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Reckless Race To Success
317 Plays3 days ago
“I think we’re just as surprised as anyone, really. We’ve been blown away by the awards.”
Since settling into their Bathurst brewpub in 2022, Reckless Brewing have been on quite the tear when it comes to beer awards. They’ve picked up three trophies for three different beers in three straight years at the Australian International Beer Awards while securing trophies at other beer competitions too.
Two of the brewery’s founders – Grace Fowler and Jarrod Moore – joined Will and James from their brewery venue to share their thoughts on trophy success, how they’ve built a community and loyal team in regional NSW, and their ambitions to become a national brand even as the landscape becomes more challenging and many others breweries are downsizing.
We also dive into their history, including Grace’s experience brewing at Ikon and Akasha, how the couple met, their friendship with fellow founder, Alice Wilson, why the trio launched Reckless in 2019, life-changing IPAs, and how luck – or maybe good timing – has played a key role in their rise.
Before the interview, James and Will discuss the Carwyn family’s recent re-acquisition of Carwyn Cellars, the familiar names back winning more trophies at the Perth Royal Beer Awards, and our latest Beer By Design story which focuses on the role of graphic designers. Midway through, you'll also encounter the first in a mini-series of segments featuring Beer30.
As ever, don’t forget to like and subscribe the show – you can rate and review it too if you like – and keep the entries coming for Bluestone Yeast’s Brewery of the Month and our celebration of good beer citizens, Have You Done A Rallings?
Start of Segments:
- 11:35 – Reckless Brewing Part 1
- 34:15 – Beer30 on COGS
- 42:21 – Reckless Brewing Part 2
Relevant links:
- Reckless Brewing
- Carwyns Buy Carwyn
- Beer By Design: The Graphic Designers
- Perth Royal Beer Awards
- Beer30
- Nominate a Brewery of the Month
- Nominate a good beer citizen
- Cryer Malt
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 Recent News
00:00:06
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Crafty Pint Podcast. I'm Will. I'm James. How are you going, Will? I'm doing great. James, once again, a bit of news broke around the time last week's podcast went out, I think, or the morning of...
00:00:20
Speaker
morning of Yeah, it wasn't quite as tight as the one we had where Craig and I think were just wrapping up with ah Moffat Beach a few weeks ago. But certainly, ah think I was about to sit down to prepare all the socials and stuff for last week's podcast going out when I guess something we suspected might be coming.
Carwin Sellers and Fox Friday Transition
00:00:37
Speaker
We picked up on some noise online and made a phone call to...
00:00:41
Speaker
Ben Carwin and yeah, indeed it was happening. um So in short, Carwin Sellers is back with the Carwin family um who ah launched it and at a different site and there's a different sort of operation a number of years ago. um fairly circuitous route, less than two years after they sold the business to um the Fox Friday team.
00:01:04
Speaker
um And yeah, I mean, I guess it was something people suspected might happen once the once Fox Friday went into administration and then was sold on. um I believe, you know they had been looking to to buy it back. in In the end, they bought it from Mountain Culture, who'd acquired the whole of Fox Friday and and all of their assets.
00:01:23
Speaker
um But yeah, just, I mean, it's kind of interesting because I think while a lot of people were let go from the wider Fox Friday business, certainly on the brewing side of things and marketing and what have you, Carwin Sellers team did stay pretty much intact. and They wanted to keep the venue running. The administrators wanted to do that. You know, they approved everything they needed to buy for Pint of Origin, et cetera, et cetera.
00:01:44
Speaker
So I think technically the only staff from Carwin Sellers that had been let go were Ben and Nicole Carwin, who are now back in there. So there there won't have been as as much disruption there, at least in terms of, I guess, operational sense over the last few weeks. But I guess, as you know Ben and Nicole said in the chat with me, there has been a lot of disruption, you know which they're now going to have to sort of deal with, that's taking place over the last year or so.
00:02:08
Speaker
Yeah, obviously, I mean, and a big part of that is suppliers. There was a lot of money owing to a lot of people. Carwin Sellers has always had a lot of exclusives, a lot of launches. They've kept a really close relationship with a lot of breweries and by that being able to run some very
Financial Impacts on Suppliers
00:02:25
Speaker
fun events. So...
00:02:27
Speaker
We'll have to see how they recover that. I'm sure it's no easy task. oh yeah You see breweries in the comments excited about it. So I think that there would be some who are like, this is great. We're dealing with the same people again. Let's move. But obviously there is still money owing for beers.
00:02:43
Speaker
it's going to be a difficult road ahead, i would imagine. Yeah, yeah. I mean, amongst the 160 odd um creditors, there'd be a lot of small, medium-sized breweries who um would be owed, you know, in their scheme of things, a fairly significant amount of money. So I'm sure that would be their sort of number one Priority now is trying to fix that the best they can. And I guess we're still sort of waiting to hear about what's going to happen with the rest assets that Mountain Culture acquired.
00:03:12
Speaker
um you know We were chatting before, years of thinking that if if carbon sellers isn't something they're after, are they going to want to hold on to the Muna Hotel and sellers um in in North Hobart? um But obviously on that front, I guess there's still discussions ongoing. We don't have anything concrete. Knowing how things are going, no doubt we'll send this information to our our producer and within five minutes we'll we'll hear what the latest is um but yeah there's there's still definitely more to come on that front yeah Muna Hotel and Sellers for anyone who hasn't been is a wonderful venue as well so it would be great hopefully assuming mountain culture don't want it since they didn't seem to want carwin sellers hopefully that falls into some good hands because it's a really really nice operation in the northern parts of Hobart yeah
00:03:52
Speaker
Yeah, and obviously, you know, but there's one part of the business is um in Perth as well. Obviously, Fox Friday had taken over the site previously occupied by Blaster. um So that's ah maybe a slightly clunky segue. But looking over to WA, they had their the Perth Royal Beer Awards at the weekend on Friday night.
Perth Royal Beer Awards Highlights
00:04:11
Speaker
um it's It's quite amazing, actually. The number of familiar faces we're seeing at beer awards, not just you know so state-based, but also on a national level. um you know Obviously, you know I think you know King Road picked up more trophies again. They've been doing fantastically well at every awards they've gone to. One of their trophy winners from the Abers picked up another trophy there. They won the champion brewery title.
00:04:34
Speaker
um Margaret River Beer Co who won a one of the champion brewery titles last year they they won champion um beer for their in the Pines IPA White Lakes again we're back there again and I guess you know it's a bit of a birthday um pat on the back Gage Rhodes won champion large brewery as well as one of the best beer trophies as well um but I think that's the main thing you know and even so elsewhere sort of boundary and boundary islands keep picking up awards like there's I felt, you know, we were feel that the overall general quality of beer is improving generally across the board.
00:05:07
Speaker
But within that, there are certainly a number of breweries who just seem to just keep coming back again and again and just obviously have got a lot of things very right at their breweries. Yeah, absolutely. And it it was interesting. I was speaking to someone and from a Melbourne brewery after the awards and they they were very quick. They were just like, what's going on in WA? Because they're obviously making such good beer. And yeah, when when you have a WA sort of only awards, you can see these these names continually sort of appear over the last few years. and Obviously, some really talented brewers over there and some people making some very consistent beer over many years as well.
00:05:42
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, for
Beer by Design Series
00:05:43
Speaker
sure. um And sort of I guess away from the liquid, um we reit revisited our Beer by Design series, which is something that we've been doing in partnership with OnPak and their sort of support of our innovation and category and our beer knowledge section of the website.
00:05:58
Speaker
um this The idea with this is sort of looking not so much at the liquid or the people, but more more, I guess, how those beautiful cans land in your hand or in the fridge or what have you. We started off by looking at you know digital can printing,
00:06:10
Speaker
We've spoken to illustrators who have been employed by breweries. ah you've You've done a piece on trends. And now this one was mi was looking at graphic designers and and sort of, I guess, what's involved there, which is, you know, obviously a little bit more involved than going, here's a nice picture. Let's s stick it on a can.
