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The Evolution Of A Dream – Molly Rose Brewing
346 Plays3 days ago
“When people are happy and passionate then the experiences that you have are just going to be better.”
The story of Molly Rose Brewing and the man behind it, Nic Sandery, has been one of constant evolution, all in the pursuit of delicious flavours and delightful experiences.
Launched initially as a subscription service while enough pennies were put away to open phase one of the brewery’s home in Collingwood, that original brewpub has since been joined by an ambitious, high-end bar, restaurant and beer garden, then a pilot brewery and rotovap for creating small-batch spirits.
By the time we sat down with Nic for the show – almost a decade on from the first article he wrote for us as he embarked on global travels to study beer, food and drinking cultures around the world – Molly Rose had evolved once more. The team has revamped the “brew-restaurant” part of the venue into what the team refers to as “Collingwood beer hall chic”: more casual, more laid-back, more European in feel.
It felt like the perfect time to chat to one of the finest flavour merchants and most thoughtful figures in the beer world, not just to talk about the recent changes, but also his belief that people will always want nice things, his grandmothers’ values that infuse the business, the turbulence of recent years that saw Molly Rose restructure and go into liquidation at one point, and the importance of community and collaboration.
Prior to sitting down with Nic, we look back at the week that was – and a little further too: to the Royal Queensland Beer Awards and the good news that trophy-winners Happy Valley shared afterwards; a feature on KAIJU! brewer Kat Howes as she joined the brewery’s women to create a beer for International Women’s Day; a new beer history tour by one of our writers; Tilray’s purchase of BrewDog Australia; and our involvement in the upcoming High Country Hop Technical Symposium.
Start of segments:- 0:00 – The Week On Crafty
- 14:22 – Nic Sandery Part 1
- 32:52 – Philter on their Australian International Beer Awards success – Part 1
- 33:55 – Nic Sandery Part 2
- 59:11 – AIBAs 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 & Podcast Revival
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Crafty Pint Podcast. I'm Will. I'm James. How are you, Will? I'm doing great. James, how are you? ah Surprisingly, the voice isn't too bad. it was a little bit croaky yesterday after a long weekend at the ah glorious place that is Golden Plains. um Unfortunately, takes place of when there's a ah ah long weekend here in in Melbourne or Victoria, but not anywhere else.
00:00:22
Speaker
So my day of rest yesterday was a 14 hour work day that ended after 10 o'clock last night. So goddamn you, Australian government, state governments, can you please just coordinate all the Labor Day weekends so I don't have such a painful return from my favourite festival in the world. um Other than that, you know, pretty good. We've got a, you know,
00:00:40
Speaker
trip overseas coming up next week. So it's all go. We'll chat about that at the
Royal Queensland Beer Awards Highlights
00:00:45
Speaker
end. ah First of all, looking locally, we've got ah the Royal Queensland Beer Awards. we We skipped over it last week because there was some exciting news tied to it. sort of this Offshoot news. that We couldn't really talk about it um because obviously, I mean, the big winner from the night, Happy Valley, they took home five trophies, including the champion beer trophy and and the state-based champion trophy for fifty k IPA, which is a core range IPA of theirs. So congratulations to the team. That's a hell of a suite, really. Five trophies, three of them for a single beer. Yeah, a huge congratulations to the team. And in some good timing for them, we've known for a little while that they were planning to open a second venue. more in a little while. I think you've been checking in with them since sort of Q3 or Q4 of last year. Well before Christmas anyway. um So yeah, they're opening a new venue, so it's it's actually worked out quite well. It's in a new development. They said the developers and the land their landlord is actually already promoting the fact that they've won of these awards and things like that. So it's off to a good start. um Hop City, it's going to be called. So it's South City Square. It's sort of...
00:01:52
Speaker
A new area within Wollongabba, not too far from the Gabba, the footy and cricket oval. So they're sort of near there. They're in ah a growing precinct. that Stratford, where they're based, is at a sort of quieter area where there are a number of breweries. So they're going into somewhere where the population's growing quite a bit, yeah.
00:02:13
Speaker
Yeah, well, their original brewery is pretty much on an industrial estate. called in there last year or the year before, caught up with Jake Harrison, the brewer who had not long signed for them from Helios. He was previously at Ballistic, started their bunker program. um You know, very popular guy around the Queensland beer industry and appears to have been a very good signing for Shane and Sarah. um But yeah, I guess, you know, they as I said to you for the article, they've been looking for, you know, I guess more... means of selling more beer Hop City should give them ah a greater retail presence. Yeah and they the new space they do have a hotel license which
00:02:51
Speaker
You know, licensing is different in every state, so we won't bore you with the technicalities, but it it basically means they can sell cocktails, spirits, wines, whatever alcohol they want as well. So it will be a broader offering than breweries that exist under that license typically have as well. So that's why they've decided to call it Hot City 2 rather than be something like Happy Valley...
