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Another Round: Voyager's Vision
363 Plays9 days ago
With some in The Crafty Pint Podcast team spending much of winter travelling, we’re tapping into a few past episodes for July.
For round two of Another Round, we head back to the Riverina to revisit our chat with Brad Woolner and Stu Whytcross from Voyager Craft Malt. The best mates and business partners have helped pioneer small-scale malting in Australia, including through the launch of Grainstock, Stu’s passion project.
The industry event returns in October, so we felt it was a fitting time to highlight where the idea came from as well as Voyager’s wider story, which we recorded at the Whitton Malt House last year.
Before that conversation, Craig and Will caught up to chat about the week’s news. They discussed Jono Outred’s story on CBCo’s paddock to plate to pint approach in Margaret River, Will’s piece on the delightful Otter’s Promise, and Mick Wüst’s latest book, Whisky & Cocktails.
Start of segments:- 0:00 – The Week On Crafty
- 12:25 – Industry Insights with American Canning Machines
- 13:31 – Voyager Part 1
- 45:14 – A Special Deal From Price Screen & Digital
- 46:13 – Voyager Part 2
To find out more about featuring on The Crafty Pint Podcast or otherwise partnering with The Crafty Pint, contact craig@craftypint.com.
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Transcript
Introduction and Special Guest
00:00:04
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Crafty Pine podcast. I'm Will. And I'm Craig. Craig, thank you for joining me. Mate, flying in as a special guest. I know James is flying the crafty flag over in the the UK at the moment. So, um you know, coming in as ah as
Local Brewery Initiatives
00:00:20
Speaker
a pinch hitter.
00:00:20
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. I think he's probably, you know, too upset about all this Nigel Farage news, resigning, running for a seat, uh, and, and back again that, uh, he's too flat out at the moment to join us. Uh, but what's going on in the sunshine coast. I saw some local brewery video promotion the other day. And when I see things like that on the sunshine coast, my first two words in my head at Craig Williams.
00:00:43
Speaker
Well, no, you're not wrong. I think um the Sunshine Coast Council, they... Well, I don't know. I don't know if it's a national campaign or not, but they they promote this Buy Local Day towards the end of June and um a lot of local small businesses kind of get around it and and you know do their own little campaigns and things like that. We we thought we'd...
00:01:03
Speaker
do ah a video with a number of the breweries up here. We had a black flag Moffat beach and, um, your mates kind of joined forces, I guess, but really just to put a call out on behalf of all the breweries on the coast to, uh, just try and encourage people to, um, you know, the next time they're, they're standing in front of the, the beer aisle to, to choose a local option over ah a multinational and, um, Yeah, it definitely it got a bit of traction. I think people appreciate it and, i you know, I think any any opportunity like that to get the message out there, that to convince that that next beer drinker to try a locally brewed, locally
CB Co Brewing's Sustainable Approach
00:01:40
Speaker
owned option is um is always good.
00:01:42
Speaker
Wonderful. Cool, cool. Well, I mean, getting very local, the team at CB Co Brewing in Western Australia, we ran a story this week from Jono Outred about the paddock to pint to plate philosophy that they've really gone down. It's a journey I know they've been on for a number of years and probably, you know, hats off to Jono for sort of noticing it and seeing the story story value, I think, in it as well, because it's kind of not something I think they, you'd know if you didn't visit CB Co necessarily, that what they're up to there.
00:02:12
Speaker
I love this story and um you know I haven't been to CB Co in Margaret River but this story just made me want to jump on a plane and get over there. and and you know the The way I read it, it's essentially you know it's the the key people are the venue and operations manager. Is it Matt? and they There's a ah farmer. They own like a fair bit of property there.
00:02:33
Speaker
They're farming it in a regenerative way, so low impact. um And all of that's feeding into the the venue's menu and operations, um ties in with the beers and so on as well. But I think the the thing that I love about it and and what impressed me is, um you know, I don't know if you've ever run a restaurant or a venue, Will, but um it can be... it can be such a big challenge to have a big ambitious vision like that of that paddock to plate philosophy.
00:03:03
Speaker
But then it's that next layer down of how do you find the and train and retain the the staff and the team to then deliver on that vision. So, you know, from the chefs to the front of house team to to everyone and that to me is just ah another layer of that story. They're obviously doing it really, really well and and particularly in ah you a tourism region where you might not have the same I guess, level of staff that you might find in the capital cities and so on as well. So yeah, hats off to CBCO. It's ah it's a great story.
00:03:33
Speaker
Yeah, big time. And particularly in a part of the world like Margaret River, where it's a big tourism area, they ah have shoulder seasons, but it's pretty busy all the time. So, ah you know, you do need to be a high throughput venue and and they still do have pizza on the menu and that kind of thing. But sort of Trying to balance that is ah is a really difficult challenge. i think when a lot of people coming in, potentially people who have never been to Margaret River before, maybe never been to a brewery before, haven't been in Australia for that long. Like it's it's a really popular destination for international tourists. So to sort of um try and tell that story, I think is is a really great one to hear.
00:04:10
Speaker
Yeah, and and I mean it kind of it ties in into the next story. We we we did a piece on Otter's Promise and, you know, one thing from a regional location up here on the Sunshine Coast that's also very tourism-driven, Margaret River's probably got ah a really strong, a bit more of a food and wine focus for it. So you're probably attracting a little bit more of
Otter's Promise Anniversary
00:04:30
Speaker
that that type of vocational staff, I suppose. And then to Otter's Promise, you know, these people that – I'm really fascinated and I love the stories of the people who see hospitality, who see, you know, food and beverage as a vocation and a career and something that can really grow and improve the industry. You know, we talked to Dan in this story. He's, what, 10 years in at Otter's Promise? Is that right, Will? Yeah, so the bottle shop side of the business turns 10 at the end of this year and then it's been a bar for a
00:05:02
Speaker
They're turning up to the nine year anniversary of being a bar as well. It took Dan a little while to get the, uh, right approvals in place, probably potentially a sign of, of really being a bit of a pioneer in that local council of being one of the first people, you know, the North side of Melbourne had for a while had this kind of bar craft beer bottle shot combination. Dan recognized, I actually, the first time I met him was at a Moondog many years ago, just before he he opened up. And i remember him saying, he's like, I just just think this area is right and it needs it. And you know, it's not just Otter's Promises stories and just about craft beer. It's also that having that relaxed vibe that high street Armidale is quite a, it's where you go shopping for high-end fashion boutiques. The cafe is quite fancy. There's a lot of wine bars. some of which are probably come and gone in the time that Dan's been running orders, but he's always made this really relaxed, comfortable space that I think anyone can appreciate going to. And, um, I think it's serving in wonders in this day and age where people might only want to casually pop in for one beer and and and they want to get out and stuff, but you know, money's tight and all those kinds of things.
00:06:08
Speaker
Yeah, and I mean that's the – one, it's the the vision and the ambition to see you know a location like that and think I can i can make this kind of you know venue or atmosphere or vibe work in that space. um And I think it's that touchpoint with the community as well and you know that's the – That to me is the real point of difference with with craft beer and every every brewery tap room, every you know independent Australian-owned brewery, they've got that story, they've got that connection to the community and it can really sustain a small local business like that. um I really love the... he He drops a couple of nuggets in that interview. um I really love the way he talks about his taps his curation of his taps and fridges and so on and You know, he's got six taps there, which doesn't sound like a lot, but it's probably kind of perfect for that spot.
00:06:58
Speaker
And it's sort of the, you know, the two or three core, um you know, popular sellers, the lager, the pale ale that are are going to be the, they they're they're on for a month at a time kind of thing. And then the other taps are sort of whatever they're interested in. But the fridges are where he kind of gets to play a little bit more and and bring in the specialties and and the the unusual exotic beers for the for the real hardcore fans.