00:06:27
Speaker
Yes, definitely. i'm I'm actually currently in the early stages of doing a story on rebrands and refreshes too. So if any brewery owners listening want to chat about their rebrand, particularly maybe if they found it a daunting process, I'd love to hear from them. So feel free to shoot me an email.
00:06:43
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. No, so you can check that out. to The Beer by Design series is a homepage for that on the website as well. um Thanks to Jesse at Craft Instinct and Andy from Zero Nine Studio for taking the time to chat to us about, yeah, their processes, why they got it got into it, you know, um yeah, everything that's involved. So that's a pretty fun little deep dive there into another element of, know, how beer ends up looking the way it does, I suppose.
00:07:10
Speaker
And I guess from, you know, can design and label design that to our ongoing campaign celebrating the good beer citizens of Australia. Have you done a Rallings? We should be running partnership with Rallings label specialists.
00:07:23
Speaker
If you're new to this, the whole idea is we're inviting people to shout out just the good beer citizens of Australia, people who go above and beyond to help their their fellow good beer people. It doesn't have to be someone working in the industry. It could be someone out there who's running a fundraiser for somebody.
00:07:38
Speaker
could be someone who's, you know, it's gone out the way to... fix a hole in someone's production schedule, whatever it might be. um So if you'd like to nominate someone, please head to craftypint.com slash Rallings, R-A-L-L-I-N-G-S.
Interview with Grace and Jared from Reckless Brewing
00:07:51
Speaker
We'll be announcing our next winner next week.
00:07:54
Speaker
um And I guess on to this week's main guest, Will. Yes, Reckless Brewing. So it was lovely to chat with Grace and Jared, two out of three of the owners of Reckless. and Sticking with awards, they've done very well at awards over the last few years. We we spoke to Grace ah sort of briefly during the awards night as well. People would have heard her on the podcast, but we wanted to...
00:08:16
Speaker
have them on to really break down the reckless story. they They seem to be doing phenomenally well from the outside. So it was great to hear sort of how they do what they do, how they found their location in Bathurst when they were sort of brewing in Sydney originally and how they really made Bathurst their own as well. it was really quite surprised by the stat when they said that their BX Lager and that whole sub-brand is now like half their production. So um they're really interesting brewery to watch from afar.
00:08:46
Speaker
Very true. But I think it's a great chat. It's very sort of broad ranging. The backstory to their brewery, the move to Bathurst, um Jared's 15 year campaign to just be near motor racing. But think one of the things that comes up in um towards the end of the chat, but I think it's quite fascinating, especially as we're sort of getting more notifications coming in from small breweries around the country who've been deranged by one of the big two, is that Rekkles very much have ambitions to become you know a sizable regional and national brewery.
00:09:14
Speaker
um And you know they talk about how that sort of easy option, if you want to call it that, where you sort of sign a deal with one of the big two and you send off a bunch of pallets at a time, that time appears to be gone for a lot of people, for most people.
00:09:27
Speaker
But they're so they're now trying to do it through other routes. They're saying it's a lot harder work, a lot more sort of the feet on the ground, but dealing with some of the smaller independent, but still just sort of chains that have got a lot of out venues. And I think that's going to be something a lot of breweries are going to be looking at right now is going, okay, if if if if this are the options through Dan's or Endeavor, you know, in BWS or through Coles Liquor have either gone, at least for now, and they they no longer support indie beer to the extent they claim they were going to how else do we...
00:09:56
Speaker
so you know, survive and succeed unless we pull right back to being a hyperlocal brewery. And it sounds like Reckless are quite a long way down that path already in trying to find another way to sort of be national, just in a different way. And I think that's going to be kind of interesting. I mean,
00:10:12
Speaker
if ah If enough breweries make it work, does that then put some pressure from below onto Endeavour and Coles? I don't know. but you know they're put They're so far ahead, who knows? But it was really interesting that they're still trying to find this way to be to achieve greater scale, even though the you know the easy on-off switch is now off.
00:10:29
Speaker
Yes, ah but potentially permanently off. We'll wait and see. We we are getting a lot of chats, unfortunately, particularly in regional areas. It's very hard if all you you've got in your surrounding areas are Liquorland or a BWS or several of them even.
00:10:42
Speaker
there's really such limited access to market at the moment. So hopefully you enjoy the chat. It's ah it's not all downers. It's a lot of lot of fun in there as well. And if you do enjoy it, and make sure you like, subscribe and leave us a review. Cheers.
00:10:56
Speaker
Cheers.
00:10:58
Speaker
For over 30 years Cryer Malt has supported the craft beer revolution, supplying top quality malt, hops and yeast to brewers across Australia and New Zealand. They offer world class ingredients, including premium malts by Barrett Burstyn, Best Malts and more.
00:11:15
Speaker
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00:11:28
Speaker
Discover how they can help elevate your brewing journey at cryermalt.com.
00:11:37
Speaker
Gerard and Grace, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. Hello, welcome. but well yes Welcome to Reckless. So I'd love to start with a bit of a chat about some of these recent awards. 2023, we've got the Abers Trophy for XBA and that same year we've got an Indies Trophy for Stout. 2024, Abers for Red IPA and then also Champion Dark at are the Sydney Royal for your BX Old.
00:12:03
Speaker
This year we're talking about Stout and a another Abers Trophy. what's What's the go here? I don't know. but sorry um I think we're just as surprised as anyone really. Like it's just been, we've been blown away by bya the awards. um You know, you don't enter awards to get trophies and whatnot. We know we entered mainly for feedback and all that kind of stuff. But yeah, we've been really, really lucky. And every time we've just been blown away.
00:12:36
Speaker
um except but Because I guess that's the thing, isn't i mean it? mean, if it was for the same one or two beers or if it was consistently for hop forward beers or for dark beers, you kind of go, oh, i they've got something, you know, a kernel of that sort of style works out and that's what's happening.
00:12:52
Speaker
But it's not. That's not the case. You know, there's one that's hops and malt. There's one, that there's others that are hops. There's malt, you know, it's just so there's clearly some sort of secret sauce. Yeah. um I don't know. I think, you know, like most of them being for kind of more of our core range beers, which, you know, we obviously brew a lot more. And that means that we get a lot more opportunity to tweak and, you know, finesse those beers and those styles. But yeah, I mean, like, I think it's just all comes down to like our team here, really like the brewers on the brew deck, just every batch making it better and better. Like they're doing an amazing job. Obviously they've got the trophies to, to kind of show that. So yeah.
00:13:35
Speaker
Does it mean more to you that they are the core range beers? Like, um I don't know if you've even gotten an award for a limited release, but, you know, obviously must help a little bit.
00:13:45
Speaker
ah ah You'd hope it might help in sales as well and putting a reckless name out there. we've got um We've got one trophy for one of our limiteds, our Baltic Porter, um but that also is like we brew it every year. So again, like we've got the kind of that opportunity to to finesse and and make it better and better.
00:14:05
Speaker
And it has been better and better every year, the Baltic Porter, which we just released. So, it's tasting really nice this year as well so fingers crossed for whatever awards is next and didn' do you enter whatever you've got around like do you enter the full core range plus whatever limiteds are out or do you kind of go no these are the ones that we either think are good or these are the ones that we really want to push like is there a bit of ah bit of a sort of marketing sales thinking going on in the background um At the moment, it's, you know, especially with the Ebers, it's very specific to the style. So a lot of the beers that we brew don't necessarily fit within like what the Ebers would consider like the official style of that type of beer.
00:14:46
Speaker
um So there's some beers that kind of fall well outside of that. We know that they're not probably going to go very well. Some of them we still want feedback anyway, so we still enter them. um But for the most part, um pretty much it anything that we've got hanging around unless we know that it's like wild and absolutely not going to like give us any help or, you know, do well, we might not enter it. But I think for this year we entered pretty much everything that we had on hand.
00:15:13
Speaker
Yeah, a few seasonals came out and it's like, yeah, we're not entering this. Then you drink and you're like, yeah, let's enter this one. And the next one's like, yeah, let's enter this one as well.
