instrumental in her contributions to the festivities held during the Arima Fest celebrations, the Santa Rosa Festival and the First People’s Heritage Week.
In April 2009, Cassar represented the Santa Rosa First Peoples Carib Community at the 3rd Indigenous Leaders’ Summit of the Americas in Panama City, Panama in April of 2009.
​Education Minister and Arima Member of Parliament Anthony Garcia also extended condolences on the passing of Cassar.
In a statement, Garcia referred to Cassar as a symbol of strength, will and power within the community.
He said Cassar’s career was vast as she worked in the public service for over forty years.
“She contributed to the development of her country through work in Education, Community Development, Culture, Sport, Health and the Judiciary. Today I take the opportunity to again express my humblest gratitude to Mrs. Jennifer Cassar for her yeoman service to the First Peoples Community, to the Borough of Arima and to Trinidad and Tobago. May her life be an example to those in and outside of the Carib community and may her legacy be carried with love, light and positivity. May she rest in peace,” he said.

Canadian actor Dalmar Abuzeid will make history as the first black character from Trinidad and Tobago in the iconic Anne of Green Gables series, 'Anne with an E'.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Abuzeid will play Sebastian, an Afro-Caribbean steamship worker from Trinidad and Tobago who befriends Gilbert Blythe, one of the story's main characters and Anne's romantic interest in the Netflix series. 
The move was described as a 'watershed moment' for the well-loved story which is based on Canadian writer Lucy Maud Montgomery's 1908 novel about a young red-headed orphan in rural Prince Edward Island. 
"It's incredible the way I'm being introduced into a story that already has this history and this audience, and that means so much because I get to be part of that story with the new perspective of an Afro-Caribbean in the world of Anne," Abuzeid said.
His character, Sebastian Lacroix, is originally from Trinidad and arrives in fictional Avonlea as a manual laborer who stokes coal in the engine room of a steamship.
Moira Walley-Becket, creator of Anne with an E, said she deliberately chose a multicultural direction for the show's second season.
"When I was first conceiving Anne With an E, I was troubled by the lack of diversity in the book, especially since Canada is such a diverse nation, both then and now," she said.
The series is available on Netflix.
Source: The Loop, July 12, 2018

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YOUNG artist Sarah Ali recently held a private art exhibition at Palm Foundation in Woodbrook, at which she put up for sale 15 pieces of art and six silk scarves to help pay for her tertiary education.
All the pieces, silks included, were sold-out on the night, with the exception of the largest.
The outgoing head girl at Bishop Anstey High School, Ali said, “I cannot even begin to describe my surprise at finding out that so many people wanted to buy my pieces. When I saw those orange ‘sold’ stickers going up next to the pieces I was in awe. I felt so blessed to know that my gift from God was being admired by so many people. I also felt incredibly empowered, as if a young artist as myself could host such a successful first exhibition, then I could do anything, and I could encourage young people like myself to take that leap of faith and share their talents with the world.
“The biggest thing this exhibition taught me was that if you just have faith God will make all things happen.”
Ali got a partial scholarship to attend the Florida Institute of Technology (FIT) to do biomedical engineering. But the fees are high and though the $20,000 raised so far from the sale of her art pieces will help, she is hoping that her biggest piece, Imperium Chroma de Musical, will be sold before she leaves on August 2.
Asked if she hopes for an additional scholarship from the government, Ali said, “I have given my all in my CAPE exams, so yes, I am praying for a government scholarship. It would make things a lot easier for my family. I come from a single-parent family so a scholarship would take a huge load off my mom’s shoulders. I am just hoping that the work that I put in would be enough to allow me to receive such an honour.”
Ali got the international scholarship on the basis of her SAT scores: she did the SATs right before her Unit 1 exams for CAPE in 2017.
The scholarship is only awarded to top-performing international students. The engineering programme for which she got the scholarship is for four years, but can be reduced depending on how well she performs in her CAPE exams. Those results are expected to be released next month, and Ali says she is anxiously awaiting them with fingers crossed.
Noting that what she is going to study at tertiary level is so different from her art, Ali explained, “Art is my way of relaxing and stepping away from the chaos that is the world we live in.
“I am studying biomedical engineering, however, because science is my passion. My goal is to enter the field of cancer care, treatment and research. My eyes are set on improving the care of cancer patients, specifically in TT.”
Ali said both her grandfather and godmother recently died because they could not access top-notch care and said she wants to help people like them and their families.
But as far as her art is concerned, she said, “I can never stop painting and sculpting. I have always done art alongside my STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects; art was my extra subject for both CSEC and CAPE. I had to balance all of my science classes during school hours, then paint when I got home and whenever I found free time. I made time for it because it helped me to de-stress and relax. So no fear, this will not be my only art show. There is more in store.
“Also, my artistic talent will allow me to add a creative spin on new ideas to treat cancer.”
Ali placed fourth on the CSEC Visual Arts Regional Merit List in 2016, seventh on the CAPE Visual Arts Regional Merit List in 2016 for Unit 1, was named Women in Art’s Artist of the Year for 2017, was Bishop Anstey head girl 2017-2018 and an altar server for seven years at St Michael and All Angels’ Anglican Parish in Diamond Vale.
Source: Newsday, July 12, 2018