00:07:21
Speaker
Yeah. And I mean, Dan's probably won't mind me saying that, you know, I'm sure he'd love to have six taps of kind of odd, wacky, big IPAs and all these kinds of things that he personally loves to drink, but he knows, that you know, he he knows how to curate them the right way. And in the bottle shop as well, you don't go into otters and kind of feel like everything's there and you get
Mick Woost's New Book
00:07:40
Speaker
that overwhelmed. you You know, that there's, there's been a decision made at some point, which just makes buying beer a lot easier.
00:07:47
Speaker
Yeah, nice. Cool. And someone who's looking to make buying whiskey a little bit easier for ever everyone is our own Mick Woost, who, a long-time Crafty Pint freelance writer based up in Brisbane. He's just published his third book. It was out about a week ago at the time of recording. This one's on called Whiskey and Cocktails. So it follows on his first book for this publisher was on beer, naturally, as he's...
00:08:12
Speaker
traditionally been a beer writer. He then moved on to gin and he's now written this whiskey book. Um, he, he told me it was his most challenging to write quite upfront. A lot of words have obviously been written about whiskey. There's a lot of mystique. There's a lot of sort of, uh, tradition nuance and and, and it's so different in every part of the world and yeah, just so much for him to absorb. And I've managed to have a look at an early digital copy and it's, um, it's classic Mick Woost in his ability to like,
00:08:41
Speaker
break down complex stuff, make it really accessible. Like his beer book, I actually use all the time when, yeah ah you know, particularly if I'm, know I'm going to be on radio or something like that. And I asked sort of some straightforward, simple questions that I don't normally do. And I always turn to Mick's book to be like, oh, how do I make sure I'm ready to explain this in a straightforward way without all the nonsense jargon that we have in the industry?
00:09:07
Speaker
Yeah, nice. i I've been a big Mick Wist fan since since day one. I think he's such a great writer and, you know, he exactly as you say, he takes all the pretension out of out of the subject and he makes it approachable and friendly and and easy to understand and but in a super fun way as well. And I noticed on his his blurb on the website there that he's even got a few Suggested whiskey pairings for, you know, the Godfather movies and 11 James Bond films. So I'm quite curious to to hear more about that.
00:09:39
Speaker
Not only that, but he's also got a section where he pairs whiskey and toasties. So i I don't think anyone's ever done that before. No one's had the bravery to to think about whiskey in that way.
00:09:51
Speaker
I pride myself on a good toasty. Well, I'm kind of known in the household here as the the toasty king. So I'd be, yeah, excited to expand that repertoire with a few good whiskey pairings as well.
00:10:03
Speaker
So a link to buy Mick's book will be in the show notes. We've also got a short article out about it this week. And if you want to buy it direct, you can head to mickwust.weebly.com. He does say though, and you can buy a signed copy that way too, but he did tell me that it doesn't really matter how you buy the book. You buy it from an independent bookshop, Amazon, number of places, however you buy it does help him out. I always wonder how you get the most amount of money, but if you want a signed personalized copy, then the only way to buy it is from Mick directly.
00:10:32
Speaker
what What a great idea. And I'm just dropping dropping some notes in case my wife is listening, but Father's Day is is on the horizon. ah
Voyager Malt's Journey Begins
00:10:40
Speaker
And now Kim knows what to buy you. There you go Absolutely.
00:10:45
Speaker
And on to this week's guest. It's another rerun episode. We were calling them reruns as a team and then someone came up. Well, Matt, our producer, came up with the brilliant idea of calling them another round. to give us a nice little beer metaphor. And we're going to hear shortly once again from Brad and Stu at Voyager Malt. This is a conversation James and I recorded sort of mid last year and came out about a year ago, just as they were sort of revealing the plans and putting together their first ever grain stock, which you were at as well, Craig.
00:11:15
Speaker
Yeah, and and you know I think anyone who was at that event, um it feels like you were at the the start of like, I don't know the first Woodstock or something. it kind of had that vibe of you were there for something really special.
00:11:28
Speaker
i it was an incredible event and I would highly recommend if you if you missed out on it last time to – to get in and and book tickets early um if you can and ah head to grainstock.com.au and check it out.
00:11:42
Speaker
um Yeah, just such ah a wonderful, wonderful event that really brought home what's awesome about the the brewing industry, the distilling industry and and not that we knew much about it but the baking industry at the same time. so great opportunity to get a whole bunch of of grain people together.
00:12:00
Speaker
Oh yeah. I just remembered how delicious a lot of the bread being served throughout the conference was. I still think about that bread. Well, that was great. So yeah, enjoy the, uh, rerun of the conversation we had with Brad and Stu last year. And if you'd like to attend grain stock in its second year, uh, then it's in early October and you can buy an early bird ticket right now. Enjoy the chat. Cheers.
00:12:22
Speaker
Cheers. Well,
00:12:25
Speaker
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00:12:30
Speaker
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00:12:37
Speaker
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00:12:54
Speaker
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00:13:11
Speaker
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00:13:23
Speaker
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Voyager Malt's Origins
00:13:32
Speaker
Stu and Brad, thanks so much for joining us. Yeah, thanks for coming out. Well, do you want to start there and tell us a little bit about where we are? This is a beautiful part of the world. Yeah, yeah. So we're um right now, we're situated in the the marquee at the Witten Malthouse, which is this yeah beautiful hospitality tourism facility that we're really lucky that we get to to sit alongside with our malting facility over over in the back. You can see some of the some of the tanks and of our germination vessels um there. So we're in a little town called Whitten, right in the heart of the Muramiji irrigation area in the Riverina, southern New South Wales.
00:14:12
Speaker
Yeah. And I guess going in very simple sense, what is what is Voyager? What is Voyager craft malt? you want to answer that one, Wolf?
00:14:23
Speaker
Yeah, we're ah an on-farm craft malting facility. We yeah work with growers, um source a wide variety of of grains and malt them for the craft brewing industry, craft distilling and artisan baking industry as well.
00:14:43
Speaker
Yeah. and um And it's your baby, the the two of you. But I guess going back before Voyager, like you two aren't just business partners. You've known each other since you were like how old? You were neighbors. Is that right? Your family's had neighboring farms or something. Is that right?
00:14:57
Speaker
yeah Yeah, we've yeah been best mates from from young age, went to school together, grew up playing sports. Like primary school all the way through? Yeah, was it a central, Berlin Central School, so kindergarten through to three d year 12. Went to school together, grew up neighboring farms, yeah playing sport, riding motorbikes, went to university together and um yeah now in now in business together. And studying stuff at uni that let would have led to this or did you heading in other directions?
00:15:27
Speaker
Yeah, no, definitely for me it was another direction. I studied finance, accounting and finance at university and some of those um has been helpful in in running a small business.
00:15:39
Speaker
Stu studied design technology, which certainly came a handy a lot designing designing all our malting equipment. um But not specifically, we we didn't at that stage of our lives anyway, we didn't um We didn't know we were going to be going down this path. Um, and did you think you'd come back to the town you grew up in or the area, or did you sort of both have visions of leaving at some point?
00:16:03
Speaker
I probably did. Yeah. I guess I was, um, yeah, I was lucky to be, uh, gifted 50 acres for my 12th birthday of you know, about family farm and, uh, farming was kind of all I ever known and all I really wanted, wanted to do, growing up.
00:16:19
Speaker
ah yeah During the millennium drought it wasn't a great time to be be farming and kind of the writing was on the wall, I guess for me, that the farm wasn't going to support mum and dad and and and myself going back to it. So I looked to go and do something else in the meantime.
