Transcript
Speaker: I have love-hate with Ben Lee. I feel like that to Catch My Disease was such a giant earworm when I was in high school. that It was just inescapable, wasn't it? But now I like it again. I think we're going to spend a couple of decades almost despising it.
Speaker: But now I'm back on the Ben Lee bandwagon.
Speaker: Hey Legends, Stomping Ground Brewing Co. is turning 10 and turning it on with a massive laneway-style street party on Saturday 14th of November. And you're invited.
Speaker: From their Collingwood home, they're taking over Islington Street with an awesome music line-up presented by Triple R. Live music, DJs, street mural painting, food trucks, oysters, free tattoos, circus, drag queens, street-side tinny bars, gin cocktails and more.
Speaker: Stompo Street Fest is going to be an epic day out. celebrating 10 years of great beer, good people and the incredible community they're part of. Tickets are just $39 or free for under 12s and selling fast. Don't miss Stompo Street Fest on Saturday 14th of November.
Speaker: Check it all out at stompingground.beer.
Speaker: Hello and welcome to the Crafty Pine Podcast. I'm Will. And I'm Luke. Luke, welcome. what What brings you across from the Full Measure office? I know, mate. I've just snuck in, snuck across the gate to ah to jump in on the Crafty Podcast. Thanks mate. It's a pleasure. That is no problem. James couldn't make it in today. So we've got someone just as special in his Not quite as English, but he knows just as much about a type of booze. Great to be with you, mate. And um Luke, you were just in Tassie at the start of the week, which is where we're starting here. Yes, I was in Tassie. Great to get down there. as bloody cold as it frequently is, but are such a beautiful place. so Full of so much great booze, of course, as well.
Speaker: Yeah, definitely, definitely. And one of those who makes beer, but also whiskey is ah Steve Brooks, who we ran a story this week about how he's decided to retire and sell Captain Bly's, which Captain Bly's, it was kind of the first of the, I guess, the wave of modern breweries in Hobart you could visit. Just Steve bought it. It was a cidery for a couple of years. He bought it in 2014. So it predates, don't know,
Speaker: by a hair sort of Hobart Brewing and then you had Shambles and ah T-Bone and now you've got Deep South like several others that have sort of come in their stead. Yeah, yeah, mate. And look, fantastic producer of obviously exceptional beer. been lucky to taste the Whiskey and Spirits over the years. Tasted them most recently down there a few months ago at Tasmania. was here week. So yeah, I mean, he's such a, he's a fantastic character that has you know succeeded across so many different styles and categories, which is you know pretty hard to do. So kudos to him.
Speaker: Yeah, definitely. And, uh, you know, he's, um, yeah he's an interesting character. I got some great quotes in there. he He's self-described one of the sort of grumpy old men of Tasmanian brewing. And, um, I actually promised you before that, uh, he's got a fascinating story. He started making whiskey because he knew Bill Lark quite well. And this was one of those classic stories that,
Speaker: you know, was so interesting, but just didn't work in, in the the actual yarn. Yeah. Sometimes you just have the, and it, it kind of went a bit long, but it he actually, him and his wife, Karen moved to Tasmania to look after a friend who had cancer and was unfortunately passing away. And Steve's background is in nursing. And so he, they were like, well, let's, let's move down there for this time. Look after our good friend.
Speaker: And, you know, she's having chemo, taking medication and, And he knew nothing about whiskey at the time. He said, you know, i called it Scotch and that's all I knew about it. i Had no idea Tasmania was making it. This is in sort of 2011. And she was like, oh, well you need to go and check out the distilleries he had. So he started going down to Lark yeah and he bought a ah bottle of their whiskey liqueur and had it with her. He was blown away from it. She loved it. All of a sudden he's ordering kind of, I guess, more and more whiskey liqueur because, uh, to help her with the medication and um to enjoy together so much so that the staff at Lark started to get a little bit suspicious because they were like, well, who's this guy ordering so much? and They kind of thought he's like, don't know. I think maybe they thought I might be relabeling the whiskey or something like that, which I guess maybe it used to happen in those days. It was a bit of a risk. So eventually they were like, oh, Bill, you've got to,
Speaker: You just suss this guy out, right? Yeah. Yeah. go Go see what he's about. And he told the story about that dear friend who was battling cancer. And, um, Bill of course was like, Oh, well there, here's your bottle of whiskey kill and here's another one on the house. And you know, they keep coming in and get, keep chatting to each other. Steve had just bought a motorbike. So, um, him and Bill started riding together and they were in the, uh, single malt motorcycle club, which I think is still going. Yes. Yes. I know it. I know it.
