Deva Farm is nestled in a small alley in Pak Kret, Nonthaburi. The fastest way to get there from Sukhumvit is via the expressway, through migraine-inducing traffic. Though technically not located in Bangkok, we consider it as part of the city’s greater periphery—it’s too cool that we can’t afford to lose it to another province. Deva Farm is the only place in the country that grows hops, the main ingredient for brewing beer for commercial sale. Praised for being one of the few farms in Thailand that practices smart farming, the farm employs progressive technology in almost every process.
Deva Farm is the brainchild of beer-loving brothers Nattachai and Teerapat Ungsriwong. In 2015, they decided to stop their long-running mobile application company to focus on turning another passion into a business. They learned about farming from the Internet.
Hops is one of the main ingredients for brewing beer; the other three are malt, yeast and water. The Ungsriwong brothers import hop root from the United States to grow in tents in their backyard. After a few trials and failures, they finally succeeded in growing hop flowers, which they now supply to limited customers. The growing popularity of craft beer brewing in Thailand resulted in an increased interest in their fresh produce, which gives a unique taste that is different from imported dried hops.
Thanks to their background in computer engineering, the two have written their own computer program to control the systematic facilities in their grow tents, which includes an automatic watering system, a program that forecasts the weather and another that measures humidity. Everything is controlled from a central computing unit in their home, via a mobile phone app.
Deva Farm is expanding its business to retail, selling craft beer from different local manufacturers in a soon-to-open annexed space called Flagship Bottle Shop.