00:16:34
Speaker
um with Always the the plan was to to go back to the back to the farm. um and the The design technology degree I did was essentially to let me teach at tapes and colleges at night time so I could work on the farm during the day. and um yeah Things kind of changed when we got to uni and met a girl that became my wife. but Myself and Brad also got into... We're very competitive, myself and Brad. We've um yeah done a lot of things together, but we've got into into home brewing and it was just kind of trying to outdo each other. and ultimately led to yeah making some malt and starting a molten. Who made the best beer? oh yeah just I won the most awards at national levels on a home brewing front and and and then we changed tack to malting from there. So I'm not sure what happened there. What were specialty stars? Brad won, I think he won three trophies with the one beer that he entered three different different categories. so
00:17:30
Speaker
Has the beer come back on a commercial scale? ah have you lent your recipe to anybody to you know make it make it happen? I couldn't even recreate it myself after many, many attempts. We actually, like getting into malting, we were kind of, you know, one of the, I guess, advantages for us was that we we thought we were going to be brewing all the time. We're like, no, we're testing every batch of malt. We're going to be doing so much brewing. And i think I'm,
00:17:51
Speaker
I've brewed once to show one of our our staff members and i think you've brewed ever since. Since then we just haven't had time. and But what's plan when you came back here to open a brewery and then you you you with your finance background went mate, no. Is that right? We did do a yeah a bit of a um a study over the, sat down over the weekend and ran some numbers with another friend who was a brewer as well. and uh yeah it's just the tyranny of distance and and this is back before yeah crappy was huge it was probably 15 years ago 20 years ago um and yeah we couldn't make it work out out where we are um but then yeah at at the same stage the craft
00:18:30
Speaker
craft malting industry in America was starting to take shape. They formed a guild over there and um it looked like it was evolving into something and and we sort of thought to ourselves, we're in the prime barley growing area of of Australia here. We know a lot about grain handling and and growing good barley, maybe that's focus that we should look at. I think we kind we kind of got our brewing fix through the Breland beer project as well. Like that was, I guess a good feasibility. So when when yeah Brad ran the numbers and we know, we just can't make this work. We were still fairly committed to to really wanting to to champion the local barley that had been growing and taken it through um yeah to a so to a beer. And we thought that, you know, maybe if we we crowdsource this and Breland's a population of 300 and we ended up raising nearly close to $50,000 just through the local community saying hey look if you can give us some money we can we'll put we put together a non-for-profit organization and we we set out this mission of taking some local barley getting it put into it to a beer for our community and really telling that story of of provenance and the farmer and we kind of soon discovered in that process that there's just no there was no real opportunities to go and get a ton of barley molted somewhere. and um yeah Everything that was being grown then was being transported, you know, hours and hours away to be molted and then, yeah, moved on wherever wherever else. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yep.
00:19:58
Speaker
Yeah, so um yes so we we yeah launched that beer and it's still brewed today. You can get it at the cellar door here behind us. um But I guess that played a big part in in us know eventually um yeah creating that opportunity yeah that we did for Borellum Beer for other brewers and and distillers and and bakers, being able to tell a story of provenance and yeah, yeah.
00:20:22
Speaker
And how how soon from the the fundraiser did you move on to launching, I guess, the first stage of Voyager? It took a couple of years. There lot of research went on in that period. And we traveled around a bit and internationally and nationally and and spoke to a lot of people and Yeah, probably probably evolved over a little while. We started building our own equipment that Stuart designed out in the farm and um and and doing some trial batches and things to work out if it if we could make it work. and
00:20:52
Speaker
And then... And you were teaching at the time, is that right? what What were you doing, Brad, while this was happening? Yeah, I was working in finance while we were backgrounding all that. That's right. yeah and And then, um yeah, it must have been 2016 that we bit the bullet and jumped in head
Challenges and Growth at Voyager Malt
00:21:10
Speaker
first. Yeah. and um for And that was very quite close to where we are now. Is that right? You put put the first shed in?
00:21:16
Speaker
Yes. It's just behind us, probably five kilometres away. Yeah. um And there's ah yeah a bit of a story on how we got set up at this location. my My wife was in a mother's group meeting with probably complaining about our obsession with starting this multi-house. and I was going to say, well, what did people think when you came to me and said, like, we've got this vision to like, you know, build this malting operation here. So your wife was clearly quite sort of down on the idea. She's probably just sick of hearing me bang on about it. But there was another another member of the mother's group.
00:21:50
Speaker
who worked out yeah not far from where we are now, who knew of a ah site that had been built originally for an ethanol plant, which is similar in a lot of ways to to a malting facility. and And it didn't go ahead. But the structure was there. There was ah a lab set up and there was, um you know, silos there and a way bridge and and a lot of grain infrastructure. And then right next door was a stainless steel manufacturing business, all tied into one. So we came out and and had a look and couldn't believe our luck, you know, half an hour from, from where we live sort of thing is a facility that's waiting, ready to, ready to be turned into a malt house. Yeah.
00:22:29
Speaker
And what was the intention? i mean, you're saying, you know, you saw up an opportunity to, guess, do small batch malt. Was there a vision beyond that? yeah know, was it like, oh, we, we can do something more for the region or at that time was it like we, we can offer something that's more tailored to, you know, small breweries or what have you? Yeah. I, I,
00:22:48
Speaker
don't really really know we had had much of a plan like i think it was it was more so can we do this can we design something can make some molt and then it just kind of evolved from there really i think we kind of sat down and said we need to make x amount of tons and get to here and here it was like you know i think if we design a system like this i i think it might work and then we did it it didn't work and then we'd change it and try again and we just kind of kept on making mistakes and changing things and then before we knew it we had know we're supplying half a dozen breweries and they were kind of then relying on us because they'd designed some beers around what we'd done and then we'd yeah a few more customers that come on and and you know we need to we need to expand and put another system in to try and keep up and yeah that's yeah i guess the driver though like we did talk to a lot of people and brewers that we knew in the industry and and there was a
00:23:33
Speaker
i genuine interest in knowing where their malt came from suppose and that's something that we thought we could do really well on a on quite a small scale because we can have that seg segmentation um and provide and and you know in the and still today malt that goes out still references the area that it was grown from and and that's something that we started very early on and brewers really appreciated that being ah able but to tell the story of the farmer and the location of where that grain came from in in their beers so And they often come out to meet the farmers and stuff, don't they? Like that there's sort of a full connection there for a lot of those breweries now.
00:24:13
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. And, and, you know, and that having this facility next, next door to us, you know, like the villas that we've got that, you know, you guys stayed in last night, like, it's such a a unique experience to, you know, to have them get out of the the daily grind of brewing and, know, come out here for for a night or two away and get out and meet some of the farmers and and see, you just the the passion that some of these farmers have, but you know, it's, we know how passionate our brewers are in general to see growers that have got the same passion that they do. And, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's kind of,
00:24:43
Speaker
Probably one of about first and one of my proudest achievements is that seeing that that connection between yeah putting a smile on a farmer's face and giving them some purpose and and some meaning and in terms of what they do um yeah it's it's It's a pretty unique um opportunity, I guess, that we've created for for brewers and farmers to meet.
00:25:02
Speaker
How did you find your first brewing customers? like Were you involved in industry in some other way? Like how did you bring the likes of Batch and Wildflower on board in the first place? Yeah, we're both members of the Canberra Brewers Club, which has been a pretty amazing breeding ground for some of the brewing industry now in terms of the people that have come through. the Canberra Brewers there. But so we had some some connections through that. But yeah, the guys at Batch Brewing were probably and Topher was working with them at the time. I'm not sure how they just reached out to us and, you know, they basically we could make one ton a week in the early days and they agreed to take one ton a week and provide us feedback and really work with us to, you know, we, you know,
00:25:47
Speaker
ah a great deal to to the work that Batch did in the early days, yeah sticking by us and taking some pretty ordinary mullet times that we were sending them. um And yeah yeah, and still to this day, we still had a great relationship relationship with the guys at Batch and yeah they come down here here fairly often and hang out. So it's been a great relationship through there. And then it was just word of mouth, I guess. we we kind of One, we didn't really in the early days have the production capacity to supply too many other people. um But, um, yeah, we just kind of word spread and we take on a few more and where where were you getting the first batch of, uh, first lot of barley from, was that from your, from, from, like well i say yeah yeah from from, um, so, um, back then, uh, the 50 acres, while was, I was growing some older kind of unique varieties and, um, what were you doing with it before you could molt it yourself?
