Craft Brewers Series – Part One

Brewing up a batch at the Mountain Goat brewery


Here at Beer Blokes we like beer. You’re probably the same yourself. We like drinking it and talking about it and we especially like brewing it. I also like writing about it because it gives me the opportunity to share my passion for all things beer with others.

I love brewing beer because I can dream that one day I can move the operation from the kitchen bench, to the shed, then on to an even bigger shed and, finally, to a small brewery with a sign on the door that says; “Beer Blokes.” I can even actually visualise the bottles jangling with their labels shining as they wobble off the line and into a convoy of waiting trucks.

This series will look at the way in which some of Australia’s most successful craft brewers turned their dreams into beery reality. There will be stories of luck and inspiration, of setbacks and perspiration and they will show how beer can take a dream, float it on a foamy stream of hope and lead it to brewing Nirvana. In many cases a large bank loan, tons of sweat and tears and the unwavering support of family and friends probably helped as well.



Mountain Goat brewery Pics from goatbeer.com.au

Many craft, or ‘boutique’ brewers as they were once called, have come and gone as the years have gone by. Some went belly up because their product was ahead of the tastes of the drinkers or because the costs involved in setting up and maintaining a brewery were beyond the beers marketable capacity. Others floundered due to quality control issues or because the hard slog just got to be too much. Others failed because the beer just wasn’t good enough.

But many survived because they found a niche or a smart way to get their brew noticed. Others utilised a kind of urban guerrilla campaign to create a demand for the stuff. Many just used their smarts and called in favours from family and mates and stuck it out through hard times and unexpected hiccups and then sat back and cracked a satisfied Ale or Lager when their luck changed.

Some brewers have even made a success of the gig due to the misfortune of others. This ‘Circle of Life’ is a poignant and yet uplifting fact of business where the brave or the fortunate feed off the carcass of the old, the weak or the unfortunate of the herd. Many a new brewer has picked up at auction, a complete and, in some sad cases, barely used brewing set up, the surrendered plant of someone, perhaps, just like them in many respects. Maybe starting out their dream on the foundations of men who once shared the very same dream is a sobering (pardon the pun) jolt and a reminder that to take your eyes off the prize might mean watching one day as the new kids on the block pick up YOUR gear for a song at another auction down the track.

Wether you call them micros, boutiques or craft brew operations these creative leaders of the ‘True Brew Traditions‘ should be admired and supported lest we allow the big multinationals to tell the next generation of drinkers that it is OK to see beer as a bland, pale golden, sparsely hopped and sugar enhanced sessional swill attached to slick and fluffy marketing slogans and TV ads. The craft brewers are the guardians of the craft, the guys who reassure us that beer can be so much more than status symbols for wankers who drink labels in places at which to ‘be seen’ and remind us that when you set out to offend nobody, you also rarely really please anybody, either.

I am collecting interesting facts and stories and myths surrounding some of our best and brightest craft brewers and will deliver them as soon as some of them have replied to my e-mails so that I don’t misquote them, misinterpret their philosophy or miss out on getting some free product should they feel that way inclined!

The first will be ready to post by July. Stay tuned

Cheers,
Prof. Pilsner

CoasterCards

Remember when you were little and your Nan was on holiday interstate or overseas and you would wait by the letterbox in the hope that the cheery old postie would hand you a letter or a parcel from some far off, exotic locale with a funny looking stamp and a whiff of the unknown?

Of course you don’t. It never happened. The postie was a surly old prick on an undernourished motor scooter that was more like a box of farts on wheels and he barely even slowed down enough to stuff your mail in the slot by the fistful and the only whiff of the unknown was his B.O. Never mind, you just remember it the way you like. Cue flashback music and wobbly screen effect.

Meanwhile, back in reality, there are still some moments of childlike excitement that befall the humble beer drinker and blogger that inspire thoughts of melancholy and stir yearnings for simpler and rosier times and at the same time conjure thoughts of enterprise and opportunity and make you say out loud; “I reckon I make a quid out of this ‘ere idea!”

I say this because, recently, the brother-in-law and his good lady wife, The Crazy Unicorn – don’t ask- were enjoying a brief sojourn in Vietnam and they found time to send some interesting postcards for the little lady Pilsners featuring such bucolic peasant scenes as village children swimming with buffalo, elderly villagers toiling in the fields with buffalo and local hotel scenes featuring locals drinking local beer with a car park full of buffalo. There was even one which, I shit you not, depicted a local village trader or consumer transporting a slightly less than living buffalo strapped to the back of a pissy little wobbly motor scooter displaying balls the size of oranges parked over the pack-rack. That’s the buffaloes’ nads not the villagers’. The bike made the surly posties’ two-wheeler look like something out of American Chopper. And the buffaloes’ cods may have explained the whiff of the unknown.

