We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Christine Celis. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Christine below.

Hi Christine, thanks for joining us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

My mission is to continue my father’s legacy. He was the one who revived the Belgian White beer in 1965 in Hoegaarden, Belgium.
In 1990, he decided on buying and in Austin, Texas and built a new craft brewery which was up and running in 1992 as the only craft brewery in Texas. He brought the Belgian style wheat beer to the US and due to the huge success, 1 of the 3 mega breweries partnered with Celis Brewery in 1995 and bought the entire brewery in 2000 to shut it down in 2001. Easy way to eliminate competition although we weren’t competition with their beer.  Sadly no more Celis beer was being brewed in Texas.
My father passed away in 2011 and I felt he did so much for the American craft beer industry that he shouldn’t be forgotten therefore, I started a new craft brewery in Austin, TX and bought my name back in 2017.
Celis Brewery is back up and running at another location but we are brewing dad’s legendary beers and a few new styles!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I was born in Hoegaarden, Belgium and grew up being surrounded with beers, brewery and got to know lots of different brewers. My dad gave me his original wheat beer recipe which has the unique and proprietor yeast strain so we are brewing according to the original recipe. He gave me several of his original beer recipes from throughout his career which started in 1965.  I feel lucky to have those recipes and having fun brewing them as well sharing those beers with all our Celis supporters and making new ones along the way.
Having a brewery this time around isn’t the easiest because there are 9500+ breweries/brewpubs in the US so it’s very competitive.

Proud to be a female in this industry while having an unique story!

Can you talk to us about how you funded your business?

Together with a group of partners, they raised several million dollars to start the brewery. We also got a bank loan approved to purchase the real estate and equipment.

Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?

When financial issues arise in 2019, having partners are the death sentence to a business. Our issue was a partner overseeing all finances and all board members were personal friends of the 1 partner.
Money was spend on a grand scale. Poor business decisions were made which included funding some of his other businesses into our A/P.
Soon enough we ran out of money to pay bills and filed for Ch#11.
2 local entrepreneurs bought the business and prevented us from going into Ch#7
Thankfully, none of the original partners are still involved.

Contact Info:

• Website: celisbeers.com
• Instagram: celisbeers