00:26:42
Speaker
were were you sending it off elsewhere when you've grown the barley or yeah yeah yeah growing other cereal cereal grains but barley at times um wheat as well yeah um so yeah i'd say how how much of a gift is being given 50 acres it sounds like a hard work 12th birthday present it's not like getting a nintendo switch or something like yeah i use this joke for quite a bit most probably have heard it before but it's going to be argued that it was yeah it could have been more a form of child abuse 50 acres right before 10 years of drought i remember that the the first year i had it i was 12 and and grew an amazing worker and then mum and dad they didn't um give me any any assistance was like here you go you're going to make some mistakes but you'll you'll learn from that yeah And the first year grew a ah bumper wheat crop and grossed about, I think, $12,000, which was a lot of money. You know, a lot lot of money today, but for a 12 year old kid to have that kind of money back then. And I don't even know what I spend it on. Like it was... Early ice creams or something. I do have this whole memory of the Berlin show of me just being the man giving out dodging cars left, right, and center. um
00:27:54
Speaker
Uh, and then what followed after that was, you know, 10 years of not really harvesting ah a crop at all. So it was a tough lesson to learn as a, as a 12 year old kid to yeah put some money inside for the, uh, the bad times. What did you get for your 12th birthday, Brad? Oh, not that, not 50 acres. I have no idea. that you go on a dodgem car ride. Interesting. oh actually, uh, lost the 50 acres to Brad in a state of origin bet one year. Uh, Brad goes for Queensland for some reason. And, um, Yeah, the Maroons beat the Blues and we had a bet of... I had some sheep. I ah i had a hundred head of ewes or something and yeah I put them up and won. So yeah, technically that's more 50 acres. You're the majority shareholder in in Voyager just on the back of that bet. And how have you gone about growing? Because obviously, you're one ton a week and now you've got this you know incredible um you know operation behind you. But it's got in a number of stages, but also pretty rapidly as well.
00:28:51
Speaker
did it was It was a snowball effect and it it started very slowly. It was it was certainly, and I'm sure any small business will will say the same thing, but the first 12 months, two years was was really, really hard work and we had a lot of ups and downs and and many more downs than ups.
00:29:10
Speaker
and then And then from there, things started to, yeah as that snowball gets bigger, it sort of gained its own momentum and and things started to improve. So, We, um, we stepped up production capacity, uh, yeah, a few times through that, through those stages and still with hope your own design and built machinery. Yeah. That's like, yeah, still, yeah. Um, back over on on the original site. Um, and then, and then eventually got to a point, um, to, to do a greenfield site and and expand out, uh, in a significant, um, expansion. Yeah.
00:29:44
Speaker
Yeah. And how much are you doing a week now from one ton? Uh, close to 150. Yeah. yeah um It does seem like a bit of ah a blur now, but thinking back to those those early days, like it was it was tough. I think yeah for for a couple of years that years there between myself and Brad, one of us was on site nearly 24 hours a day, seven days a week, all year round. yeah it was We didn't have the automation or control we have now, so we had to be there monitoring things. you know it's It's a living, breathing yeah entity molt, so you've got to be there at all hours of the night. yeah We were loading the kiln as well, and it
Craft Distilling's Impact on Voyager
00:30:20
Speaker
was, yeah, to think back to
00:30:22
Speaker
the the Yeah, it was certainly tough back then. Definitely. like i want What gave you the confidence to raise the the money to go and build something you know this this substantial? Um, I get one of the things we we probably didn't allow for, like we we're being really passionate about, about beer, um, right from the start, but it was probably the, the distilling scene. Like we kind of took us a bit by surprise. We, for some reason kind of just assumed that distillers wouldn't be interested in what we've got. They're after cheap, you know, ethanol and, and they're not going to get that, that from us, but, um, you know, a ton of malt makes,
00:30:58
Speaker
you know, 100 kegs of beer, that same ton of malt makes one barrel of whiskey. So you're taking so much product and condensing it down. You you can really start to see any little nuance in grain variety or farming practice or those kind of things. So that was a bit of an eye-opener for us and it really opened up ah a very rapid um rapidly growing market that we didn't really account for. And the distilling industry like craft brewing has gone through some yeah some huge expansion of late. And it was really, yeah i guess, a couple of distillers there that um yeah had based some products around some unique grains that we had. And and for for them to get to where they needed to be, we we had to yeah go along for the ride with them. Yeah.
00:31:39
Speaker
And you mentioned unique grains there. That's been a very central part of the Voyage historic. Can you tell us about sort of the background and why you sort of started, I guess, encouraging farmers to grow either heritage varieties or even going to the seed banks and like experimenting with, you know, either sort forgotten or historic grains?
00:31:55
Speaker
Yeah, I think probably from what's something I'm growing up on our farm and and even now I've got a, think i've got a pretty impressive veggie vegie garden. I like to grow a lot of old heirloom seeds and and those kinds of things. And um yeah, tomatoes is a great analogy because you can go and get, you know a tomato off the shelf at Coles and Woolies and bite into it. And it kind of probably tastes more like a yeah a potato than it does a tomato.
00:32:19
Speaker
Growing these older heirloom varieties, they're just completely different. different in terms of flavour and and and yeah ah I just seem like a natural progression that that we look at all the breeding that's gone into any kind of agricultural commodity. It's all been around efficiency and and all these these great things but it's it's often been a sacrifice of flavour and that's you know we kind of that's what we do we're we're not the we don't produce bulk commodity malt we you know we're were we're here to to create malts that brewers and and distillers craft brewers and stillers can kind of leverage off to give them you new flavors to work with and we've just found that um the further back in time we go resurrecting these varieties the more interesting it is to you visually um even to chew on to um the aromas from it so it kind of made sense um to start going back and from resurrecting some of these older varieties so yeah getting from the seeds gene bank and
00:33:15
Speaker
yeah There's a lot of work that goes goes into it. and remember yeah planting them into pot plants and harvesting with scissors and then planting them out into a bit bigger of a veggie garden and then migrating to smaller plots of my 50 acres and then getting up to some yeah some decent volumes now where guys like yeah Chris and Sam Greenwood are able to to grow those. and Let's make another point about these heirloom grains. for For people like Chris that are, you know, Chris actually discovered us wanting to, yeah you know, he heard that we were yeah needing these older heirloom varieties. You know, him in his organic farming system can't use yeah synthetic fertilizers or chemicals or or nitrogenous fertilizers. So these older varieties grow much better in those farming systems. They compete better with weeds. And so it just kind of, yeah, seems to work well for everyone.
00:34:02
Speaker
for everyone and And then talking of child abuse, tell us how you work with the local school in sort of, you know, getting getting
Educational Collaborations with Voyager Malt
00:34:10
Speaker
new varieties um scaled up. Yeah, yeah. Look, that's that's probably, yeah, yeah something i'm I'm really proud of, actually, was that the the amount of work that that was involved in in planning these trials. And we we yeah did it for a couple of years here on site, you know, growing a lot of different varieties. I think we grew, you 30 or 40 different varieties of rye.
00:34:29
Speaker
And there's there's a lot of work and and it's ah there's a lot of work at the the time when we're busy, it's when it's harvest time, we've got grain coming in and and yeah brewers are ramping up. So we've got malt being dispatched and then we've got to go out and yeah harvest these grains with scissors. So yeah, we teamed up with the local local high school here in Griffith High and in their year 11-12 Ag class now the students come and they they take one of the small varieties and they collect deeper of data on it for us, they plant it, harvest it, bring the seeds back here and yeah where we can run some analysis on it and go from there. so
00:35:01
Speaker
Maybe it's child labour more than child abuse, I guess. Yeah, yeah. But I think it's great these kids um have a damn facility like this and see yeah the the yeah where grain ends up in terms of baked products and and beer and spirits and certainly gets them a lot more interested about you know about the industry and and yeah hopefully um encourage them to to make some good good choices around their yeah beer and and spirit drinking moving forward. Is there any like variety coming through or anything that you're super excited about or or whether it could be a little bit newer or we we have reduced just released one at the at the moment called Cape Barley. We've run it a little bit in the past, but Cape is an old six row variety that was um the the variety that Cascade Brewery in Hobart was using back in 1824 for half a dozen years back then.