Anyway, a couple of days after that – actually it was a couple of weeks after they returned to Australia, thanks very much Australia Post – I received a posting of my own. But no letter or strange smelling peasant handicraft, this. No, it was a CoasterCard (Trademark pending so don’t even think about pinchin’ it) sent from a pub/hotel in Saigon. Chris had managed to scrawl a beautifully semi-legible drunken rant on the back of a bar coaster and whacked a stamp on it and sent it on its long journey to Oz. So together we hit upon the idea of marketing this new, groundbreaking, beer drinking product automatically assuming that it had never been done or thought of before, ever.

How cool would it be to stroll into your local, or someone else’s local in a far off place, order a nice local beer and, upon receipt of same, be presented with a nice matching coaster. After smiling and politely thanking the barperson, you sit down to enjoy your beer only to discover, upon turning the coaster over (after first taking the beer off it) that it is, in fact – a coastercard!!! It has a spot for a stamp and a space for the address and, as the night goes on and the beers go down, you can ask for one with lines ruled on it cos’ ya too stankered to writ straight! Sweeeeeeet!!

Further discussion revealed a keg full of bonus positive side effects; you get to drink beer, you get to support small business, you get to drink beer, you get to encourage the ancient art of letter writing and one-to-one-communication, you get to keep more postal workers around the world in gainful employment and out of clock towers with shaved heads and semi automatic weapons, you get to drink beer, you get to encourage the collecting of something more ‘manly’ than souvenir teaspoons and that are easier to store than vintage cars and you get to drink beer.

Support the thing that supports your beer. Drink beer. Send a CoasterCard!

Cheers,
Prof. Pilsner

Farewell Pickles

And thanks for all the beers.

Beer drinkers are a very fortunate lot. Not only does beer serve to refresh our system, either as a reward for hard work or as a fitting end to a long day behind a desk dealing with dickheads, it also pleases our souls in a way that is difficult to describe to people who dislike the whole concept of alcohol and pleasure.

Beer can be thirst quenching and icy cold or it can be cool and contemplative (is that even a word?). It can be sipped alone or slurped in groups. It can be poured thoughtfully into a nice glass or necked straight from the stubby. It can be expensive and imported from distant shores or cheap and cheerful and shipped from around the corner. Versatile and flexible it is suited to any occasion and any mood. Both the joyful and the sorrowful.

“Pickles” passed away last week after a short and aggressive illness. Though his work in recent years saw him living interstate, his visits, sometimes brief, were frequent and based more on quality than quantity. They always incorporated the sacred ritual of ‘The Sharing Of Stories With Beers And Mates’. Pix was not one to change the system if it still worked, nor was he the type to worry too much about formality and structure when it came to getting together for a beer. A call from Billy or Wal to say ‘Pix is in town next week and at the pub on Saturday and be there if you can’ was about as detailed as arrangements would get.

And, if you could get there, you would always be entertained and rarely would you be surprised or disappointed. He would never miss a Shout, never sit at a table too far from the TAB, never cause a stink or get into any trouble, never raise his voice and never drink anything other the standard-on-tap-lager. And enjoy it. Sometimes, it could be argued, he ‘over enjoyed’ it. Rob’s recollection of Pix standing up, nursing a pot while sound asleep is just one example. But still he never caused a fuss. He sometimes spent a fair bit of the next day phoning apologies but his ‘antics’ were never more annoying than a minor inconvenience.

The last time we all got together was Melbourne Cup day, November last year at Seds’ house. Thinking back, it was just like any other year. The Syndicate went ‘tits up’ yet again and all our solid gold selections were unlucky to be beaten. In some cases, they were unlucky to be beaten by every other nag in the field. Pickles hadn’t really let on to all his mates just how crook he was or what the likely outcomes would be. He just didn’t want to burden anyone with worry as I’m sure he’d have felt guilty if any of us so much as offered to help him out in any way. He just made sure he shared the time with his friends. Time, and beers.

When I heard the news I marked the moment with a favourite brew from the ‘Beer Crisper’ in the fridge (where I store all the ‘specials’) and raised a toast to Pickles. But, when we all get together to pay tribute to our mate, we will probably all down a few Carlton Draughts or VBs. Pickles would not want it any other way.

So now, as we reflect on all the times we shared with Pickles, we remember the laughs and the warmth and loyalty. We recall the stories and the moments that will forever be looked back upon fondly and which will always be ‘Pickles Moments’. And, at the risk of rehashing someone else’s thoughts, we can be sad at his passing that we won’t share any more moments but we can also rejoice in the fact that we had so many to remember him by.

Cheers, Pickles. And thanks for everything you are to all of us. After we give you a fitting send off, I reckon we might just celebrate your life with a few beers. Somehow, though, I think there might be more tears than beers – none of us cold drink that many beers. Plus, no one could sleep standing up as well as you could.

Vale

(Keith) Michael Wright

"Pickles, Pix, Curl"