00:15:24
Speaker
So tell us about the Reckless beers. Like, is there any way you'd think about them or Grace, I don't know if you're still designing them even. I know you have a good routine working at the, at Reckless.
00:15:35
Speaker
Yeah. We've like a little bit, not as much as I used to because, you know, when you know the team are doing such a great job and they obviously are with all these awards and whatnot, um you know, just let the magic happen.
00:15:47
Speaker
um But I'd say like, from a kind of conceptual perspective, like we're still very much like it's about the whole team kind of coming together, talking about what's going to work, what ingredients are available, what's fresh, sales obviously, you know, what they think they can sell and all that kind of stuff. You know, fair few ideas get thrown around by the brew crew and sales goes, oh, please no.
00:16:10
Speaker
Dears are vetoed. yeah I can just do another XPA.
00:16:17
Speaker
ah Exactly, exactly. but Yeah, if we listen to our um sales rep, fruited pale, fruited pale, fruited American pale, fruited pale, maybe a fruited pilsner, then a fruited pale. And a West Coast. then a West Coast. Oh, there you go. Well, you know, little at least you've got yeah got the the market works out.
00:16:36
Speaker
And is that mostly selling back into to Sydney or or as you know, a lot of those sort of fruited beers going well around Bathurst as well? Like where's your core audience? All right. So...
Reckless Brewing's Market Expansion
00:16:47
Speaker
That's actually really difficult at the moment. We don't have a key standout region. So obviously the west Bathurst is very important. It's our local. We're one of only the few around here. Sydney is where we started a contract brewing, where we lived at the time. So we've still got quite a strong presence there as well as two sales reps on the ground.
00:17:04
Speaker
But ah Queensland, has been the surprise packet. We recently put a rep on the ground in Queensland and that's now doing better than the central west region is right now.
00:17:16
Speaker
Obviously it's getting freezing cold here and it's nice and warm up there still, but we were really surprised at how well Queensland's taken off, whereas Victoria has been a bit slow, um slow and steady.
00:17:28
Speaker
um They all are roughly equal share if you look at the data between Sydney, Central West, Queensland, and then we're just starting to get some stuff over to Perth.
00:17:41
Speaker
Well, there's a place just just down the road from me. They do um tap wine takeaway, which, you know, we go and use. It's very, you know, environmentally friendly. They've only got two smallish fridges of beer, but there's at least three reckless beers in there. I mean, they're very well curated two fridges.
00:17:57
Speaker
The guy knows what he's doing. I think he's clocked who I am as well. But there's definitely, I think, three reckless beers in there at the minute. So, you know, I think that's a good sign. This guy hasn't got much room to play with, but he's Bathurst beers in there.
00:18:10
Speaker
Yeah, it's awesome. I mean, Victoria has been good for us in the past, but we got a little bit mixed up in in Lotus, obviously. um So we've had to, we had to kind of hit pause a bit, but now, yeah, kind of.
00:18:23
Speaker
full steam ahead again hopefully but yeah so I should see some traction heading into winter yeah perfect timing in terms of selling beer in different places like is there any reason you think that is particularly like is it something to do with being from Bathurst do you do you push that fact like like what sort of do you think driving that interest or is it more reckless um the brand the beers everything might appeal to people anywhere in Australia to To do a long wind of response, there's three things. So obviously winning the trophies really helps us gain industry recognition.
00:18:59
Speaker
And so when our rep in Queensland goes into a craft bottle shop or a bar up in Queensland, they've heard of Reckless. Now, oh yeah, Reckless. Yeah, yeah, know. Oh yeah, Stout, Red IPA. um But then you've got to combine that with being kind of popular, which we struggle.
00:19:15
Speaker
um But we we obviously scored really well in Gab's Hottest 100, which isn't a beer judging competition. It's a popularity contest. And so to then get high up in that means that you've got the consumer engagement as well.
00:19:27
Speaker
So we've got the ah customer engagement, the consumer engagement, and then we're just really lucky because everyone in Australia knows Bathurst. It's a small regional town. It's only 43,000 people, but everyone knows it.
00:19:41
Speaker
And nobody is like, oh, Bathurst. Yeah. Whereas, Sydney hates Melbourne, Melbourne hates Sydney, Brisbane hates everyone. Melbourne nearly hates Bathurst.
00:19:51
Speaker
And so we just benefit from that positive perception that, oh yeah, I've heard of Bathurst. Yeah, even if you're not a car racing fan, you've probably heard of Bathurst, so it definitely isn't bad. and You've done a great job of of, I guess, both you guys and embracing Bathurst, but seemingly being embraced the other way as well.
00:20:08
Speaker
Obviously, you know, the tyres with all the the motor racing. i don't know if you guys were into that originally. That sort of, you know, coloured or, you know, it didn't made you want to move up there. But, like, you really have...
00:20:19
Speaker
become you quite integrated with that without being seen as like some, oh, it's just some you know brand tied to motor racing. like You're genuinely making really good, interesting, excellent craft beers, but you also have this tie-in to motor racing.
00:20:35
Speaker
ah Grace still thinks it was a 15-year plan for me to get her out of the city. 100%. hundred sam Jury's still out on that one. but um But yeah, it's it's a delicate balancing act to support something that I love, but also make sure that we support it in a way that we're not aligning ourselves as just a bogan beer that's only for car racing people.
00:20:58
Speaker
And to to bring it back, the the local community has just been absolutely astounding. And when we first dabbled in motorsport, um we didn't really know what to expect. And sports sponsorship was kind of out of our budget at that time, or plain a little bit. But the support we got from the locals to see their local brewery sponsoring a car in this big race that's shown all around the world,
00:21:22
Speaker
that was an unexpected benefit. And so we've leaned into that. And the more you we lean into it, the more the community continues to engage with us. And you guys see all the motorsport and all that, but what is really important for us is all the other local community engagement, the clubs, all the charities and once a year fundraising, things that we need to be a part of.
00:21:41
Speaker
And that's all just really helped the town really know who we are and support what we do.
Success of BX Lager
00:21:49
Speaker
ah Well, given like all the the local connections go beyond just the motor race, now I'm assuming that if we get Grace another skit for us, maybe for a future Holidays 100 Countdown, maybe behind the Tombola in the local CWA or something like that, that what we could do next time around rather than going around Bathurst?
00:22:05
Speaker
ah Why not combine them? You wouldn't even need the Tombola. You just get just chuck all the things in as you go around the corner. be like the end of Crystal Maze. I don't know if anyone knows Crystal Maze over here. Yeah.
00:22:17
Speaker
ah Oh, excellent stuff. Look forward to it. So what about, have you had to switch things you thought you'd do since moving to Bathurst? Like have you felt you had to change at all or connect with the local community, whether that's on a sort of venue perspective or focus?
00:22:35
Speaker
we're always wary that, you know, we're not in the inner west of Sydney or the inner north of Melbourne where there's ah you know, huge, huge population of people who are like seeking craft beer. There was no brewery in Bathurst at all, um like no physical brewery before we got here. There's one contract brewery. Yeah.
00:22:55
Speaker
But so, yes, like we definitely wanted to make sure we had um some offerings that were not, you know, too scary for like the people who are not necessarily into independent beer and whatnot.
00:23:07
Speaker
um But the first, I guess, foray into that was when we opened the Bathurst 1000 was less than a month away. So we wanted to make sure we had a beer.
00:23:18
Speaker
you know, for the local car racing crowd and the pi and the tourists who were coming as well. So that's where kind of BX Lager started, um which was designed to be,
00:23:29
Speaker
Easy drinking, but still well-made, well-crafted and delicious. Pilsner that was just, you know, going to be good for hot weather, good to slam down at the car racing, good to come back here and have a few beers as well.
00:23:43
Speaker
And it's now half of our production.
00:23:50
Speaker
Was that anything you expected at all or it's just taken off? No, we we had branding ready to go. We had the boxes printed, the cans were getting ready to arrive for our craft lager.