00:35:53
Speaker
And some of the the the comments in some old newspapers were that they found it um Yeah, far better than some of the imported malts and what they were using at the time. So we've got a couple of breweries that have been itching to get their hands hands on it. We mentioned Eben at Bendigo there and Topher with his car scales that he's doing now. so Um, yeah, and, and it's one that that Chris Greenwood's been pushing a lot as well because he he loves growing. It's one that, you really performs well on his farm and, um, yeah, in his farming system. So, yeah.
00:36:23
Speaker
yeah So how, how are you sort of finding these, are you sort of talking to the universities and seed banks or are you reading old stuff on newspapers on Trove and, Trying to dig into what breweries are, where's it sort of come from? A bit of everything, I guess. yes um One, the the catalogues that you can get from the the seeds gene bank are pretty impressive. yeah Some of these are 10,000, 20,000 varieties in there. Some of them have just got a number. Some of them have got you know an interesting, you know a cool name. And some of them have got a bit more data about what it was bred from or what some issues were from it So it's kind of been a yeah a bit of bit of research, a bit of trial and error, bit of picking some things that have got a cool name. And and do they all work the same way once they get here? Is is there a similar process in, I guess, in simple terms for listeners or viewers, like what happens once the grain gets here and before it leaves, you know?
00:37:13
Speaker
ah You know in terms of these older varieties, some of them, the grain doesn't even even get here. Some of them, know, aren't being grown because they're just, you complete disasters. We grew some some rye that just didn't produce any any seed at all. So, yeah, like I think it's a bit of a balancing act as well, bringing back these, you know, these varieties. You start off with such a really small amount of seeds. It's then when do you start sacrificing taking some of those grains that you could use to bulk up stock to to run through its moults and start doing some sensory evaluations and those kind of things. So it is a bit of a balancing balancing act. yeah um
00:37:49
Speaker
So yeah, they all don't make it make it here, but yeah, we kind of talk a lot with distills and brewers about what they're after and what they're interested in and anything that kind of throws some unique traits or characteristics or ones that will kind of earmark and look to kind of yeah ramp up through through the school. and But you'll take pretty much any grain that will work and you'll do whatever they want to it in terms of smoking as well. like You've got a pretty bespoke um offering here.
00:38:17
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And that was that was kind of a yeah one of the reasons, I guess, in designing our own our own equipment was that we wanted to not just malt barley and we we do rye and wheat and other cereal grains, but we've also run through pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds, millet, rice, corn, oats.
00:38:37
Speaker
Yeah, there's kind of no limit to any seed grain or legume that you can malt. Wattle seeds. Yeah. Yeah. what's and What's the division of labor like, you know, ah you don't like the talking, they're the face of Voyager. bratt and Brad, like what's your sort of, you know, your, I guess, empire within within the Voyager operation? Yeah, broadly speaking, I manage the production side of things. So um the the team that we've gotten and making, making them up and
00:39:08
Speaker
And broadly, Stu handles the the custom facing. So it's a yin and yang that works well for us. Yeah. and And in simple terms, like how's the production work? You obviously see take raw grain comes in and, you know, what's the, yes, back into too much detail, the process it goes through before it's bagged up and sent Yeah, more or less a seven day process, the malting process. So raw grain comes in, it's cleaned, it steeps in in water for one or two days, yeah transfers into a germination vessel where it's germinating in there, depending on which what grain and what malt we're trying to make, but it can be anywhere between three and six or seven days. And then, so we then we dry that back out um to to halt germination, halt germination halt the modification of the the enzymes and the the release of enzymes and the modification of the starches and dry that back out. And depending on what sort of times and temperatures we used in the kilning process gives us different malt flavours as well. so and then And then the vessel's unloaded and reloaded and we reset and go again week on week. So that's in a nutshell, yeah, that's the malting process. And from there, the malt gets cleaned cleaned up again and then either packaged into
00:40:21
Speaker
25 kilo bulk bag or or bulk truck yeah and in the meantime you've got got a lot of uh silos um storing i guess every every every single grade you make as well yeah so that's that's part of the i guess the the intention of a voyager being in business was um to create all that segregation and and um that traceability for the brewers. And that was really easy when we were running one tonne week when we first started. Much, much more difficult now when we're running, you know,
00:40:55
Speaker
multiple batches a week and and much more larger volumes so you know sort of you'll see behind us so we've got many many uh small silos um as opposed to a couple of big large bunkers or or silos which um know if we were consolidating everything and processing like that it'd be it'd be very different so um that that whole segregation thing um it's ah It's a really good thing and something that we're we're passionate and proud about, and but it also causes a lot more management. It costs a lot more. It costs a lot more as well. yeah yeah
00:41:29
Speaker
and I'd love to come back up to the break and have a chat about the wider sustainability and i guess the yeah impact you're having on the industry and and area here. Before we get that though, there's there's more than just the malting operation here
Whitton Malthouse Development
00:41:40
Speaker
now. Can tell us a little bit about the Whitton Malthouse and how that's all come about? you know creating this yeah you know amazing destination within within the region at the moment we're at the the witten malt house behind that is voyager which is the malting operation behind that is is southern cotton which is a a cotton gin uh and we we approached them to do ah a bit of a joint venture and in when we did our expansion at and voyager and as part of that they they said we'd like to do a ah little cellar door uh on the side that showcases the the beers and whiskies made with your malt and
00:42:12
Speaker
And, uh, and that was really good. So great idea. Um, and then each time we had a meeting, there was another idea thrown up about, uh, you know, another function that, that could happen or one of, one of the directors of Southern cotton is a mad golfer. So there's a, there's a golf chipping, uh, range into the, into the water and, um,
00:42:32
Speaker
Another director is a part of Murray Cod Australia. So in one end of the lake behind us, we've got stocked with Murray Cod that you can that you can catch. You can grab a fishing rod and and reel in some Murray Cod.
00:42:46
Speaker
So yeah, meeting after meeting and and it evolved into something much, much more bigger than ah ah yeah a toasted sandwich maker and a coffee machine that was...
00:42:57
Speaker
that was sort of going to be the original plan and it's evolved into something that's uh you a tremendous facility and and really designed to showcase um you know not just not now not just our um the beers and whiskeys made with our malt but also all riverina produce and uh there's a whole variety of things that you can get at the malt house there that that showcase the regional regional things that there are are to offer. So yeah, yeah we had to eventually had to stop having meetings because it was getting out control of control. Yeah, where's the roller coaster going in? But but as as we're talking, i mean, there's a caravan park going in tennis courts, like they're still an evolving beast.
00:43:34
Speaker
It is. And it's crazy to think that was it three or four years ago, this was you know, a paddock growing, growing grain. I'm going to pinch myself coming in to to work every day just how it's it's evolved. It's a great asset for the for the the region and the and the community. yeah um yeah we're We're really lucky to have um have it yeah situated right alongside a brain processing facility. I don't think there'd be anything yeah in the world that would would yeah come close to something like like this.
00:44:03
Speaker
um but the the guys behind southern cottony essentially they were you know four or five farmers that were you have really kind of you know quite entrepreneurial and um you know many of them were growing grain for us when we're at the old side and and we developed a really good relationship with them there and um yeah i think that um i actually i think initially the cellar door was kind of our it's kind of our our you know we always wanted to sell it all one of the things we learned at the old site was we had this influx of brewers wanting to come out and visit and see what we were doing and we had you know a you know a kegerator with 10 tups outside of it and you know so we were keen on having some kind of opportunity for brewers know a small little bar for brewers and stills to come down and and taste what you know um yeah malted corn tastes like in a you know in a whiskey or in a beer or or whatever but Yeah, it was certainly gonna be nothing like this or nothing that was gonna be open to the public really. It was just something that we were gonna have for our clients. So to have something like this alongside us is pretty special.