00:03:12
Speaker
Mark II. Yeah, or something. Yeah, Happy Valley by the Gabba. Whatever. like They do want to have a point of difference, but they'll have all their beers on tap. Yeah, and it was kind of handy that we decided to leave the, talking about the Royal Queensland Beer Awards until this week, because they put out an announcement just, well, earlier earlier
Gage Roads' Award Correction
00:03:29
Speaker
this week. and There'd been, a I guess, a clerical error, a calculational error or whatever, um and they'd awarded... the champion large brewery to slipstream uh which been for a second year running but it turns out the winners are actually gage roads i think in the release they put out slipstream actually achieved 18 golds for their beers it was quite remarkable but gage roads had three other trophies so sort of pipped them at the post um so congratulations to gage rose would already mention them in the articles they did have those three other trophies but they I know the champion large and with Slipstream having to make do with their clutch of other trophies and and all those very, very many golds. Probably one for each of their staff members, I'd imagine.
00:04:06
Speaker
um So yeah, um congratulations to everyone involved there. Looking forward to checking out Hop City next time I'm up in
International Women's Day Special Brew
00:04:12
Speaker
Brisbane. um And I guess there's even a Brisbane connection with the another article you ran at the start of this week, sort tied to International Women's Day. Obviously, once again, our sort of events diary and I guess many breweries around the country have been filled with events celebrating International Women's Day, a lot of collaborative brew days. um You chose to speak to Kat Howes, who's currently at Kaiju, but I think last time, sorry, first time I met her, she was brewing at Newstead before that closed down up in Brisbane. So...
00:04:38
Speaker
Yeah, well, that's where she got to start brewing. Kat's originally from Melbourne, but during COVID, like many, made the move to Queensland. Her cousin is actually Mark Howes, who started Newstead and now runs a working title at the original Newstead site. Well, I'm glad. I think I got that out right. It's a very complicated convoluted story, that one. We'll include some links in the show notes. But ah yeah, Kat, she worked behind the bar for a little bit at Newstead's major production brewery in Milton and then was pretty eager to get into brewing. So we chatted about that. I've known Kat since she moved to Melbourne. She was working at Hop Nation and yeah, is now at Kaiju. And together with the women who work at Kaiju, they brewed Imperatrix, which is a hoppy pilsner.
00:05:18
Speaker
I haven't tried it yet, though. but very Sounds very much like your sort of beer. Yeah. All Kiwi hops too. So there's a lot of that has me interested in it. Yeah, yeah, for sure. um I guess the other story that we got up on the site this week is a pretty lighthearted one, but it involves um two of our contributors. So Jason Truen, who's based in Sydney, one of our writers, he joined um Benny or Benedict Kennedy Cox to give him his full name. who's I guess written a lot of beer travel pieces for us, a lot of crafty crawls over the years. He used to do stand-up, he's written for sort of comedy
Beer History Tours in Sydney
00:05:50
Speaker
publications well. Now one of the latest things he started doing is to um take people on beer history tours of the rocks. and I remember when he first started writing, he would tell us about how much he loved The Lord Nelson. So that's one of the venues he calls in on.
00:06:04
Speaker
So Jason joined him on one of his tours. took some snaps and found out about it and I think yeah Benny is a very engaging character um anyone I guess who just stand up can take people through the rocks for a few beers um so yeah if you're heading to Sydney and want to check out a bit of I guess the city's original history and and Benny make sure he winds in guess a lot of the pre um settlement history as well whilst trying some tasty beers then and the story will be in our show notes And one story we haven't really been focused on much at all because it's very much an international story and where a local publication is the fact BrewDog has sold to Til Ray Brand are for about 33 million pounds.
BrewDog's Acquisition by Tilray
00:06:43
Speaker
BrewDog was one stage value to one billion, so it's quite a... yeah
00:06:47
Speaker
Cost price sale, when they made that announcement, Tilray, which are ah originally Canadian based or on the Canadian Stock Exchange, ah you could probably call them legal weed dealers, really. They started in the cannabis trade very much when cannabis legal ah legal cannabis and is a pharmaceutical product was growing rapidly in Canada. They sort of really were ahead of the game there and and grew massively. That market's become pretty saturated now, so they've moved into another market that's maybe a little bit saturated in craft beer. They've been picking up costs they've been picking up breweries on the cheap, basically, for a long time. they've They've become the fourth largest craft brewery in America, as defined by the Craft Brewers Association. They have names like Red Hook, Green Flash, Winmu Brothers, all these kind of
00:07:36
Speaker
legendary regional breweries in America that have yeah sort of either got swallowed up by ABI or other brewery entities or merged together and things like that. And they've gone around buying them. They've now bought BrewDog. And as of earlier this week, they've taken over BrewDog in Australia, which they said they do. They're just separate entities, so they need to do it. So that's now the owner of BrewDog Australia. I think they have said that they will use that production facility and that this this space to potentially introduce the other brands to the region in Australia. So we'll see how that goes. I kind of think it's pretty tough selling American beer in Australia these days, even
00:08:19
Speaker
They might get ahead because they can brew it here and those kind of things. But, ah you know, it would be interesting to see what they do with it if if it they do just sort of try and double down on the BrewDog name, the Punk punk XPA in Australia rather than IPA and and where where they try to take that. its Yeah, we'll see. But they're a very significant player that now has entered the Australian market. So I think it's just something to...