Speaker: So yeah, that's kind of how he fell into the world of distilling and and things like that. It was pretty pretty fascinating tale. Wow. No, mean, it's all happening down there and look, yeah read the story, of course, it's such a fascinating yarn and just to hear as well, someone sort of coming to the close of their business in a really, I guess, and just tying it off quite neatly and sort of getting to the end of their tenure and finding a way to say, hey, this is this is it and I'm done. that's um That to me is ah is a really unique sort of beautiful way to to finish up a business, I reckon. So so yeah.
Speaker: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And, you know, he he has some really good insights, I think, where he says like, you know, the the brewery only opens once a month. I've always wanted to go down there, but I've never lined up with the, my time in Hobart never lines up with his every third Friday that he's open. But he's like, you know, we could run the venue more. I think there's a lot of opportunity there, by at the end of the day, I'm looking to retire. I don't have the juice in my tank. Someone else potentially does. The model that he enjoyed most was making beer, selling it to local pubs, doing the occasional festival. But that's so much harder now, both to sell keg beer, to sell packaged beer. But also, ah it's a common thing hear from breweries.
Speaker: Festivals aren't quite as profitable as they used to be. can be more difficult, whether they're like... beer festivals or sort of those wider food and drink ones that they're sort of particularly those big ones that they are quite more corporate now looking for big corporate sponsors and things like that. uh, the thing he loved and doing, doing, he's had to sort of turn away from that and if he was still bit able to do that. Maybe it'd keep running it for a little bit longer. Yeah. Right. Fantastic. Well, uh, yeah. Good luck to him. um And of course, if you're you know if you're not familiar, definitely um you know get down, buy some of his beers. Check out his whiskies as well. They're they're fantastic. I tasted some recently, as I mentioned. they've found They're brilliant. So um yeah, a wonderful story. And from one beautiful, colorful character to another, we're going to the Jackie Lappin story now, which was put up this week. What an incredible read this is. You know, warms the cockles, this one. But yeah, talk us through Neera Richardson's amazing piece on Jackie Lappin.
Speaker: Yeah, Neil Richardson is our long-term contributor. from He's a Newcastle local. you know was ah We featured Jackie before. and i think James and him had a chat about this when I was away and I came back and I was like, oh, oh great, Neil's doing a Jackie Lappin, like the Jackie Lappin story. Yeah. This is so exciting. So Jackie took over the Carrington Bowling Club, which is a working class historically working class part of Newcastle, $300,000 in debt.
Speaker: And immediately she she loved, she'd been around clubs and things like that for a lot of her life, loved the sort of concept of of running a pub, not for sort of the publican, but for the community and set about just reinvigorating it completely, you know. wrote letters to um all the locals and like, you've got to support this. Do you do you want this to go or not? Like, if you want it to be around, give us some money. let's Let's get down here, spend some money. She's she's done all this while battling cancer a number of times. and um Of course, it's on the crafty pipe because she introduced k craft beer to there number years ago. Her son, Joe Lappin, is a brewer at Foghorn and, um you know, they've always supported independent beer, local beer. It fits so nicely into what They do. um i i first interacted with Jackie. I gave her a call in 2019 when we were doing a story on on clubs that that didn't have pokies and were looking for craft beer. Peterson Bowling Club is a longstanding one in the western suburbs of Sydney. Coburg RSL just up the road from us as well. but that They have great beer on tap and and Scott Cacaldi at the time he was working with us in sales. he He's a Newcastle lad himself and he was like, oh, you got to check out, give the guys a Carrington bowling club. a call And I just remember like being off the phone to her and and feeling both so much like joy of what she was doing. But also, you know, when you wrap up call and you just know you have the best quotes, like like the way some people talk in like perfect quotations, it was, it was worked really well.
Speaker: Yeah, and reading through it, ah the quotes are amazing. Hearing about, you know, having spent a bit of time in hospital, hearing about the hours that she was doing and the hours that she had to put in to make that place work is absolutely staggering. So, you know, anyone out there who enjoys a great, you know, small business story as well. I just can't believe how how hard she's had to work with all the adversity she had to to overcome. And yet, you know, um the the place is thriving. So, yeah, it's fantastic.
Speaker: Yeah. And you don't want to live or die by these things, but it's um nice to see that it's gone absolutely wild on social media. Like it it's doing, it's hopping off. It's obviously gone outside, I guess the craft beer bubble and it's it's it's broken containment lines. um really heartwarming comments to see someone posted how she's always been so supportive of the trans community as well like just really really nice comments everyone's calling for jackie to run for mayor which do she's got a bit too much on i imagine but yeah do it jackie run for mayor so yeah nice to see just they're still like my phone's kind of going wild with these notifications and it's just
Speaker: all such positivity. It's such a nice thing to see in this day and age. Yeah, definitely. Especially with, you know, some crazy stuff going in the world. I'll tell you what, if you want to feel better about your life this week, go and read this story. It is absolutely fantastic. But yeah, mate, I guess so. we rock into a break now and then we'll come back in a moment? Yeah, sounds good.