00:45:06
Speaker
Right, well, let's take a quick break. Cheers. serious
00:45:14
Speaker
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00:45:27
Speaker
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00:45:44
Speaker
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Grainstock Event and Community Impact
00:46:11
Speaker
slash quote
00:46:15
Speaker
Welcome back. And do you want to tell us a little bit about grain stock? Yeah. Yeah. Grain stock is ah is an event where we're running this year, 9th, 10th, 11th of October.
00:46:27
Speaker
um And it's really as a celebration of grain. I guess there's there's two two main reasons for doing it. and probably the easiest way to describe it is really what we're trying to recreate is what ben and maria and hba have done with high country ops i think you anyone in the beer industry knows what a great event and festival um that is um and and you know putting that spotlight back on uh the agricultural products that go into beer but for myself going to that festival what i also love about it is the
00:47:00
Speaker
The benefit to the local economy, yeah you you can't get accommodation, it's it's sold out, yeah the the the cafes are packed in the mornings. you know to to um To have something like that here, I think is yeah ah based around grain. It's at the start of the the grain harvest time, a time when we've normally got a lot of breweries coming to visit anyway. yeah um So, you know, one, it's it's really about celebrating all the fantastic things that are happening in grain. And it's not just just just from us. you yeah We've got the the support from from yeah Joe White's and Barrett Burstyn, who were the first yeah to two major sponsors to jump on board, yeah who have got many growers and and grain receivable sites out here as well. So it's it's really about celebrating all the work that's happening in that grain space.
00:47:45
Speaker
But the other side of things is is also what we really want to do is just bring our industry together. I think it's obviously a challenging time for for everyone that includes suppliers when breweries are hurting, you know that that that flows further up the up the supply chain.
00:47:59
Speaker
And I don't think there's been a time um yeah that it's needed more in our industry than than now. And we have brewcon not going ahead and could be a week. And I think we we kind of yeah need to just come together and realise that um Hey, you know, the reasons we got into the industry was because we're passionate about what we do and we love the people that are involved in it. I think those two things haven't haven't changed. So, you know, we're really looking forward to posting an event here for everyone to yeah get excited about grain, but just have a good catch up. And what's the format of the three days then? So there's going obviously like an industry networking side of things, conference, party, like what's the structure? Yeah. And again, really just following in the footsteps of what High Country Hops have done. So a day of of of tours, visiting, you know, trial plots, breeding, you know, Australian grain technologies just up the road with their their breeding sites. the DPI as well with some of their perennial grains, Christian Sam Greenwoods, and then also visiting grain receivable sites. And what we're kind of doing so that there'll be some yeah tours leaving from here. But as I mentioned before, we had some great support from from Barrett's and and Joe's who are sponsoring chartered buses out of the major cities. So the the plan is that brewers can jump on
00:49:19
Speaker
um jump on one of these buses in Sydney or Melbourne, maybe visit one of the malting facilities that the big guys have got there and then yeah make up the pilgrimage out to Whitten via a few farmers and grain receivable sites. It'll be a pretty Pretty good bus. I'm actually trying to work out how I can get to the city and get on the bus to come back out here again. And um pick your car up somehow. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And then, um ah yeah, welcome drinks and and a bit of a party in town at Griffith. We've got some yeah great accommodation here, but yeah we're kind of expecting we might might get around the 300 to 400 industry delegates here, keeping in mind that malt is also used by distilleries and bakeries, so we'll be opening it to to them as well.
00:50:02
Speaker
um So we're we're yeah hoping that a lot of um lot of delegates will be camped or yeah staying in Griffith and we'll have buses bringing them in and out. ah The next day will be the symposium here at this yeah phenomenal facility where we'll be making use of all the different spaces that we've got here in terms of talks around brewing, yeah distilling, regenerative farming, all those those kind of things um and be a bit of a trade show as well. um yeah One,
00:50:32
Speaker
Without Brewcon and some of these events going ahead, and we really want to have an opportunity that suppliers can can come and still get in front of brewers and not really have to pay a lot of money to yeah to do it. It's not like we're having to hire a a huge facility in the in the city and those kind of things. So we're hoping that it'll be really well supported by other industry suppliers as well.
00:50:53
Speaker
And then the last day, a festival in town, which is really just an extension of the Blood, Sweat and Beers, the festival that has been run in the past. um But it'll focus more around that relationship between grain and the products that grains made from and including the spirits and and yeah fake goods. Can you talk about the music side of things at this stage? Or is that you know too too early in the the discussion? you um sort of i've got I've got a couple of plans. One of them is I'm always just amazed at at how many brewers are musicians themselves. So I would love to to pull off some kind of a stage where it's a yeah get up and and and have a play. and Dust down the guitars and the decks or whatever. Yeah, yeah yeah yeah but yeah we'll see. i I do have a habit of kind of, you know, buying off more than I can chew and um I might have overextended myself already. um
00:51:46
Speaker
ah But yeah in in saying that, um you know, I think what we're really trying to to leverage off is ah running ah the whole event a bit like a footy netball club where everyone just chips in and and helps out and the support we've had from from industry so far has been, know, has been brilliant. People saying, hey, look, i I'm happy to to be a, you know, essentially a tour guide on the bus, or I'm happy to come and yeah cook a barbecue, or I'm happy to set up some miracle boxes for the festival, or, you know, it's it's been really overwhelming to to have that that response back from, injur like I guess it's it kind of expected it. Like we know what our industry is about, but it does yeah make you feel really good about the yeah the industry we're working when you've got people putting their hands up left, right and center to to help out. So I just, I've just got to be better at delegating. Um, and, uh, hopefully it'll all, yeah, it'll all work out. And we've touched a bit on the Greenwood farm
Regenerative Agriculture's Role
00:52:40
Speaker
and, uh, I know regeneration, regenerative malt will be a part of the conversation there. Do you want to tell us a bit more about whether the Greenwoods and and what they do and and also what some of the farmers in the area doing? Yeah, yeah. I think anyone, you you guys have have gone and visited Chris and Sam and seen what he's doing there. It's really, know, mind-blowing what Chris does. Like, it's it's, he is, him and Sam and their family, they, they,
00:53:05
Speaker
Yeah, I still remember the first time I went went to their farm, like and it was even yeah life changing for me who had been yeah growing or farming since I was 12. um
00:53:16
Speaker
I think that that, you know, there's a lot of great things in terms of the region ag space that that's happening yeah around a lot of farms here. I think we really want to try and yeah promote and and showcase that ultimately.
00:53:30
Speaker
um farmers farming in that way need, you know, we need people to buy that product and see value in it. And we're lucky that a lot of lot of brewers, you know, and distillers do see that that value. And for those who are new to the term, you explain sort what Regen Ag is and i guess the benefits you see it bringing I guess, well, just the whole whole wider region and farmers specifically. Yeah, well, I guess without getting too too deep in, the easiest explanation is that it's farming in a way that that enhances the environment, is is is good for the environment.