00:08:43
Speaker
watch for and we'll see what happens.
New Zealand Hop Harvest Tour
00:08:45
Speaker
See if they snap up any Australian brands over time well. There certainly are some distressed breweries out there so we'll see what they do. Indeed. um Now as we sort of hinted at the ah start of this chat, we're off on tour next week to mark 10 years of your first think your first freelance pitch to the Crafty Pint 10 years ago. um off to New Zealand for hop harvest. So hopefully we'll ah catch a few, well, I guess Australian brewers as as well as checking out what's been going on over there area in the Nelson region and visiting our friend Luke Robertson down at Short Jaw and couple of other trips on the way. Yes, can't wait. im Very much looking forward to it. We will be back though for the Australian hop harvest as well. Fortunately, it probably doesn't feel like this for the hop growers, but fortunately it goes for quite a long time. So we get to enjoy both and we'll be at... our Bridge Roads, High Country Hop as well, the Technical Symposium. If if you're in the industry in Australia and we want to come, it's it's a really good opportunity network. There's not a lot of industry, large-scale industry events in Australia really anymore. it's ah
00:09:47
Speaker
First of all, Beechworth is a beautiful place to be. The festival the next day is a lot of fun, but the Technical Symposium the day before on the Friday really gives people the opportunity to catch up. And there's an added Thursday this this year as well. So they're adding a sort of hop hop workshop sensory day on the Thursday or in the afternoon. um So I believe the main festival is pretty much sold out now, which reminds me we must book in our tickets. um But yeah, so there's still tickets available for the technical symposium and and another really good lineup of speakers. Will and I will be emceeing the day as well so if you don't like the speakers stay for hopefully we can throw a few gags in along the way. We'll be such hop experts though by the time we get there that we'll know so much. You'll smell us coming. um And yeah and if you do come up for the weekend like it's well well worth making the most of it. It's just so nice to hear.
00:10:33
Speaker
step out your front door be in Beechworth and then know you can just sort of walk a couple hundred meters and you're at a excellent beer festival in a lovely place but also with you know really eclectic musical lineup as well so I hope we'll bump into a few people there um but I guess we should get on with the main um chat this week which is with someone I've also known for maybe 10 years or more Nick Sandery from Molly Rose Yeah, obviously, Molly Rose has gone through a lot in the last little right while. We yeah we cover a lot of it. we We sort of wanted Nick on the show right now because they have changed their offering, which is where we start the conversation with. that They've sort of pared it back in a way, made it more of a beer haul. But, you know, before that, the brewery went into liquidation. Nick then bought it back. There was a restructure before that as well. kind of expanded the business at i think a pretty horrible time for the beer and hospitality industry in melbourne and uh you know anyone who's been to molly rose will know it's a very uh it's been a very higher end or concept driven space so having to deal with that and maybe pair elements of a back we thought it would be really great to have nick on to talk about it Yeah, I think so. So lessons learned along the way and what what he's done. I think if you look at the business, that it's actually sort of been one that's almost been in constant evolution anyway. um You know, Nick started off with his Cornerstone program after he'd been traveling the world, which we discussed as well to sort of seek ideas. i think for him, you know, beer and brewing is just one part. He's very into food and pairing and now he's met playing with spirits. And I think it's about the wider culture of beer globally and what you can learn and what you can bring to the table as well as community. So I think it's sort of those lessons learned. But think, know, started the cornerstone program, you know, delivery to people's homes. Then, know, the brew pub that was sort of built on the cheap or as cheap as he could, you know, and one method. And then, you know, added this this second element plus the lovely beer garden, then the pilot brewery. So it does feel like he's someone that doesn't sit still and maybe his hand's been forced a bit in the last couple of years because of what's going on in the wider industry. But he's also an incredibly thoughtful chap. so I think there's plenty in there for, people to pick up. So we'll be ah joining Nick after the break. From now, however, Will?
00:12:42
Speaker
Well, if you enjoy the chat, make sure you like, subscribe, leave us comment on however you get your podcast. And you can also provide feedback directly by emailing podcast at craftypint.com.
00:12:53
Speaker
Cheers. Cheers.
00:12:58
Speaker
Travel the world of beer one Melbourne bar at a time. The Pint of Origin Festival is back May 15th to the 24th.