Speaker: Cheers.
Speaker: name is Kristen McGarry, I'm Head of Production at Your Mate's Brewing Company on the Sunshine Coast. We were having problems with collecting data, finding data when we needed to look back at quality recipe design so that we could yeah move forward with a fast-paced growing brewery.
Speaker: Beer 30 really helps with the whole brewery operation from start to finish from raw ingredients and procuring them to invoicing for finished goods and making sure that those invoices are getting out to the customer. and everywhere in between, really, really easy to onboard. We were using the system within 24 hours. Being a really fast-growing brewery with a real focus on quality, we see Beer 30 helping us achieve those quality goals, making sure that we don't have incidents like product recalls or any kind of substandard beer going out because all that data is there within the program and
Speaker: The bigger that we become, the more data we collect and the more powerful that tool becomes to us.
Speaker: Alrighty, so we're back here. And yes, this is Luke McCarthy. No crafty. art Today, I've taken over the airways. And yeah, look, it's what a privilege it is to be talking to you. Everything, beer. And our next little feature that I'd love to sort of bring up will obviously pop down to Elwood Brewing last week. Mate, fill us in about Elwood Brewing. What it's what the new venue is looking like down there.
Speaker: Yes, I took a rare journey south side. Got my Melways out and was travelling through the yeah scary streets of South Melbourne. No, el Elwood's this beautiful suburb. It's kind of lush, it's green. It's where you sort of, once you're, often I think of my friends who they were done with living too close to Chapel Street, Elwood was sort of immediately where you go. Or when you're starting to have a family, tree-lined, beautiful beaches as well. It's kind of got everything. It's got Lovely about ah Bayside. And now it's got, um so they're calling some themselves the EB Co. Tap Room. It's starred by the team at Elwood Brewing. they ah So it's Loz and Shannon. They started brewing during COVID and got really into beer at that time. They actually met at a local bar, which is now the place they're in, called the King of Tonga, which ran for an amazing 24 years. is One operator, years.
Speaker: ah Tiki Bar, so, you know, well-known local hangout. They got to know each other there during lockdowns. they They sort of started drinking beers together more. I mean, they were always drinking beers at the King of Tonga. But Home Brewing War, really thinking about beer, launched um soon after 2022.
Speaker: And we're like, that they knew Steve Riedecker, who ran the King of Tonga. And over time, they were like, oh... It had always been sort of part of the plan to move in there, but then Steve was like, I think 25 years might be about enough. Do you guys want to take it over? And that was a couple of months ago. Within a month, they opened the grand final long weekend at the end of September. turned it around and opened um is this tap room, I guess, a home for their beers. They're still brewing the beers and have always brewed them at other sites across Melbourne, but now they have this home that they're hoping to or sort of planning to extend out onto it as well. But yeah, it was really great to see there. They've got only got a couple of their own beers on tap, but they also have a bunch of other uh, local beers or everything they have is independent beer. They have a, uh, they do have Melbourne bitter with a, they sell it as a Japanese beer. So they're going to do that for as long as, uh, until they get in trouble. Uh, and yeah, no, the King of Tonga had four taps and they said when the refrigeration technicians came in and they were like, no, we want eight. They were like, Four, pretty tight for eight. You sure about that? And they're like eight, we need eight taps. eight We need like a full selection. And they're like, oh, six? No, eight, let's do eight. And you know, not holding back on the kind of styles or things they want to showcase places from ah around Melbourne. Shannon's the one who's behind the bar every day. And I think there's a um
Speaker: a real familiarity to him because obviously he's been drinking there for a long time. So a lot of the regulars are sort of new regulars, but it's a very different bar, very craft forward. And people who are coming in are kind of really stoked by that. And from the sounds of things, really enjoying the journey as well of of drinking those beers. Yeah. Cool. Great. We'll continue. You see, you know, someone who was you know, in front of the bar, let's just step behind and bring on some awesome beers. Well, mate, I'm going to check it out. You've inspired me. I'm definitely, I'm going to, you know, brave, brave the journey across the river and try and check it out myself. But yeah, that's fantastic. And look, another big one to mention, Pint of Origin is back.
Speaker: Tell us all about what's going to happen next year. Cannot wait. Well, the important thing is the dates are May 21 to May 30. So we're having moved away from Mother's Day last year, which is a good move. We're keeping it well and truly away from that. yeah Gives us a sort of some space air in ah Melbourne in May. Melbourne obviously has an incredibly stacked list.
Speaker: uh, sort of festival and events calendar. So we've still got free air there, which is great. And, um, yeah, at at the moment, um, a lot of venues from last year, we'll be back on lot of, uh, similar regions, but if you're a venue or you think maybe a venue should be involved, you can apply now, let us know, then you want yeah get involved because yeah, we're, we're really gearing up for it.