00:24:02
Speaker
And they're still sitting upstairs three years later. We never actually brewed that craft, like hop forward more um Sydney brewery sort of lager that you might get. um And it spawned its whole new brand. And so from this one-off beer, the branding, one of the things we did to make the branding non-offensive was make it look more macro, make it simple, elegant, make it look like it comes from a major.
00:24:27
Speaker
um And so that's created the whole BX brand. And so now it's BX Lager, BX Mid, BX Old and BX Lime in summer. And so we have to juggle those two brands, but being in the country, we had to realize that 90% of the beer junk out here is Lager.
00:24:44
Speaker
and they're not going to change anytime soon. But a good lager is what we drink as well, and the brewers drink and the bar team drink. So even though we've got a huge range of pale hours, IPAs, stouts, porters, all this, often we find ourselves drinking BX lager or BX mid on a Friday afternoon.
00:25:04
Speaker
So we're really happy with what's happened there. I think as well, though, like, you know, we've got lots of people who kind of haven't really had interesting beer before. So if we can get them in the door with BX Lager or BX Mid, you know, often we might be able to convince them to at least give an XBA a try. You know what I mean?
00:25:22
Speaker
Yeah. And what i but about in terms of the the venue itself? I mean, I guess some parts of Sydney or Melbourne, other places, you you can open a new brewery and people will come anyway.
00:25:34
Speaker
if you felt, you know, you've had to so do certain things, events, you know, offerings at the venue to bring people in that might not come for the beer, but hopefully you can win them over. Yeah, yeah. So when were starting, we were obviously very nervous and we've never started brewery before, but there were 750 breweries in Australia and Bathurst has the highest number of pubs per capita in Australia.
00:26:00
Speaker
So we knew that if we were going to get people in, we had to be better than everyone else here. We had to create a vibe that was warm, welcoming and beers that were approachable. And for some,
00:26:14
Speaker
The luckiest thing that ever happened, we were doing a farmer's market the week before opening the venue and we had no staff for the venue. And this lovely middle-aged couple ah rocked up to the farmer's market to try our beers and they've been with us ever since.
00:26:31
Speaker
Wow. they brought this local vibe this welcoming vibe and this just attention to detail and ability to make everyone that walks in feel special and they've passed that on to every new person that's come since and so once people come to reckless they keep coming back and that's a testament to the team that we've got behind the bar and just how much they've made everyone feel welcome and so when the tourists come in five times a year they get the same treatment and they feel special so every year we get the same grips coming back with more and more and more people and
00:27:09
Speaker
Just don't know where that ends. Did that couple know you were ever looking at yeah looking for staff, you were advertising? Or did they rock up to try the beers and go, we want to be part of Didn't even live in Bathurst, had other jobs. They just changed our lives. We don't even live in Bathurst.
00:27:25
Speaker
They had just moved back to there where one of them grew up in O'Connell, which about 20 minutes out of town. And they hadn't yet worked out what was next in life for them. So we grabbed them and... We won't let them go. not let them If you can hear rattling of chains down below you, just chuck them a slab of meat every now and then and they're happy enough. Yeah.
00:27:49
Speaker
and I know. Well, that's awesome. Like, I do love it when you get those moments of serendipity, you know, coincidences that come along the path and you're like, yeah, I think we're doing the right thing. Like when things like that happen, I always try and take it. It means you're heading in the right direction when when, you know, you get those sort of gifts land in your lap. that's great to hear.
00:28:08
Speaker
You do, but imposter syndrome gets worse. i It's still, we're waiting for reality to set. So i tell about
00:28:22
Speaker
tell us about the site a little bit and how you sort of discovered it, because my understanding is you were still potentially looking for a Sydney brewery or at least lived in Sydney and then you moved to Bathurst and here we are.
Establishing Reckless Brewing in Bathurst
00:28:35
Speaker
Yeah, we were looking at Newcastle as a potential site. So we'd probably been in contract brewing for about a year. And then, you know, it was going relatively well, like still just very, you know, slow and steady.
00:28:48
Speaker
um Newcastle had, I think, one brewery, maybe two. One brewery in the city. So it was only Foghorn at that stage because this is still 2019 heading into 2020. and in twenty twenty And there were plenty up in the Hunter, but not not in the city. And we visited Beaumont Street.
00:29:02
Speaker
I think that's what it is in Hamilton area. And there were all these craft bars all the up the road with all these beautiful beers from all around Australia, but no breweries. And it just to us looked like the next um Newtown Redfern-McVill sort of dealio.
00:29:17
Speaker
Yeah, well, our finances were never kind of going allow us to be in Marrickville, Newtown, et cetera. So um that's why we were looking further afield. But COVID just kind of stopped that. but So COVID happened and we just went, all right, well, we haven't committed to anything yet. So just kind of wait it out, I guess. We had one employee at the time. So were able just to kind of ramp up our online orders and stuff. So he became sales rep slash online delivery man, which he loved.
00:29:49
Speaker
One of the cool things about COVID was everything went online and the way we all engaged was that the local bottle shops would hand out a ah reckless pack of beers to all their customers and then everyone would jump online for a Zoom tasting with the brewers.
00:30:03
Speaker
And they were ah lot of fun in the middle of the worst lockdown. So we'll be in our little study and the grandparents that had the kids in the other room looking after them, we'll get... We would have many, many a drinks with a bunch of people we've never met before.
00:30:17
Speaker
And in one of these, it was a Murray's Porters through the Blue Mountains. We had about 30 or 40 people on the screen. And the session had already ended two hours earlier. Everyone was still going. We were all talking about all these amazing beers, ideas.
00:30:30
Speaker
And this one little guy pops up in the top corner and he goes, oh, so you guys live in Oberon, right? Why don't you go and check out the abandoned brewery in Bathurst? And closed just before we had come to town. So we didn't actually know anything about it. and We didn't know anyone. So nobody had told us.
00:30:46
Speaker
ah So the next day we're looking online, working out. COVID restrictions meant we could actually go into Bathurst. So the next day we're looking looking at this building. Peeking through the windows. like and Oh, my God.
00:31:01
Speaker
um The next day got in contact with the owner of the building and were inside the building. and Our dream was a 30, 40 seat taproom. This was a four to 500 seat multi-storey abandoned flour mill, but it was beautiful, absolutely beautiful, completely empty.
00:31:21
Speaker
could do what we want. It had all the approvals for a brewery, so we didn't have to spend years going through the back and forth in red tape. ah So overnight, The plan changed. we You don't get ah historic building like this empty ever anywhere. You can't say no to that.
00:31:39
Speaker
So that was it. Our journey started the next day. And was some of the structure in place as well? like you know Was the tap system in place from when two heads were there? I know the brewery wasn't in or or was it still pretty much a shell that had to be built up from the you know the ground up It was pretty much a shell.
00:31:55
Speaker
The only thing was the bar that's behind us, the actual wooden bar and the tiles. So that's where the bar was for the last one. um But the the shell is was is perfect and beautiful.
00:32:09
Speaker
Like they fitted it out, like the shell of the the building yeah but none of the um the taps were in place none of the the brewery was kind of half done but not to what it needed to be for the level of production that we were going to do i was going to say everything they all gas piping was underneath but we by the time we designed it we realized needed it bigger than anything they had so we had to rip all that out and put new ones in anyway so there were a few things that we thought we'll get away with that we didn't but yeah we wanted to go to a scale that
00:32:41
Speaker
clearly a lot bigger than what was here yeah and how long did that take was you know from that from that chat on the on the you know the Murray's Glenbrook uh you know re reckless drinking session how how long do you go from there to actually being in and you know hammerized up The chat was mid-March.
00:33:00
Speaker
yeah We were in the next day. ah Negotiations on the lease took until 4th of June. We signed the lease and got into the building.
00:33:11
Speaker
But by that stage, we had already finalised the plans of the brew house. So that was already under construction at that time. So the point of getting the keys on the 4th of June, we opened on the 27th of August.
00:33:23
Speaker
So... all or so about than six Less than six months from the idea of being put in your head to welcoming your first guest. That's pretty good. We would not recommend it. We're pretty sure we set a record from finding the venue to have an open brewery.