00:13:07
Speaker
Royal Adelaide Beer and Cider Awards entries open March 9th. Calling all brewers and cider makers across Australia and New Zealand. Got a beer or cider you reckon deserves a podium moment? It's time to put it to the test at the Royal Adelaide Beer and Cider Awards. Open to breweries and cideries from across Australia and New Zealand, Rabka is your chance to throw your best drop into the ring and compete for 13 highly sought after trophies.
00:13:33
Speaker
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00:13:44
Speaker
Why enter Rabka? You'll get detailed, personalised feedback from nationally recognised judges. You can benchmark your brews against the best in the industry. Earn medals and trophies you can proudly pour into your marketing and sales.
00:13:58
Speaker
And yes, it's the most affordable beer and cider competition in Australia. Whether you're a garage legend or a production powerhouse, Rabka is where great brews get the recognition they deserve.
00:14:10
Speaker
Don't sit on it. Entries are open March 9th. Head to www.beerciderawards.com.au and get your beers and ciders in the mix.
Molly Rose Brewery's Transformation
00:14:23
Speaker
Nick, welcome to the podcast. Thanks, Will. And what about me? You didn't say anything, James. hope you could still bring me into the conversation. Thanks for having me, James. That's all right. You know, and there we were just waxing lyrical about it's been 10 years since you first engaged with the Crafty Pint. You can't even acknowledge me. But anyway, welcome to the show, Nick. Lovely to have you here. Thanks very much, James. I was waiting for that. There we go Thank you. um Now, I guess there'd be many reasons we want to have you on the show. know, we've been on our guest list for a while, but I guess the reason we've timed it round about now is you've just unveiled a new look, approach and sort of menu at Molly Rose in Collingwood. Do you want to tell us all about it? Yeah, absolutely.
00:15:01
Speaker
I guess we've been slowly working on it for a little while for people who visit us a bit. um Slowly changing from less of a restaurant more into a brew pub, beer hall type venue. um We think we've always had pretty gentle kind of warm, welcoming service. And we just found the space wasn't portraying that and so people would walk in and see a space and then be welcomed by us in a completely different manner so what what we wanted to do was change the venue so that when you walk in you know exactly what you're going to get and then we can guide people along give them a great experience and and for people who haven't been like the brew pub has always probably had it sorry the beer garden has probably always had that and looked like that and then you maybe walk inside and it might be What were finding it felt too refined or something? Yeah, more like a rear more refined restaurant feel.
00:15:54
Speaker
And we wanted it to be more of a like ah a pub, beer hall. Well, you started off with the brew pub, I guess, originally, and then you know went a long way from that. And ah and we'll discuss you know more about the reasons for that um later. But at what point did sort of realize that maybe that wasn't what what people were looking for right now?
00:16:15
Speaker
um It was a slow realization. i i guess the cost of living crisis, people were going out less and spending less. And we were trying to do something that was a bit different to regular breweries, bit different to ah what other people were doing. And what I found was when you used to go out four times a week, maybe you'd try a new thing twice a week.
00:16:37
Speaker
If you go out once or twice a month, you want to go to somewhere that you know is going to be awesome, that you know what you're going to get. And maybe a a brewery that serves kind of Southeast Asian fusion food in a more restaurant setting.
00:16:53
Speaker
isn't as comforting as maybe going to a beer hall and getting some classic kind of European beer food. Well, well I guess in that central area, if people haven't been, there's kind of three spaces. it's On the one side, I guess if you're facing the front, it'd be the the original brew pub, then the beer garden on the right, and in the middle was the, what is the beautiful bar, and that was sort of segmented off. And I guess you would have been pretty much in a club of one in doing something quite that sort of ambitious and sort of pointy-ended in the beer beer world anywhere in Australia, I'd have thought.
00:17:23
Speaker
yeah Yeah, it's been done before in Australia, ah in Melbourne. And I've been to a few places around the world that have done quite ah refined dining and beer experiences. And they're fantastic. And we're really, really, really proud of what we were able to what we' were able to create um and the experiences we've been able to give people.
00:17:44
Speaker
People unanimously, when they came and experienced it, loved what we had. And I'm really proud of the food and the drink and the service that we provided. It just wasn't everybody's every week.
00:17:55
Speaker
And yeah, it with the cost of living crisis, we really just needed to be everybody's every week because people are going out less and they're spending less. And we want to stick around. and We want Molly Rose to exist through the next kind of three or four years and pop out the other side and we'll see what we can do then.
00:18:11
Speaker
Yeah, hes amazing what you mentioned popping out the other side. Are you confident that these things will prove to be cyclical? I guess, you know, the economy underpins a lot of it, but taste probably change with that as well? Taste will definitely change.
00:18:23
Speaker
And and I'm confident that people always want great products. Nice things. Nice things. Things that taste good. And I love making things that taste good. So I'm i'm not necessarily a beer purist.
00:18:38
Speaker
I've been chatting to a few people lately, getting a lot of advice on what we should do and how we should do it. And a lot of them kind of misinterpret me and how I... am in the beer world and how I got into the beer world, they they kind of think that I'm a beer freak and I just dive deep down in beer and just love it top to bottom and I've always done this and I've always done this and I only want to do this. I love eating and drinking everything.