Speaker: Uh, this year, uh, the most recent pint of origin is definitely our biggest year. Yeah. Yeah. In terms of passport signups, beers sold, uh, public or the uh public relations as well well well we were all over the place all over the news so yeah we're really excited to um see it go on to bigger and better things that's how it may yeah i the responses that i've continued to hear uh ever since you held it this year have been you know super positive and fantastic so i cannot wait for that next year uh we'll have to uh convince you to go somewhere other than whiskey and element yeah there's a couple of other places I've entered into. It was a busy time then, but no, looking forward to it, mate. Looking forward it. It's going fantastic. And heading north up to Sydney now, Made in the Inner West Festival. was lucky to spend a bit of time in and around some of these breweries and distilleries recently. But um yeah, talk to us about Made in Inner West.
Speaker: Yeah. So it's running from next week, ah November 6th to November 15th. This is, you know, another, the inner west ale trail and Jason who writes for us, ah they're just not slowing down, right? Like it's great to see just a continuation of these, these events calendar, like nonstop. This is their biggest one yet, goes over most days. Basically the concept is asking local breweries to collaborate with local businesses. um It's really nice. gives a really nice story to tell. There's some natural ones, Sydney brewery with our Red Mill rum, Kix with coffee places, but you've also got young Henry's teaming up with reverse garbage who save clothes and sell clothes that would otherwise go to landfill. Like these really cool partnerships as well to celebrate, not just the beer of the inner west, but the community of it. Yeah, fantastic, mate. Oh, that looks exciting. Yeah, I'll tell you what, some of the breweries and other producers there, fantastic. Get around them. And importantly, Ben Lee is he's playing at four different breweries on November 7. You're a Ben Lee fan?
Speaker: Yeah. You'll keep quiet on that one. I have a love-hate with Ben Lee. I feel like Catch My Disease was such a giant earworm when I was in high school. It was just inescapable, wasn't it? But now I like it again. think we're going to spend a couple of decades almost despising it. But now I'm back on the Bentley bandwagon. Maybe I'll give it another play and see if I can maybe find something that I didn't the first time. But yeah, we'll see. We'll see how we go, mate. But yeah, heading back up north, Crafted Newcastle, what's happened there?
Speaker: Yeah, unfortunately, um I mean, goes to show how hard these traditional beer festivals are. that's The Newcastle one has been cancelled on November 7th. Fortunately, the Melbourne one, full steam ahead on November 21th. But I just, like, um you know, when you take these sort of festivals that happen all the time and, like, where you don't have to pay for a ticket, I do think it's getting challenging for some of those people to... Um, you know, sell tickets ahead. ah it it It remains, it's the same with gigs, at the same anywhere. I think, you know, so few people are willing to buy tickets until the week of, or just before, like, it just makes this such a diabolical space. I would say like, lineup looks great for Crafted. Melbourne will be there and you know, it would be, if you're gonna, if you're thinking of going to something, you might as well buy the tickets early. do it. Yeah. I know it's a very un-Melbourneian thing particularly, but like, think about it, you know, grab those tickets. Yeah. Get onto it. ah Fantastic. And the final one, mate, is one that we're going to be involved heavily with. Crafty Cheer, December 2nd at Molly Rose, back after a very, very popular event last year. um Yeah, I'm super keen for it. Yeah, yeah. And I think we're dubbing it a bit of a full measure events as well because there will be some spirits involved and oh you'll be there anyway. yes But yeah, i we had so much fun with it last year, basically. at ah
Speaker: Old fashioned Christmas dinner with lots of booze producers. I won't say who yet, but ah we literally this week, someone emailed in to say it was their best event of all of last year, which is pretty good. I mean, that's a claim doesn't come from that bigger than that. And a crafty cabal members, of course, we'll get a discount, but anyone and everyone is welcome to come along, celebrate the end of the year. um Wear a Christmas sweater, maybe if you want, I won't. The tackier the better. Yeah, the worse, the better. So yeah, grab one of those. Mate, well, that sounds fantastic. I'm looking forward to that. And next week's show, what are you got coming up there?
Speaker: Oh, we've got a special recording we made at Grainstock. So that'll be out on Tuesday in our long form chat. I can't wait for you to hear our our guest who comes all the way from Ireland via New South Wales. This bit of a teaser for everyone. And then, of course, we'll be back with the weekly news show next Thursday. So see you all then. Luke, thank you for for joining me. We'll have to do this more often. Yeah, mate. Of course. Always happy to be It was an absolute pleasure. geers Cheers. Cheers, mate.
Speaker: The Crafty Pint Podcast is produced and edited by me, Matt Hoffman. For all partnership inquiries, please reach out to Craig Williams at craig at craftypint.com. To keep up to date with everything in Australian craft beer, head to www.craftypint.com.
