Brewhouse Brisbane

Historical • Brett Stubbs • 25 Jun 2010

Brisbane’s microbrewery scene has suffered a sad series of setbacks in recent years. Brewing was terminated at Oxford 152 in Bulimba at the end of 2006; an attempt to revive the Regatta Hotel Brewery in Toowong failed miserably in 2008; then later the same year The Brewhouse in Albert Street closed suddenly. Happily, however, the managers of The Brewhouse, Grant and Michelle Clark, have now staged a comeback taking the old Clarence Corner Hotel in Woolloongabba, which they now run as Brewhouse Brisbane.

The old Stanley Street pub changed hands at the end of March, and is undergoing a gradual transformation from bland Aussie boozer into craft beer Mecca. Five house beers were available on tap at the time of writing: Star Lager, Sunshine Wheat, Schwartz Black Lager, Midnight Extra Stout, and Brisbane Pale Ale. Some of these names will be familiar to patrons of the former Albert Street venue. All brewing is done remotely, at the site in Albion to which the brewery was removed early in 2008, several months before the closure of the original Brewhouse.

The new Brewhouse Brisbane is conveniently situated at the corner of two major arteries—Stanley Street and Annerley Road. It is adjacent to the massive Mater Hospital, and therefore only a short walk from the busy hospital bus station. The site has been occupied by a pub almost since the foundation of Queensland. Thomas Hayselden began building his Clarence Hotel there late in 1863, when the locality was known as One-Mile Swamp. After the present building was erected in 1889, it continued the name Clarence Hotel for another forty years. It became the Newtown Hotel at the end of the 1920s, but by then the road junction was stubbornly known as the Clarence Corner. More recently, the pub came close to regaining its original name when it was called after the corner.