00:19:03
Speaker
I love making beer I love drinking beer, but I'm not like set on any one way. I love the evolution of beer. making different things and investigating new stuff. So I'm happy to see what happens over the next three or four years and how tastes change and and maybe, yeah, pop out. there Like i say, pop out the other side. People will want nice things um and I'm happy to make those nice things. So you're happy to evolve the business continually, right? Like Molly Rose will always potentially look a little bit different. 100%. And we always have as well. We we opened six months before the start of COVID. And our intention was to be a mainly on-premise venue. And I guess we kind of ran three years without most of our business plan. So we've evolved and evolved, like everybody else, over the last kind of five or six years. But we've never had a ah clear kind of run.
00:19:54
Speaker
at anything. So we've constantly been able to change our look, change our feel and change our offer. um So six months into COVID, then you come out of COVID and you're ready to go and go, hey, we have got the most premium offering in B&R. Come in and just do a degustation. It's like, oh, so we've got no money. but Yeah, well, no, we we had a great 18 months where we were full and we were doing really well and we're really, really proud of all of those customers that we served. And then I guess, yeah, people stopped drinking as much. People, the mortgage,
00:20:23
Speaker
I think it was after I bought my house as well. You timed everything. Yeah, I timed it beautifully, didn't I? I've had two kids in that gap as well. But yeah, the the rate rises, like what it was it, 13 in a row, 14 in a row, whatever it was, um kind of coincided with the decline in in customers.
00:20:41
Speaker
Well, you mentioned before, you know, talking to a number of people about sort of deciding on the new direction, you know, how it should look and feel and that kind of stuff. I'd imagine there's a lot of businesses out there that have either been through that process or thinking of going through that process or feel they maybe should.
00:20:57
Speaker
to offer some in insight, how did you go about it? was it or Was it consulting internally with the team? Was it talking to people in other businesses? Like how did you sort of go, you know, knowing that you wanted to make a change, how did you get to the point? And, you know, has obviously there's a visual change in terms of taking that. That's the sort of the and the stained glass wall in the middle. But also I think the offerings changed a bit as well. So how did that, you know if you can take people through the process of how you went about doing it? Yeah, we've got to a very small, close-knit team. We're a very small brewery.
00:21:25
Speaker
um and We're always talking about new ideas. We all unanimously love good food and drinks. So we're always talking about new things that are happening, trends. How could we do this better? How could that happen better?
00:21:38
Speaker
And then also I've been making Molly Rose beers and talking about beer for 10 years in Melbourne. So picked up a bunch of mates who have done fantastic things over the last 10 years and 20 years. ah I've got no problems calling up friends and asking for help. Yeah.
00:21:56
Speaker
And if you ask for 15 minutes, people might chat to you 30 minutes, they might chat to you for five minutes, but it's really helpful just asking people who know more and learning from people's experiences and what they're seeing and how they're feeling about things and what they've noticed in their venues, what they've noticed with their brands. So I've just got on the phone to everyone I kind of trust and respect and ah asked to a bunch of questions.
00:22:21
Speaker
Is there anything about yeah where Moly Rose is at right now that you're particularly excited about, whether it's food or there anything that stands out where you're like, yes, I'm so excited where we're here or this is what we're doing?
00:22:32
Speaker
Yeah, i'm so I'm really excited how the venue is looking and feeling at the moment. We've opened, like you said, James, we've taken down a few walls and opened up the space. We've got long beer hall-ish tables. We've got some cool, weird art on the wall, um and we're kind of refining things the menu but not changing anything too much that we've done in the last kind of it's not it's not burgers and chicken you know chicken sticks well maybe it is you have to come in we we know we're refining how we display the menu so and nothing's really changed much in the last kind of 12 months so if you've been in it's going to be going along a very similar line we're refining it we've got a brand new chef who's brought his take to it he's from england uh he's worked in melbourne for a while
00:23:15
Speaker
the European in the city. So he's got great kind of European English cooking chops and he just loves cooking for beer, preparing with beer. So that's fantastic.
00:23:27
Speaker
So yeah, we're getting our communication right. So people know what to expect when they walk in, they can see, they know what to expect when they read the menu, they're going to know what they expect from the menu and our service is going to be super clear.
00:23:39
Speaker
And up I just, I'm really excited that we are now offering something that people are gonna come in and understand and expect and be super stoked with. Because instead of to trying to do something that's kind of a bit different and crazy, we're now gonna do something that people know are expecting, but we're gonna outperform maybe what they're expecting.
00:24:01
Speaker
ah And does that correspond to the beer as well? Or like is is there sort of a widespread change at Moïse or are you kind of still... Beer is not changing. Beer is not changing. We we have evolved what but what we brew and how much of each style of beer we brew. um But that's evolved with kind of consumer trends on the on the broader spectrum and also what we like drinking internally as well as we've grown older in the last 10 years. bit more mid-strength than non-AUK. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I've been investigating and playing with the distillery a lot more over the last kind of three or four months.