00:54:04
Speaker
It's more so farmers focusing on growing their the ecosystem or growing the soil rather than growing a crop. When you industrial farming,
00:54:15
Speaker
has kind of all been about how do we grove grow a crop and it's led to yeah um heavy use of synthetic chemicals and nitrogenous fertilisers. And and yeah you could talk about the the impact that that's had on the environment yeah for a long time. But you know there's also impact that it's had on society and yeah yeah something like um you the increase in motor neurone disease over the last 30 years. And here in the river right now, you're seven times more likely it's to be diagnosed with MND than you are yeah anywhere else. And and it's yeah we're in the food bowl of essentially the food bowl Australia. Really, we are here like it's it's nose no yeah mystery where where that's coming from. you know, and and and ends just ah a bit of a side point, we've actually got the guys from
00:55:06
Speaker
of um sorry yeah brumanity that um put that know i mentioned to them so they're actually at the the golfing um aquagolf over here running a fundraiser um during the grain stock symposium um we've got uh prizes donated for from some know some of the great suppliers that we've got in our industry but brewers can make a donation to um you know to brumanity who are going to run that uh yeah that golfing um for us to to raise some money for and and shed a bit of a light on on M&D, but probably more so the yeah the the the impact that has some of the industrialised farming methods, which kind of resemble more more like mining than they do yeah any kind of you know my farming traditional farming methods. um
00:55:52
Speaker
So yeah, so it's something we're really passionate about because yeah this is our home. We live we live here. our our our know Our families are here. um And yeah you kind of see over time the the impact that that that kind of farming has on on the environment, on the landscape, yeah soil erosion and dust storms and and the impact that the flow impact that it has on on on communities. So something we are pretty passionate about. Are you finding that um farmers are looking what you you guys are doing and maybe the price that you know some farmers are getting for their specialty grains and maybe the more consistent and successful crops that the greenwoods are getting in changing conditions? Are people looking and going, oh, it's going to be hard, but we're going to switch? Are you seeing farmers being willing to try these techniques? I don't think there's any farmer that
00:56:42
Speaker
yeah enjoys getting dressed up in a hazmat suit and and thinks they're doing ah yeah a great a great thing. like um yeah and I think a lot of them have seen over over the time um yeah the impact that that that kind of farming has. I don't think any farmer really wants to be farming the way they currently are. I think they all want to want to yeah um yeah use less chemical and and yeah produce better crop in ah in a cleaner way and pass the farm down to to their kids in ah in a better Yeah, a better state than than it is at the moment. Yeah. When we started, we kind of thought that
00:57:18
Speaker
that one of the real challenges, i remember talking about one of the real challenges was how are we going to get farmers to grow these older varieties and how are we going to get them to to to grow some of these grains for us? And um the yeah the reality has been that we've we've actually had farmers knocking on our door wanting to to yeah not necessarily grow old varieties, but want to have a connection to yeah they want their beer in a whisky. They want to be able to take a six pack of of beer to to yeah a Christmas party or to a mate's barbecue and know that their grain is in it. They want a for but you brewers coming out visiting them on their farm and and yeah um yeah it's it's we've yeah i think i think we play an important role in in showing farmers that there is a market you know there is a way for this lot at the end of the tunnel and and
00:58:05
Speaker
Yeah. And you finding there's a growing interest from brewers in using these grains as well? Like yeah you've got some pretty, I guess, a sizable list of big and small customers now using Bregen stuff as well?
00:58:19
Speaker
Yeah, we do. I think that and there's been a bit of a change of light in terms of some of our volumes have plateaued out in some of those those grains. I think that's purely just because a lot of a lot of the breweries that we work with are just focusing less on wholesale. You know, they're realizing that hey if we if we we just go back to the the tap room, know, maybe the the plan that we had at the start, we've actually got a really viable business here and we can have a bit of fun and we can, you know,
00:58:47
Speaker
um yeah know We've got bit more opportunity to play around with some of these other varieties and and and support regenerative farming practices. So whilst some of the the volumes have plateaued out, we've certainly seen an increase in the amount of brewers that ah that are using some of these grains and particularly the organic and the regen stuff. And and if people choose to buy beers made with that grain, I guess, what's the end goal in terms of you know the but benefits for the for the farmers and then the planet? and Because I get, you know, me, you, I'm sure you should brand a few others out there, get quite evangelical about it once you understand the benefits it can bring.
00:59:21
Speaker
I think I think the end goal is that it just becomes the but the norm. I think that um and we've come off the back of kind of five really, really wet years. But I think once we throw a couple of dry ones in there, you'll start seeing farmers like like Chris with potentially the the the the soils capacity to to hold moisture and conserve moisture in terms of a lot of the cover crops is growing and and yeah the the work he's putting into yeah these sunflowers and these these plants that really open that soil up to to you know draw the moisture in rather than just having it having it run off.
00:59:55
Speaker
I think then you'll see farmers like Chris actually producing um higher yields than some of the conventional farming methods. So I think it's important that we're supporting these kind of guys at the moment. So there's some shiny examples when things do get tough and dry and people go, well, it actually works. Now I've i've got the confidence to, you know, to head down that path as well.
01:00:16
Speaker
because otherwise you're basically using fertilizer more and more fertilizer every year and farmers are more aware of that than anyone else aren't they like it has to go up and up and up yeah and and chemical and and you know we know the the reliance on that and the cost of it's going up as well so you know there's also a heavy input cost there as well so i think that um Yeah, I think I'm pretty positive about where things are heading. I think we've got, you know, what Chris is doing 10 years ago, know, and even when I was growing, he but you would have been seen as a weirdo. People looking out at the fence going, what the hell is that guy doing? Like, he he he is crazy. And now there's there's enough conventional farmers looking at the fence going, he's onto something there. Like, look at the crop he's he's grown. He's got, you know,
01:00:58
Speaker
look at the the you know he's got no weed pressure he hasn't sprayed it he's yeah his his yields are comparable to what we're getting in drier years you i think that there's there's enough little shiny examples out there now that that other farmers are seeing that you know that there's they're onto something yeah i guess aside from inspiring you know farmers to try something different you've been inspiring and helping other molsters
Supporting Local Malt Houses
01:01:20
Speaker
as well i know you've spent some time over in wa just spent time over there as well brad like helping other small operations get up and running like you guys are yeah Yeah, so we have. So we've done a bit of consultancy work for a few malt houses. One of them particular is the guys at Mallacup Malt over in in WA, but there's yeah there's no shortage of malts over there now. We've got the Mortlock Malt and Loam as well over there.
01:01:46
Speaker
um Yeah, look, I think it, you know, Australia's a pretty you unique place in terms that, you know, I'd argue that most breweries wouldn't need to travel too far to be in the middle of a valley field. If you have a look at the grain growing region that stretches all out the East Coast, it's basically where breweries are.
01:02:06
Speaker
yeah So we have this awesome opportunity here that the expectation should be in in maybe 20 years time that you go to a local brewery, they're using local grain. For that to kind of happen, we need local malt houses as well. yeah our our story was always about utilising local grain and championing the terroir and the provenance and the farmer. And and and like when you create that local kind of grain economy, it's it's a great story, but it's it's also great for the local town and the local region and the local breweries. Everyone kind of benefits from it. So it makes no sense that we'd be yeah sending grain all the way across to or sending mulch all the across the WA. They grow amazing grain there. We can grow amazing grain in most parts of of Australia.
01:02:50
Speaker
you don't see it as creating competition for yourselves by helping these people get up and up and running. I think the same way that a brewery would look at ah another brewery yeah setting up yeah up the road or another brewery moving into Marigal. Everyone there yeah um encourages that and they see it as as better for everyone. like It raises more awareness about local grain and and um raises that that profile that I really think we don't leverage enough of in beer and the beer is an agricultural product. Like it's got a great story like wine does in terms of passionate farmers and um yeah um the people behind it all way up the supply chain that that yeah are as passionate about brewing beer as brewers are, they're as passionate in their own region, their own and there as well Talking of great grain, you've won two malt cup trophies and in the last few years.
International Recognition for Voyager Malt
01:03:40
Speaker
Do want to tell us about that? and you know
01:03:43
Speaker
Brad, in charge of production, is it like breweries where they brew special batches of beer to put into Ebers? You're going, I'm going to put extra love into this batch of malt going through? How did it come about? How does it feel to get those trophies? Every batch of malt gets maximum love. Definitely not because we forget about the awards every year. I think we've only, think we've entered three times and we won, was it the ale malt, best ale malt back in, was 2023, was it? was it more than the year before that? year after that, our samples weren't received and then
01:04:21
Speaker
and we've We've sent them in. So we're we're always kind of sending it, you know, leaving to the last minute and sending it. So we we never have the time to kind of brew brew anything special malting special. It's normally just pull a sample out and off it goes.
01:04:33
Speaker
Yeah. And, you know, that's good recognition. and And I was over there for the awards this year as part of the the conference they do at the North the American Craft Maltzes Guild. And that was that was really good. A lot of people doing a lot of good things over there. and um, getting some good recognition and getting some good feedback as well. I think that's a ah number one reason that brewers enter beers into, um, you know, beer judging awards is to get some feedback and, and we do a similar thing. And, uh, it's always great to, great to receive that. And you've formed some pretty close relationships with the American sort of craft malts as well. as Is that right? And you know, do you take take ideas from them or are they now looking over here and going, these guys are making the best malt. We need to go and visit them in, in Witten and see what they're doing.