00:33:40
Speaker
We would not recommend that on anyone, um especially sitting in the delivery room with yeah both of us on phone calls to different subcontractors whilst our second baby was born.
00:33:50
Speaker
Yeah. So our second child was born a week before we opened. That was fun.
00:33:59
Speaker
And this is 2021, right? 2022. 2022, sorry. Great. twenty twenty two twenty twenty two yeah but great Well, with that, we might take a quick break.
00:34:17
Speaker
G'day guys, I'm here with Aaron Gore from Beer30. Now, Beer30 is basically one of the biggest brewery management software systems in the world. They can pretty much manage your entire brewery end-to-end, helping you save money and get better outcomes across the business.
00:34:33
Speaker
um Aaron and I are going to be breaking down some of the big data that comes in on Beer30 and giving you some insights that might help in your day-to-day. Aaron, welcome to the podcast.
00:34:45
Speaker
Hey, thanks for having me, Craig. Mate, um today we're going to talk all about cogs, so cost of goods. I'd love you to give me just a ah layman's term definition. what What does cogs mean to a brewery?
00:34:56
Speaker
Absolutely. And that's one of the beautiful things about cogs is cost of goods sold is about as evident as it's going to get. Cogs is effectively just the actual input costs that it takes to make your product.
00:35:09
Speaker
So that's going to be everything from your grain, your hops, your yeast, any sort of additions you're making, but also things like direct labor, any of your packaging materials. And really, it's just all the costs that underlie everything that you're producing and everything that's really going to be hitting your balance sheet at the end of month.
00:35:27
Speaker
Yeah, nice. And um I guess when ah when a brewery is using Beer30 as their management software, like how does Beer30 actually manage and track those cogs? Yeah, so as a brewery management software, that's one of the key things that we're able to do.
00:35:42
Speaker
I don't think it's any secret to anybody that our input costs have kind of been all over the place recently. It doesn't really matter where you are worldwide. Global trade is a bit of a mess at the moment. And that means that being able to have an understanding of the changes in the costs of your grain, of your hops, of everything that goes into your beer is critical to understanding and being able to have control of your business.
00:36:04
Speaker
So software like Beer30, we track those individual costs. And as you're building recipes, we'll build all of that in. But A couple of the things that are critical is to make sure that you're not just building those cogs when you're producing the initial product.
00:36:18
Speaker
you know, if you're producing 30 hectoliters of beer, you know, that's nice. It's good to understand what it costs to make that. But if you're doing heavy dry hopping, maybe you've only got 25 heck and you know by the end of the day, with low fills, quality control issues, you might have less than that when it comes to actual sellable product.
00:36:36
Speaker
So one of the things that we're able to do is help you track those costs throughout the entire life cycle of the beer, all the way to the point that you're ready to sell it either to a wholesaler or a customer or even across the bar.
00:36:49
Speaker
And we also have the ability to really visualize all that very simply. We have a full dashboard system, our command center, first of its kind in the entire industry that really lets you visualize that data, see how those costs are changing over time, see any sort of variances and really get to the bottom of how they're going to impact your business, but also how you can remediate that and really fix them before they become an emergency.
00:37:11
Speaker
Yeah, nice. and And I guess if you're, you know, say you're doing it old school, you've got the pen and paper out and you're, ah you know, you you're getting your invoices from your suppliers and then you've got your invoices out to your your customers and so on. Like, what are the risks if you're, what are you missing if you're not tracking that stuff correctly?
00:37:29
Speaker
The biggest one would just be flipping yourself upside down without even realizing it. So as an anecdote, for years, I was actually a full-time consultant for the industry. i had clients on three continents, and including Australia.
00:37:42
Speaker
one of my customers was actually doing about four and a $4.5 million dollars USD of distributed revenue, just selling beer out to the market. They felt great about that, felt like they were winning, they were growing double digits year over year. And in today's beer market, that that's always something to be proud of.
00:37:57
Speaker
The issue was they had no money and they couldn't figure out why they were broke all the time. And and when they brought me on, really did a full COGS analysis, broke down everything, We figured out they're actually losing $1.74 a case on every single case of beer they sent out of their number one selling product. brada Everything looked good until it didn't.
00:38:17
Speaker
And they didn't have the systems in place to be able to see this before it became a problem. So they were doing this for like eight months before they really realized just how much trouble they were in. And it almost was enough to sink the business.
00:38:29
Speaker
Now, good news, we were able to get them fixed. We were able to get straightened out, able to get them back on track, but it wasn't an easy process. And it was one that had costs, one that had sacrifices that they had to make in order to get things back on track.
00:38:41
Speaker
If you're tracking tracing everything end to end, if you're really tracking it end to end and really keeping an eye on these things the entire way, that lets you get ahead of it much earlier, whether it's looking at alternative suppliers, whether it's Playing with your recipes to see if there's ways that you can make things cheaper with some alternative ingredients without changing the finished product.
00:39:02
Speaker
Those are the things you can only do when you know that the changes need to be made, when you know that you need to trial, when you know that you need to iterate. So with tools like Beer 30, we just want to give you the ability to run your business the way that you need to, the way that you'd like to, and give you the power and the tools that you need to really get your hands around it so that you can get back to focusing on the beer and the people that got you into this in the first place.
00:39:25
Speaker
I love that. And it's often those like the hidden costs that you sort of not too super aware of. It might be, you know, you've got labor costs, you've got the delivery fee to, you know, calculate your landed costs of your ingredients. You've got, you know, delays and and even excise like, ah you know, it's a tax, but it's a very real cost to a brewer. Like is B30 able to to capture all of that in the mix?
00:39:50
Speaker
Absolutely. You have to take into account everything because if you miss anything, You can think that you're flying close to the sun without realizing that your wings have already melted right off. I'm stretching that metaphor about as far as we can go. But yeah the more that you're able to really capture all that and really build it in, that's critical.
00:40:07
Speaker
So not only are we going to be able to work out your cogs on a unit to unit basis, you know, the actual liquid and the actual cans and kegs that you're selling out, we're also going to be able to handle your exercise for So we have a full excise tax module just for Australian breweries. It's included for any of our Aussie customers. and And that was on purpose because we know that the excise tax laws in Australia, they're not simple and they can be debilitating for breweries if they're not managing it right, both from a time standpoint, as well as the actual real costs involved.
00:40:36
Speaker
So being able to get ahead of that, understand exactly what your tax liability is, have all the reporting that you need to back that up at your fingertips, All this is doing is really saving you time, saving you headaches and and possibly saving your business.
00:40:49
Speaker
And I know that that sounds dramatic, but the one thing that brewers will never have enough of is time. There's always going to be something that's calling for you. I mean, this is a manufacturing business spot welded to a hospitality business, spot welded to a distribution business. At the end of the day, you need to have the tools that give you some time back and give you some capabilities back and let you act with all the information that you need.
00:41:12
Speaker
And that' that's what we try to do. We try to give you that time back and we try to give you everything that you need to take a look at the whole of your business, understand what's actually happening and make the decisions that you need to keep not only afloat, but to thrive.
00:41:26
Speaker
How can people get on to Beer30, set up ah a meeting or a call? What's the website there, Aaron? Absolutely. You can find us online at getbeer30.com.
00:41:37
Speaker
nice and simple. You can reach out to me personally. I love to hear from folks around the industry, even if it has nothing to do with Beer30 at Aaron.Gore. That's A-A-R-O-N.G-O-R-E at thefiftingredient.com.
00:41:51
Speaker
We're also offering 30% off to any listeners to The Crafty Pint. I would love to be able to hear from you. would love to be able to set up a conversation and just see how we're able to help you. And if Not very little time out of your day, but if we can, helps us continue to support an industry that frankly is is absolutely critical and important to all of us here at the Fifth and Greed.
00:42:12
Speaker
Nice one. Thank you so much, Aaron. We'll see you again soon.