00:24:39
Speaker
And so we've brought our cocktail list. fully across to being almost exclusively made out of things that we distill in-house. So that's pretty exciting too. I guess for people who haven't been in, do you give want to give people a bit of a yet potted insight into how you're distilling as well? Because you've got this very funky looking tool next to your pilot brewery.
00:25:01
Speaker
here So we've got a rotary evaporator. So we distill under pressure, under a vacuum, sorry, not under pressure. They're still under a vacuum um and it looks it looks kind of Breaking Bad or Chemistry Lab. Or if you zap someone with it, it might send them back in time. It could do. It's a flux capacitor. um And so we put our...
00:25:26
Speaker
still under a vacuum, and that reduces the boiling point of ethanol. So it normally boils around 70 degrees Celsius. If we put a vacuum on it, we can bring that boiling point down to like 10, 11 degrees. So we're not having to heat up our distillates. And so things like fresh citrus or fresh fruits, chilies, that kind of thing, we can run through the rotovap and you don't actually cook them in in the pot.
00:25:49
Speaker
And so you're getting in these bright, vibrant flavors across. um Nothing against normal distilling because I love whiskey and love gin and people have been doing it for hundreds if not thousands of years and it's great. I'm just more... yeah i was to Initially, I was more used to using these because I've used them in my university studies. I studied chemistry.
00:26:09
Speaker
Back when you were making meth as Back when I was making meth. Yeah.
00:26:15
Speaker
And I guess I distill in very much the same way as I make beer. I layer flavors on top of each other. and not People ask, are you going to do whiskey? i'm not doing whiskey at the moment. like I'm not distilling off. love the at the moment caveat. Well, I'm not doing whiskey. i have no plans to do whiskey. that's like That's taking a very pure grain product, making the wash, and then distilling across, and then waiting and aging. and It's a very fine balance of...
00:26:41
Speaker
nuanced procedures I'm layering flavours on top of things to kind of come up with a drink that's in my head already and whiskey is too long of a payoff for me at the moment I like to know what's going to happen pretty quickly um And of those, I've noticed you've packaged your pastis recently. Is that sort of becoming almost a core product for you are there other spirits or, you know, distilled products that you're looking to get out there? And what is a pastis? What is a pastis? Probably because it's not that common at Booster and Combedagene. Pastis is not a common thing. It's definitely not the moneymaker. It's always in... It sounds like a Nick approach to business. It doesn't. It doesn't.
00:27:22
Speaker
it So pastis is, if you if anybody knows Pernod or Ricard, they are both pastis. um It's an aniseed, licorice-y based liqueur slash spirit.
00:27:34
Speaker
Now I say liqueur slash spirit because it's 45% alcohol, but it's kind of got liqueur level sugars. And it's the number one spirit consumed in France. And so they drink it with either like one part pastis to kind of three to five parts of water on ice. And it goes cloudy. and When it goes cloudy, it's clear.
00:27:53
Speaker
It's a clear liquid. And when you put water in, it goes cloudy. And that's called a louche. And so they drink it in tall glasses, lots of ice in the sun before dinner, after dinner, for lunch, for breakfast, whenever you want. It is absolutely delicious.
00:28:07
Speaker
So louche had more than one meaning then? What's the other meaning? It's ah sordid or desperate disreputable, but in a rakish and appealing manner, which I think is kind of the greatest thing to aspire to. There go. There you go. oh yeah I saw you get loose caps. I'm like, oh, that's one of my favorite words, but I didn't realize it had this other meaning. So there you go.
00:28:25
Speaker
I didn't realize it had another meaning either. Who says you can't learn something new after 10 years just hanging out with each other? There you go. Okay. Yeah, so pastis, amazing. I love It's one of my favorite things. Molly, my grandmother, loved it. Our whole family loved it.
00:28:40
Speaker
My grandfather, Mike, told a story about Molly ah drinking a boat out of pastis on the way back to England. um He did tell tall tales, so it could have had like this much in the bottom of the bottle on the back bar and she just finished it like in one drink. But that being said, it's good story. So yeah, love pastis, love distilling, um and yeah,
00:29:04
Speaker
I don't know. I don't know what else to say. it's something that's, you know, occupying more of your focus over the last couple of years or but maybe just, yeah, I guess, inspiring
Innovative Distilling at Molly Rose
00:29:14
Speaker
you. What's this? Try new stuff, I guess. Exactly. Yeah, it is. And at the moment, because we' we're redoing the cocktail list, I've been kind of thinking about it a bit more and trying to put together this cocktail list and bringing back a few old recipes and doing a few new recipes. And yeah, really excited. It's it's pretty fun.
