And still they keep coming! While the number of new small breweries opening in Australia in 2007 may not exceed the record totals in 2005 and 2006 (around fifteen each year), it still promises to be a year of great activity.
Moreover, the number of operational small breweries is now into the nineties, and this year will probably see the total pass one hundred for the first time since the movement began in the mid-1980s. The following is a selection of small brewery news from around the country, from (mostly) the last couple of months.
Queensland
The gap left in the Brisbane beer scene by the recent closure of the brewery at Oxford 152 in Bulimba (see Update, March 2007) has now been filled to some extent by the resurrection of the defunct St Arnou brewery at the Regatta Hotel in Toowong. The brewery, a 6hL DME plant, was installed by St Arnou in 2002, but it operated only briefly, until the end of 2003. When Coles bought the lease of the hotel early in 2005, the idle brewery remained in the ownership of St Arnou, but Coles has now acquired it (unhappily, out from under the nose of
an independent microbrewer who was in the process of purchasing it). Chuck Hahn (i.e. Malt Shovel Brewery) is putting the brewery back into working order on behalf of its new owner, and it is intended to turn out special brews under the James Squire brand.
New South Wales
As reported in an earlier Update (January 2007), Scharer’s Little Brewery at Picton changed hands in March last year. The new owners, Luke Davies and Dave Wright, have undertaken to retain ‘Scharer’s’ as a brand name, but they are redesigning the labels. I’ve included here a preview of the new Scharer’s Bock label. While on the subject of Scharer’s Brewery, Austar’s Lifestyle Channel has made a TV series about the goings-on at the pub-brewery during the year since Luke and Dave took over.
The first of ten lively episodes screened on 12 March.
Victoria
In February, the first brew was put through at the new Otway Estate brewery at Barongarook, near Colac. This small brewery was established at the Otway Estate winery with the aid of a State Government grant. Together with a new function centre and cafe, it is intended to attract more tourists to the estate and to the Colac area. The beers carry the brand name Prickly Moses (after a local echidna).
The Laverton (Melbourne) brewery of Independent Distillers Group, formerly Independent Liquor, is no ‘small brewery’, but readers might be interested to know that it recently came under new ownership. Speculation about the sale of New Zealand-based Independent Liquor has been rife since shortly after the company’s founder/owner, Michael Erceg, died in a helicopter crash in November 2005. It emerged in December 2006 that a joint venture between private equity firms Pacific Equity Partners and CCMP Capital Asia was the successful bidder, for a price near $1.26 billion. The company’s Laverton brewery makes Haagen beer.
Bintara Brewery has moved from its original home in the old Seppelt winery at Rutherglen to a new site halfway between Rutherglen and Wodonga on the Murray Valley Highway. Owner and brewer Michael Murtagh incorporated the brewery into his new winery, restaurant and function centre complex with the aid of an Australian Tourism Development program grant. The new complex opened officially on Easter Saturday (7 April).
Tasmania
At what point does a new brewery become a new brewery? Usually it is easy to answer this question, but not in the case of the Two Metre Tall Company, based at New Norfolk in Tasmania. Winemaker Ashley Huntington took over the brewing of Forester Pale Ale, an existing brand, early in 2006. Since then he and his wife Jane have launched three new beers—Huon Dark Ale, Derwent Clear Ale, and Cleansing Ale—through their Two Metre Tall Company. They have set up conditioning and bottling facilities at their New Norfolk property, but Ashley brews at the former St Ives Hotel Brewery in Hobart. The Huntingtons hope to have a brewhouse in operation on their farm by September or October this year, and perhaps I should wait until then to announce Two Metre Tall as a ‘new brewery’. On the other hand, maybe I could properly have done so when the first Two Metre Tall products
were launched in 2006. Some time in between those two milestones, i.e. now, seems to me to be a good compromise.
Western Australia
Brew 42 at Allanson, near Collie, in the south-west, was formally opened on St Patrick’s Day, March 2007. Beers currently produced by this small brewery include Red Tale and Bucks Bitter (see illustrations).
Western Australia’s pioneering brew-on-premises operation, Billabong Brewing, in the Perth suburb of Myaree, obtained a producer’s licence in January 2006 (yes, last year) and now operates as a commercial brewery. The change was made mainly to enable Billabong to develop a range of gluten-free beers (launched in September 2006), but other beers are also made (porter, pale ale, and 4 hop ale, all of which were awarded at the inaugural Sydney Royal Beer Show in February 2007).
The former Bug Ocean Brewery at Margaret River has been re-opened under new ownership and a new name, Ocean Beach Brewing Company. Brewing recommenced in or about January, after a break in production of around two years. The first product, Beach Blonde, was launched in April. Watch for others.
New company Big Island Brewing Limited is fitting out the old Strongbow cider factory in Canning Vale, south of Perth. It aims to be in production mid-2007, and to launch its first beers by Christmas. More about this one later.