00:42:22
Speaker
Okay, welcome back. um And let's let's go back in time a little bit to before Reckless. I guess maybe even before um you got into the the
Founders' Journey from University Friends to Brewers
00:42:30
Speaker
brewring brewing world. How did the two of you and Alice first meet and take your first steps into craft beer?
00:42:36
Speaker
I think I'm the cog in it all. So Alice and I went to school together. um So we've known each other since were about 11, I think.
00:42:47
Speaker
um So, yeah, and just been great mates, played lots of sport together, went to school, all that kind of stuff. And then after school, Alice went to Sydney Uni. and studied geology.
00:42:59
Speaker
I went to UTS and studied nursing and I met a lovely person called Kirsten. It was great. She was just, yeah, became a really good mate. And um I basically, ah you know, would go out drinking with Kirsten and she had a friend who lived just down the road from one of the places that we used to always drink at.
00:43:21
Speaker
Jared. ah So he'd come along and hang out with all the nursing girls. I don't know why, but you know, whatever. um And ah bit it was actually my 21st birthday. I invited Jared and obviously Alice, my best friend who was giving a speech.
00:43:36
Speaker
And then they both kind of had this moment where they like stared at each other across the room and Alice went, what the heck are you doing here? And Jared went, what the heck are you doing here? ah they were doing uni together, geology at Sydney Uni. So Jared was doing uni with my best friend I was doing uni with his best friend.
00:43:54
Speaker
but see It was meant to be. It was. Yeah, the rest is history, I guess. and when And when you were drinking, were you drinking, you know, craft craft beer then? Was that but was with your taste going in that direction?
00:44:08
Speaker
um i $8 jugs of VB at the Sydney Uni bar is what we were drinking. Okay. Was it 2011 we went to the US or 2013? 2013 it would have been.
00:44:22
Speaker
it was 2012. We saved up uni break. We decided to a big six, seven week trip through America and, you know, drinking PBRs everywhere we can.
00:44:34
Speaker
think Super Bowl's on, drinking $1.05 lights. Hell yeah. And then we went to Portland and suddenly there's these IPAs and it's like, whoa, that's a strong beer.
00:44:47
Speaker
But everywhere you went to these places, they had a different one. And this is a culture just hadn't seen before. and But what really got us in Portland and what initially clicked was that everywhere had happy hour.
00:45:00
Speaker
but it was food, not beer. And so the food would go to happy hour twice a night everywhere. And we were blown away by that, but drinking all these IPAs and pails. And then it kind of got lost when we came back to Australia. But I think somewhere in Pyrmont, Quarrymen's or something, we were there for a function and we saw this beer tap and it said IPA on it.
00:45:18
Speaker
It's like, thats That's like that beer we had over in America years ago and drank that. And that's where my taste and our taste of it went. But you've got a whole different approach. But it wasn't a case of going to the States and being so sort of blown away that you were like, oh, that's it. When we go back, this is what we're doing. It was like that was a something you compartmentalized and went, oh, that was a fun thing we did on holiday.
00:45:42
Speaker
Just like, you know, you don't go to Greece and come back and build the Acropolis. ah You just sort of came back and just went back to your $8 Yeah, well, I think we didn't really know that it existed in Australia, honestly.
00:45:54
Speaker
We're very naive still. Yeah, like, so, yeah, when we came back and discovered there were, you know, other options, I guess. They were still pretty expensive for uni students, cheaper than they are now, obviously, sleep but um i I think what happened next was that I started working in pubs.
00:46:11
Speaker
So we'd get staffies. We had one or two craft beer taps at some of the first pubs that I worked at. um We'd get staffies and we'd always kind of go for the most expensive beer, which, you know, would happen to be the craft beer.
00:46:24
Speaker
We had Matilda Bay, Lord Nelson Three Sheets, Badland Pale Ale, which I find really funny because, like, obviously now they're just down the road and, like, we know John, like, pretty well now. um And then I worked in a bottle shop, worked in Camperdown Cellars, where I got um staff discount. And, obviously, Camperdown Cellars, probably renowned in Sydney for their selection of craft beers.
00:46:48
Speaker
So, yeah, we just kind of went to town on all the different types of beer that we could. could afford it. Yeah, yeah. Well, it was last discounts. And Grace, you started, what, brewing around about then? Like what made you make the switch from selling beer to wanting to make it?
00:47:05
Speaker
Yeah. so um one of the first pubs I worked at, um I worked with a ah girl called Kimberly. And when I was in Camperdown Cellars, she walked in one day, I hadn't seen her for years.
00:47:17
Speaker
We kind of reconnected, which was really nice. um And her partner was a brewer, now now husband. um And then, yeah, one day she just kind of sent me a message like, oh, there's lots of like craft beer nerds at Camperdown Cellars. You know, anyone who wants to, you know, be a brewer?
00:47:31
Speaker
And I was like, Yeah, I'll give it a go. like And yeah, so I went and worked with Brody at Icon, which is a big production brewery out in Western Sydney.
00:47:43
Speaker
ah worked there for about a year and then I moved over to Akasha and yeah, was there for about five years and obviously learned a lot more than I did at the big production brewery. But production brewery was a really good spot to learn, you know, the actual process, I guess.
00:47:59
Speaker
And then, um you know, obviously learning, from Dave at Akasha, like the actual, like love, I guess, that goes into creating recipes and all that kind of stuff. So that worked really well for me.
00:48:11
Speaker
And how how long were you and sort of working alongside Dave, nursing yeast into a beautiful life before deciding that maybe you should, you know, create your own brand as well?
00:48:23
Speaker
I think we started Reckless um about maybe two years before I left Akasha. um It was really just a bit of a passion project.
00:48:35
Speaker
Just Jared and Alice were working in kind of like corporate-y style jobs and I think needed a little bit of creative release. um And, you know, we didn't want to start a bar, you know, so we thought, you know, we'd start a brewery instead. So it was pretty slow, easy going at the beginning.
00:48:51
Speaker
Yeah, so for Alice and I, were wondering what the next step of our careers was and the consensus was either spend a hundred grand and do like an MBA or spend a lot less than that and just start a business, which will probably fail, but you'll learn a lot along the way and it'll cost a lot less.
00:49:08
Speaker
like We were wrong on every single one of those fronts. But yeah, Grace was, every time she got to choose a recipe, every time she got on the brew deck, the beer that came out, you're just drinking and go, oh my God, I don't know what it is. I'm not technical with all of that.
00:49:25
Speaker
But whatever this is, I just want more of it. And I think that's been a key of Grace's recipe design from day one is her tagline was, I just want to brew beer that I want to drink. And it was beers that we wanted to drink. And importantly, it was a beer that you could drink and then drink another one and another one. And whilst being respectful, 16 more.
00:49:43
Speaker
how And so it was about being those sessional beers and it didn't matter whether it was a bit of West Coast IPA or Stout or something, it had to be sessionable. And I think that's what Grace designed every time and eventually it got to the point where it's like, if this is what you love, if this is what you want to do, we will find a way to make this happen.
00:50:03
Speaker
And then, well, So far we've found like, it's just misleading. Yeah, yeah. Well, find interesting see, you know the you know, the branding on the wall here, this, know, successful brew pub, know, selling beer around Australia, winning trophies.
00:50:15
Speaker
ah If I recall correctly, when we first did like story or stories on you, I'm pretty sure the photos you supplied must have been just like phone selfies taken in your apartment or something like that. It was so like absolutely bootstrap grassroots, just like, oh, they need a photo. Hang on. There you go, Mick.
00:50:32
Speaker
Yeah. Off you go. Nothing's changed. The thing you see behind, we've either built ourselves or gotten from the local tips. It's always good straps.
00:50:45
Speaker
We um had the you know lots of people brew in their in their bathtub and stuff, but we lived in an apartment. We didn't have a bathtub. So we did all of our um pilot batches on our balcony. So there's a few photos on the balcony brewing with the grandfather doing some pilot batches. It's good. Yeah.