00:29:30
Speaker
Now, we held a um delightful pre-Christmas dinner in the original brew pub part of Molly Rose, Crafted Cheer, which was lot of fun. Has that changed at all or has the focus been on, you know, what what was, I guess, part two of Molly Rose with all the recent changes?
00:29:45
Speaker
Yeah, so it was more more part two at the moment. The taproom is very similar to how it's always been. I've got dartboard up in there, which is a lot of fun. It's mainly for me, I think. In between breweries just to totally clear the mind. Exactly. Find that Zen state. But it's really fun. You can put a dartboard table if you come in with a group of mates. And we do, actually. It's funny how many British people come in and play darts and come in with a group of 10 people and just drink pints and play darts. It's...
00:30:13
Speaker
It's really good beer sport. do you have a darts nickname yet? or the The darts player is you it's always like the power or something. and you You got one of those yet? I don't. We'll work on that. Yeah, because I normally play on my own when no one's around.
00:30:25
Speaker
um for one And I guess anytime you make a change, there's going to be some things that get ah left by the wayside. Is there anything that you sort of previously held dear that's been hard to let go of or and that maybe you'll come back in the future with all the changes you've made?
00:30:41
Speaker
I don't think so. I think it's been a ah slow process of actually um executing the changes. So I've come to terms with the change in itself.
00:30:53
Speaker
um And I've come to terms with maybe the failings of previous decisions. And yeah, I was just happy to make the change and and see what new things will come from it.
00:31:06
Speaker
And anything else sort of immediately on the horizon or things you're planning on doing in the near future? Well, I got to get through this to start with. well yes and It's only been a week or so since we changed over. um So, yeah, we relaunched the menu.
00:31:25
Speaker
Pretty stoked on that. the dr The cocktail menu should be fully enforced this weekend. um That's something I'll be tinkering with as we go, just based on what people like and what people drink. Um,
00:31:39
Speaker
We've got um a few kind of collab beers and dinners. We're going to try and run them semi-regularly. um So we're working on ah one with a distillery at the moment.
00:31:53
Speaker
We may have another pop-up with a different chef coming up as well. So our collabs that we've always run, which bring interesting and new groups of people and makers into the brewery, are still going to keep happening.
00:32:06
Speaker
um So I guess that's... that's One thing that we won't ever lose because it's really important to the Molly Rose kind of ethos is community and and and learning from other people and sharing what other people have. And I mean, you can't get better unless you're working with other passionate people who are like-minded.
00:32:26
Speaker
And we might have collaboration going on during Pint of Origin. think we can hint at it at this stage, I think. I forgot about that one, didn't I? I forgot about that one. That's months and months away. It's still a while away. No, we're great. Well, we'll take a short break now, then come back and talk about the history of Molly Rose and, I guess, the wider beer and hospital industry. But, yeah, see in a minute. Cheers.
00:32:46
Speaker
Cheers.
00:32:51
Speaker
Entries are closing this Friday, 13th of March for the 2026 Melbourne Royal Australian International Beer Awards, the world's largest annual beer competition assessing both draft and package beer.
00:33:03
Speaker
Here's Steph from Filter Brewing, multiple trophy winner at last year's awards, on what they get out of the competition. What we get out of it as a as ah as a brewery, mate, is that we're... that recognition of the quality that we put day in day out to know that we're always on top of our game. And that's one of our most important things here at filter is the quality of the beer we produce.
00:33:23
Speaker
So to know that we're entering those awards and even nine years in, we're still getting trophies. We know where we're producing some really good stuff. Open to breweries and cideries of all sizes worldwide, the Melbourne Royal Australian International Beer Awards offers a fantastic opportunity to benchmark your products, gain valuable feedback and celebrate success.
00:33:42
Speaker
Entries close this Friday, 13th of March. Full details at melbourneroyal.com.au slash beer.
00:33:55
Speaker
Nick, for those who don't know, we've sort of started with the more recent changes at Molly Rose, but as you said, you've been making beer or at least been on the Molly Rose journey for 10 years.
00:34:07
Speaker
we'll We'll include them in the show notes because before you started the brewery, you sort of set off around the world and wrote some stories for us. And sure, that's not why you were traveling the world, but do you want to tell us a little bit about that origin of why sort of travel and all of that was important to to the brewery? Yeah, absolutely.
00:34:24
Speaker
um I guess i i when it came to this time, ah knew I wanted to start my own brewery. um And I hadn't chosen the name yet.
00:34:36
Speaker
I had kind of the values we're going to stand for. I had the concept of the brewery. um But I'd only been working in a couple of breweries around Australia and craft beer, I mean, it was 10 years ago, beer wasn't in it in its infancy, but it definitely wasn't ingrained in culture.
00:34:54
Speaker
I didn't grow up drinking craft beer. It wasn't a thing that was just everywhere um and there was no kind of traditions around it. And so I wanted to travel the world and kind of bring home some new ideas and experience how other people enjoy great beer and great food and great hospitality. You were lucky enough to grow up in the home of Coopers, though, at least. I did. I did. Oh, look, I grew up drinking great beer, but yeah they got they would write they call themselves Kraft now. But back then it wasn't. It was just beer.