01:05:16
Speaker
Yeah, so I'm on the the board of the guild over there at the moment yeah and and try try and get over there every second year for the for the conference. And it's good it's good catching up with everyone and over there and seeing what's happening and in in the industry and see where where things are going. They're in a very similar boat to Australia now with with craft beer and and craft malt as well. Yeah.
01:05:42
Speaker
things are things are plateauing a bit there so they're finding other ways to keep moving forward and that's all that's all exciting we haven't had um i've been to a lot of multi-houses over there and that's always a great uh thing from very very small to some of the bigger places but uh haven't haven't lured them over this side of the ocean uh yet but yeah maybe maybe great stock 2026 to get someone over possibly yeah yeah we had the richard guys oh yeah you see yeah um they spent spent a in the week here i think yeah um guys from richard so um yeah and i guess just you know on on the awards um not to take any away from brad and the team they do a great job melting it but uh i i do feel we've got an unfair advantage in terms of the quality of grain we get to we get to use um
01:06:27
Speaker
We, you Australia hands down grows the best barley in in anywhere in the world. And we kind of get to take we we use such a small amount of it that we really get to take the cream of the crop and keep that seat yeah segregated. And so we kind of, you know I do feel we we get ah you know a massive, massive head starting in that regard.
01:06:46
Speaker
um But in terms of the award, I think it's a great acknowledgement for our farmers. You know, it's as much of an achievement for them as us. I think they get equally excited about knowing that their grain has gone growing into that. So, um yeah, it's great to win those those awards, but, yeah.
01:07:03
Speaker
I kind of to think that it's expected based on that we're doing something wrong if we don't win one because of how great the grain is we get to we get to start with. Do you know how it's judged? Are they biting on it and brewing tiny batches of beer with it? Yeah, yeah they do. um There's four levels of of judging. So they do, you've got some raw analysis to start with and you've got some sensory analysis on the malt and then you've got, they make a little wort and and do full sensory analysis on that. And then the the top fears go in for judging after that. So yeah it's it's it's quite a bit of work in um in the whole process. It's good.
01:07:39
Speaker
is Are there many farmers growing heirloom and some historic grains in the state? states so Or we have we got a kind of unique situation growing up around Voyager over here?
01:07:50
Speaker
I think we've got you probably more of and an idea. I think we've got a very, really unique um um place here in terms of the the access to irrigated farmland that we've got around us, our yeah our background in farming as well. You know, we kind of didn't, you know, having that farming background, the knowledge of, you know, cereal grain growing and then having access to yeah put put fields in,
01:08:16
Speaker
um you to breed them up, it's probably, um, given us some of advantage and in that space. Um, and I think there's a bit, a bit of stuff happening in terms of corn and some heirloom corn on that over in the, in the States. Yup. Um, I'm not too, a few, few places are doing some breeding with local universities to breed some specific varieties, um, suited to their particular area. Um, so
Advice from the Craft Malting Journey
01:08:40
Speaker
yeah, it's happening over there as well. Yeah.
01:08:43
Speaker
Great. Well, we should ah yeah up wrap up soon because we get to have a tour of the ah of the Malthouse. um Before we do, like if there was one thing you wish you knew when you started start Voyager, what would it be?
01:08:57
Speaker
for for For us, I suppose, they ah heard ah heard a saying that the secret to happiness is solving problems. And and theoretically, based on that, we should be the happiest people in the world. Because it just seems to running a small business or starting a small business in ah in a niche market that doesn't currently exist is extremely challenging. And and we had ah plenty of plenty of things to deal with as we were as it was starting off. and And I can probably look back now and it's easy in in hindsight, I suppose, to look back and and say, oh, ah could have done all those things differently. But just the the attitude of of um
01:09:36
Speaker
of thinking about but embracing these things these challenges and and enjoying them and and rather than rather than letting them get you down or or you know really taking them personally is I wish I probably could have taken a different attitude to all the setbacks and and things along the way, which which yeah becomes much easier the more you more you suffer them, I suppose. They're not problems, they're opportunities. Yeah, I guess that's the way that you need to look at it because otherwise it's just too much. yeah So yeah, that's that's probably something that I...
01:10:12
Speaker
reflect on which I knew at at the start. everyone Everyone tells you how hard it is, but you don't realise until you're in the grind and ah you know you're there. um Yeah. ah What about as as sort of you know elder statesman now of the the craft malting industry? um like I guess you've been giving this advice to Mallacup, but if someone is looking what you guys have done and wanting to get involved in doing something similar, would it be be that one one one piece of advice you'd give them as they're starting out?
01:10:41
Speaker
um come visit you you worship you yeah yeah yeah good come and Come and visit us. You've got to be passionate about it. Like it's tough, particularly in those early days. No successful business talks about how easy it was when they started. And I guess for us, it was that passion that us out here 24 hours a day, seven days week.
01:11:06
Speaker
shoveling tons and tons of the mold and you know like it was yeah it was tough you you need you've got to be passionate about it if if you if you don't have a genuine passion for for for malt agriculture and and beer uh beer and spirits then Yeah, you you it's you're not going to get through it. exactly yeah but not Yeah. Yeah. So I guess, yeah, going at it for the right reasons and passion is the number one of those. If if you think you're going to get in it to become get rich quick scheme, certainly, certainly not going to work out well.
01:11:38
Speaker
And what about one wish or dream if you have for the Australian beer industry? I've probably got two actually. Can I have two? Yeah, absolutely you can have as many as you want. which was added the work one yeah um no well One, I think that that um we we leverage the agricultural stories a lot more. I think that there's so much untapped potential out there for for any brewer that's using Australian grain. yeah I think there's some stat like 98% of all cereal grain farms are still family-owned and dad businesses. So, you know, the the the work, that the passion that that a lot of these farmers have, the the risks and the sacrifices that they make in, you
01:12:22
Speaker
in terms of the the current climate and the environment trying to grow grain so that we can have have beer, I think is something that hops have done it to some extent, but certainly nowhere near where wine has. now i want to so i want beer to get to the stage where when people think about beer or or think about a brewery, they don't think about a factory, they think of fields of fields of barley. So I think that that that's probably one of my wishes. And the other one I think is that the brewers don't forget the reason they got into the industry. I think there's yeah know some some of that that reason has maybe been little bit blurred over the last couple of years and they've started down some different paths in terms of of yeah chasing markets that they probably didn't, you had no plans of it initially. And we're we're finding...
01:13:12
Speaker
One of the best parts of my job is is talking to brewers day in day out. I still take the orders, a lot of them over the phone. And yeah normally it's 20, 30 minute phone conversation talking about life and business and and whatever else. And there is a lot of positivity out there at the moment with breweries, I think, that have realised that, hey, you know what we've got when we focus just on our taproom, know, brewing is a lot of fun. You know, I actually really get a lot of thrill out, know, a lot of enjoyment and satisfaction at what I do. I just kind of hope that that the the indie brewers don't forget you know, that reason they got into the industry in the first place, um which is probably a good way of, of, you know, coming back to brain stock because that's what it's about. It's like those, those two things. I've done well there. Oh, and I think beer is justs such a great platform for telling stories as well. Everyone knows beer, whether they drink it or not, you know, and it's such a sort of ubiquitous, you know, and product. So I think, you know, yeah, if we can use beer to tell that, that positive and potentially, you know
01:14:12
Speaker
planet changing stories. It's a great thing. Yeah. Yeah. yeah So Brad, thank you so much for joining us. it so Thank you. is
01:14:22
Speaker
The Crafty Pint podcast is produced and edited by Matt Hoffman. You can get all your beer related news and reviews on the Crafty Pint website, craftypint.com and can stay up to date on future podcast episodes via our socials.
01:14:36
Speaker
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01:14:52
Speaker
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