00:51:01
Speaker
What was it like as the brewer, Grace, like having these two business partners who seemed like great cheerleaders, I guess, but maybe weren't, didn't spend much time in in the industry, but wanted to cheer you on and be a part of it.
00:51:14
Speaker
How do you sort of manage that or manage them? Yeah, it was it was frustrating. ah We'd do a batch of beer and they'd say things like, this is great, but like,
00:51:26
Speaker
more summer vibes, more sunshine. More happy, more purple. I'm like, okay. I'm to make those notes and then, you know, get the recipe and be like, okay, sunshine.
00:51:40
Speaker
Citra?
00:51:44
Speaker
But no, they've been amazing. I think, you know, we've all got really different kind of like skill sets, different backgrounds. So have – so have the ability to kind of bounce that all of our ideas off all of us and different areas of expertise is like obviously I think been instrumental to where we are today for sure. Yeah.
00:52:06
Speaker
yeah and And who does what? Obviously you obviously seeing the brewing side of things predominantly. Grace, what about yeah the other two founders? Where do you sort of sit within the business other than going and hanging out and admiring Yeah.
00:52:20
Speaker
That's pretty much all he does. now ah Jared is like um ah like the general manager, really, like focus big time on the hospitality side of things, but also liaising between all of the the different kind of businesses within our business with, you know, the bar, the kitchen, wholesale um and all that kind of stuff. So Jared is definitely the glue that kind of sticks everything together.
00:52:42
Speaker
um and makes the decisions really at the end of the day because someone has to. like You can't have three people go like you know trying to make the decisions. um Alice has a lot of experience with ah with tax and ah you know red tape and all that kind of stuff. So her main focuses have really always been kind of on that legislation kind of side of things and stuff.
00:53:07
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And you you've you talked about, i guess, you know, the finding this beautiful venue, the success of venue we've seen twice or we've been talking already, people come in to buy some
Growth and Distribution Challenges
00:53:17
Speaker
beer. So, you know, that's obviously going really well there, but you've also talked about three clothes sites.
00:53:21
Speaker
Don't. like so i guys Maybe you need to get one of those, like the flashy, the colour ones, you know, with the little, you know, the purple. That was just something hanging in the window. That might lure them in like moths.
00:53:36
Speaker
um but But then you've also talked about, you know, having success in the Queensland market and sort of elsewhere. You know, where do you see um Reckless Guy, you know, staying predominantly hospitable base, opening another Reckless venue? Or, you know, would you like once, you know, the appetite for, I guess, more wholesale craft beer picks up to take Reckless to the next level, you know, on a regional national scale as well?
00:54:01
Speaker
um We always wanted to be one of the leading independent breweries in Australia. That was our core long-term mission focus. um That is still the case. um We're doing significant remodeling of what the next 10 years looks like based on no more sunshine, um that everything that is going to make us grow has to be a lot of legwork.
00:54:25
Speaker
There's not going to be national range in now in major guys. That seems like a ship that's now sailed. And so our new model is still looking at growing to be available Australia wide, not so much in the majors, but outside of the majors, we want to be a known independent brewery.
00:54:43
Speaker
So that's what our 10 year focus is still on. The venue um is running close to what we think it is capable of, which is awesome, considering it's such a big venue.
00:54:55
Speaker
And we do want to expand our retail offering, and so potentially open a second one. um But everything is bootstrapped. So once we find a venue that costs $3 to open, we consider it.
00:55:08
Speaker
um And that is on the horizon. like We jumped at this opportunity when it came and we've always got to jump at the right opportunity when it comes and find a way to make it work and we'll do that. But we're not in a hurry.
00:55:20
Speaker
So wholesale will be our main growth over the next five years, but we're looking at options to potentially um bring the reckless vibe somewhere else.
00:55:32
Speaker
Yeah, I think our plans have changed constantly. um And, yeah, what Jared said, we really just, when an opportunity comes, we jump at it. So, um yes, we've got ideas and of what we think is going to happen, but I can guarantee you that's not what's going to happen.
00:55:48
Speaker
and And in terms of sort you know, I'm interested what you're talking about this, you thinking that maybe this national retailing and likes of Dan's and BWS and Coles Liquor probably isn't going to come back. They certainly have been, you know, really, you know, pulling that down from the, you know, the i guess the glory days, if you might want to call it, a few years ago.
00:56:06
Speaker
how do you see... you know, yourselves, because I'm sure it's something a lot of other breweries like yourselves are considering. How how do you have a national reach yeah outside of, I'm assuming you don't want to be in the handful of really good independent bottle stores. Like there are other independent chains out there. I don't fully understand how all the, you know, the the Thirsty Camel and the Bottler and all that stuff work together. But is that...
00:56:28
Speaker
what you're looking at, you know, those sort of other sort of national, regional, you know, sort of intertwined um brands and sort of looking to get some sort of representation there. Because from what understand, you still kind of have to deal almost with them almost individually. You can't just go one of the, you know, the mastheads and go, right, hey, do you like us?
00:56:47
Speaker
Let's feed us out. Like it's it seems like a pretty convoluted way to to get beer out there. It is. It is very convoluted. um we Basically, our logic is that if it isn't one of the two big ones, then we're aiming to get in it. And I can't remember all the acronyms for all of them, but I know that that whole IGA, ALM,
00:57:08
Speaker
Venner Group is a lot of venues and that one's a lot easier to deal with because you can give the head office the information, promotions and things like that, but you've still got to target the stores.
00:57:23
Speaker
But we've had a lot of success there over the last 12, 18 months. So I couldn't tell you how many of that umbrella that we're in, but it's probably somewhere between 50 and 100 now. and And that works. So there are still national chains or big conglomerates that we are dealing with outside of those guys. But yeah, the the we had to completely rebuild our modelling and our wholesale modelling to be able to make a viable one that works, that every sale is made by boots on the ground.
00:57:51
Speaker
And that was something that probably not a lot of breweries were forecasting two years ago. They would forecast a percentage of that, but once you got to a certain point, then you would have those um big contracts, those big chains where you're delivering six pallets every two weeks and you don't have to assign full-time sales rep to that.
00:58:10
Speaker
So that's all changed. And so our modeling is that we have to work for every single new venue and we have to work to maintain those venues. So much more staffing,
00:58:21
Speaker
cost related to our wholesale. It'd be great though if you guys and other similar businesses can make it work though, I think to put a bit, know, just to add a bit more competition outside of having the, you know, the duopoly doing whatever they want. Oh, craft beer is the hottest thing in town, right? We're going to snap up every every local brewery guy, make all these big promises to the IBA. Oh, it's not selling anymore and we've got our own brands. You could all fuck off.
00:58:43
Speaker
um And I've been able to do that almost yeah know carte blanche, really, because there isn't really anyone else there challenging. So it would be interesting if other people are looking at the other options out there beyond yeah the the real pointy end and are able to get some success there and maybe have the big two looking over their shoulders a little bit and thinking, oh, maybe we need to think of it differently as well. Maybe that's just a pipe dream and it's a long way down the line. But certainly there's a huge...
00:59:08
Speaker
you know, opportunity there. It's just that necessarily, you know, I guess it's harder to tap into than just speaking to the right two or three people at the the big banner heads. Oh, 100%. But I think one thing that hopefully, obviously, the last 18 months has been a whole new dynamic that we weren't prepared for.
00:59:25
Speaker
ah But at the end of the day COVID did more for people understanding what a local business's economic impact is than anything else in the last 20 years. We just didn't really get a chance to capitalise before we went straight into cost of living crisis.
00:59:38
Speaker
So hopefully at the other end of this the consumer hasn't forgotten that but it is up to every single one of us to keep reminding them in all our ways just how much more important economically it is for things that are owned in australia produced in australia and then produced within that region just how beneficial it is and i think we've done a really good job so far in bathurst getting that message out but it needs to be just constant all the time because that's how people will continue to seek out independent beer um over the next five ten years is just keep reminding them how important it is
01:00:17
Speaker
It's a tough one as well, though, because people are very defensive about their beer drinking habits. So a lot of people don't want to know that, you know, Great Northern is not like putting dollars in Australian people's pockets. You know what I mean? Like they get very defensive.
