Despite having to dump their last brew, Mornington Peninsula Brewery are celebrating. There are a few reasons for their joy. Perhaps the main reason is that they have now been able to extent their liquor licensing operating hours. The extension allows them to be open on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, public holidays, as well as later on Sundays.

Matt Bebe, Managing Director, explained that there are no plans to open regularly on the two extra weeknights, as he already spends too much time at the brewery. However, it does allow them to host special event nights. The special events would include Brew Club member nights to celebrate the tapping of a new specially brew, food nights, and other events.

The first such night on Wednesday, 13 July, was intended to be a release of a new specialty brew, a Bitter. Unfortunately, the brew did not turn out as well as intended. After a few days of deliberating, they resolved that “it tasted just like Victoria Bitter” and nobody, not even the staff, would want to drink it. So it was tipped, and a new version was started.

Another reason for the festive mood was the recent arrival of a new 2000L fermenter. Double the size of their other fermenters, they have given it the nickname ‘Big Bertha.’ This will allow them to make two brews of the same beer in a day, and combine them in the one fermenter.

AG (aka Andrew Gow), head brewer, described how much this would help increase capacity at the brewery. He will be able to make full use of this extra capacity with the help of his recently hired assistant.

The next bottleneck is the bottling area. AG seems keen on improving this, but solutions are neither simple nor cheap. It will be interesting to see what they will do in this area and when.

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