01:00:33
Speaker
I get very personal on long-held relationship. It's hard to sort of be back against that. Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. We still, we still get new people coming into the venue every single week. oh my God, I keep hearing about it, but this is the first time I've been in, but every fortnight we'll get that one person that goes, well, hang on.
01:00:51
Speaker
But why isn't Great Northern on here? Do you have for it
01:00:57
Speaker
BX. This is why. but that That is funny. We obviously, um we try and educate where we can and occasionally get that one that's not interested in education and it was just an open place that they thought might have their beer on tap.
01:01:11
Speaker
For the most part, people try, you know, BX Mid and they'll love it. So, yeah, just got to get beers in hands. and Every brewery needs that couple that came and found you at the farmer's market. They need their local equivalent who can just go and like spread the net and just lure people in, you know, so. Exactly.
01:01:29
Speaker
We haven't tried that. We should just send them out into the wild. It's like, come on, come on. They might not come back though. Yeah, the Piper kind of thing, you know. Obviously, they're still like, you know, shackled to the brewery. but I'll just get one of those ankle tags, you know, and just a shock version. You'll be fine. No, no, we didn't send you to that suburb today.
01:01:53
Speaker
Oh, she's going to hate it. Fantastic. No, our other podcasts don't generally go in this direction. they don't know what's going wrong today. um Well, we best wrap up pretty soon. But before we do, we'd love to think a little bit about the past, present and future. And I wanted to know what's one thing you wish you both knew when you started the brewery?
01:02:14
Speaker
I think like for me, like from an actual like building a brewery side of things, just I didn't realise how much I couldn't trust other people. I know that sounds terrible and I've learnt to trust again. I'm not broken anymore, promise you. But like, yeah, when we were actually building the brewery, like just so many things where I had an expert come in to advise went wrong.
01:02:36
Speaker
And it's like, you really do need to everything from being an electrician to a plumber to, you know, knowing how your glycol system works. You need to know absolutely everything. You can't leave anything to someone else to decide.
01:02:48
Speaker
You got to be an expert in it all. So that was my kind of thing that I wish I'd known. and Yeah, right. i on On the same front, I think I wish I had known more about business and that nothing is set in stone and everything's negotiable.
01:03:02
Speaker
So when we first started, it was like, okay, that's it, that's what it is. And over the last few years, we've learned that whatever is set in business is not final and that you can work towards what you need.
01:03:16
Speaker
And I wish I knew that earlier. And what about if someone is entering the brewing industry now, what's the one thing you would tell them? Just go, you need to know this. And it's not, don't join.
01:03:28
Speaker
I've seen all the previous ones. I'm like, yeah, they're good advice. Make sure in in a world of 800 breweries and the discernible dollar and that every dollar can be spent elsewhere, you need to be a point of difference.
01:03:46
Speaker
You have to bring something new if you're going to succeed in a crowded industry while there's a cost-living crisis. yeah my My advice from a brewing perspective is to have the right people with you. You can be the most amazing brewer in the world, but as soon as you are also a business owner, you're not going to be able to spend as much time, you know, making the beer as as you as you did.
01:04:09
Speaker
So having someone, ah you know, who is better than you basically come in and and be that second person who then becomes the first person, which is what's happened here, which is awesome.
01:04:21
Speaker
As a regional brewery though, Grace, like, do you want to tell us a little bit about your
Hiring Challenges and Crisis Adaptation
01:04:25
Speaker
staff? Because I think a couple moved up from Melbourne. Did they move up for the jobs? Like, it's a tough thing for regional breweries to to get staff.
01:04:34
Speaker
100%. um i was pregnant when we found the location and was due to have the baby a week before we opened. So I knew I needed someone to brew the beer. I knew I wasn't going to be um on the deck.
01:04:46
Speaker
So we put the ad out and we got one person apply. ah Luckily, Stephen was amazing, the perfect candidate, had worked at big breweries, small breweries.
01:04:58
Speaker
um He'd been in Melbourne um and was on the south coast, I think, just before um we offered him the job and he moved up. His now wife also happened to be a brewer, um also at big breweries in Melbourne. So um You know, we very quickly grew to the point where we need another brewer. So Anne-Marie came on on board as well. She's a trained Cicerone.
01:05:21
Speaker
And she's, you know, really, ah we're talking about trophies earlier. Like I would put most of our trophies down to her expertise and sensory and like how much she's kind of put our QC program into into check.
01:05:35
Speaker
Yeah. But, yeah, so I feel very lucky we've, you know, again advertised for brewers and gotten two or three, um you know, resumes and stuff. So it is ah definitely a challenge. It is a challenge. The the key thing is to have a 200% success rate. So get one application. Yeah, and that's happened a few times with Joe and Sandra, you know, as well. like they The amount of time we've brought the other along.
01:06:01
Speaker
ah but Yeah, it's it's a big risk for the brewers as well, because if you're moving to a new place, you don't know if the brewery is going to work out and and then you're in trouble, particularly if you're family, if if there's two of you, it's ah it's a tough call.
01:06:14
Speaker
And what about the future? what do you hope it all holds?
01:06:21
Speaker
Survive. So... ah Our first brew was released in September 2019. So we had three and a half months of clear skies and we've only known chaos ever since.
01:06:34
Speaker
So we always just assume that the next crisis is just around the corner because it always has been. Somehow we've managed to survive everything so far and come out stronger every single time. But we can't rest on our laurels. The next crisis is coming and it's just, we've just got to keep doing what we're doing. Always assume that there is something even worse around the corner and just survive.
01:06:58
Speaker
And if we can grow through that as well, that's just an added bonus. And so far, luckily we we keep growing every year quite a bit. So we're just going manage that as well. We are having fun with people.
01:07:09
Speaker
It's not all doom and gloom, I promise you. I hope you've watched Jared when he's reading the bedtime stories. latest He's basically reading the Babadook on repeat. um and but but In terms of a positive looking forward, if you could like grant one wish to to craft beer or to beer in Australia and in the future, what would it be other than No Disasters?
Advocacy for Legislative Changes
01:07:33
Speaker
um my My wish would just be um like to level the playing field somehow for us with the big guys, whether that's in you know legislation with tax or whatever.
01:07:44
Speaker
Just I think that You know, there's lots of people doing a little bit right now and like trying really, really hard, but we really need a big change. yeah know I'm sure that that's the same answer that a lot of people give, but it is really the biggest thing that kind of holds us back is just not being able to compete properly. You can't even give people that, you know, you'll be a side to side with someone else and go make the choice because there's just isn't that opportunity. so Yeah, exactly, exactly. so yeah, some some kind of change.
01:08:13
Speaker
I don't know what it is. That's for, you know, people who are, you know, in in government and smarter than me, but yeah. Yeah, obviously um changing the excise, what, four years ago, I think it was, from 100 to 350 years.
01:08:27
Speaker
helped but in order to get a brewery from being a brew pub to being able to produce at viable volumes to be able to get a case price that makes sense next to some of the big guys it's nowhere near and enough it needs to be double triple what it currently is and yes it's going up to 400 000 next year but five years of it being at 350 means that just brings us back to where we were so it it definitely helped but it doesn't help us actually bridge the gap all that much it bridged one step we need we need the rest of the case
01:09:01
Speaker
Yeah, no, there seems to be a bit of momentum behind both of those calls. I mean, they've both been around for as long as I've been doing Cryoalty Fight and before that as well. But there does seem to be a bit of momentum over the last year or so. So long may that, well, not long may that continue. Sure may that continue. And then suddenly we get the bloody answer is what we want, I guess. But um yeah, and on that note, thanks so much for giving us um your time. Best of luck with, ah yeah, just whatever, surviving the next disaster and then whatever ah whatever comes after that.
01:09:32
Speaker
and Thank you very much. Thanks for having us. Cheers. yes
01:09:40
Speaker
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01:09:54
Speaker
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01:10:10
Speaker
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01:10:24
Speaker
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01:10:40
Speaker
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