00:35:23
Speaker
It was just beer. I didn't even know it was an ale growing up. But so, you know, you were like at Holgate making German-style lagers and things like that, but you hadn't maybe had been to Germany or at least maybe hadn't visited that many breweries. Hadn't visited breweries in Germany. Hadn't visited many breweries in Belgium.
00:35:39
Speaker
Hadn't been to America at all ah where craft beer was invented. um And i mean, on the way over to America, i stopped in Japan because they've got, whilst craft is kind of new there, they've got ancient traditions of great fermented booze with amazing food and incredible hospitality.
00:35:58
Speaker
um And a passion for really nailing down on making one thing and making that thing great, which is pretty fucking cool.
00:36:09
Speaker
I don't know. You guys swear on this podcast? Yeah, yeah, of course. Okay, great. we we was line Within reason, we're going to cut this whole episode. Yeah, yeah. Oops. Yeah. ah So Japan, the States, across to Europe, yeah, Belgium, Germany, across to England.
00:36:29
Speaker
Yeah, just investigating beer cultures and traditions and, yeah, writing for you guys at the same time and... um Just yeah getting out there and seeing how people make and enjoy beer around the world.
00:36:40
Speaker
um It did influence me a lot. Influenced the type of beer tanks I got designed when I came back. Influenced the type of beers that I like to make. And also the style of service that we wanted to do. um I guess the kind of unifying feature in the old world was that breweries are just a hub of the town.
00:36:59
Speaker
They're just there. And people build them into their days as like uh drop the kids off go do the shopping pick up a loaf of bread go to the butcher grab a pint of beer on the way pick the kids back up go home or like i've finished my afternoon swim let's go to the brewery and have two pints of smoked lager like incredible stuff uh go to a restaurant in belgium and um there's a 47 beer menu and each one has their own glass.
00:37:28
Speaker
like that That's insane to us, but it's just ingrained in culture over there. it's It's pretty inspiring that so much love and passion goes into beer and also the enjoyment of beer on the other side. So it's not just makers, it's people enjoying it too.
00:37:42
Speaker
And they take it very seriously, ah but still have fun with it. And I guess in England, there's just there's a pub on every corner and they've all got local beer in them that's poured out
00:37:55
Speaker
say what you like about camera, but it's very specific, very specific way to pour the beer and enjoy the beer. And it's very much passion about enjoying that beer in a specific way. And we just didn't have that in Australia. So I'm really, really glad that I got the opportunity to go over and learn.
00:38:12
Speaker
about how other people enjoy beer. So these travels weren't just a case of trying a lot of different liquids or flavors. It was about seeing how the wider community was. And I guess that makes sense to why community is so central to Molly Rose. like You know, you always seem to be embraced. You talk about collaborations in the first part of the chat, but I think a number of the events you've done have been all about bringing in people from around you know the the beers of the burb stuff you do bringing in people from different parts of the city it seems to be very central you know everyone talks about community but it does seem that you try to make the venue community hub through the events you put on absolutely yeah yeah we absolutely do um and it's yeah like i said
Molly Rose's Hospitality Ethos
00:38:53
Speaker
it's fun just to bring people in who are passionate about either doing the thing that we're doing or bringing their own
00:39:00
Speaker
handmade crafts or handmade food or um so something that they're passionate about they bring them in and and share that either with our guests or they bring their own guests in. yeah It's just incredible. when When people are happy and passionate, then the experiences that you have are just going to be better.
00:39:19
Speaker
um Food and drink is so experiential and it's all about how you're feeling at the time. And so when yeah when when there's when there's excited, happy, passionate people sharing what they do with with you, it's hard not to get excited about it as well.
00:39:35
Speaker
And I find a lot of inspiration around that. What about, you mentioned Molly earlier in the chat, what about the brewery name and when did that sort of become a part of the picture of what you were building?
00:39:46
Speaker
Yeah, I had the values for the brewery already. It was meant to be hospitable, welcoming, inclusive. um So I wanted to make interesting beers, but i didn't want them I didn't want them to be so unique and crazy that you had to have 6,000 untapped check-ins to actually understand what it is. I want all of our beers to be um approachable enough that Anyone can pick it up and have a sip and go, oh, yeah, I can see that. I can definitely get what's going on there. And, well, it might not be my beer, but, yeah, great. Good job.
00:40:23
Speaker
So I don't want to be exclusive. So inclusive, sharing, hospitable. And guess I've had... After a bit of a deep dive, I found that that those values came from my family and inadvertently from their parents.
00:40:39
Speaker
And yeah, Molly and Rose were both kind of pretty powerful women. They grew up during the war. Rose in Australia, Molly in England. She was shipped out of London during the bombing. And I guess there's a the hardship, which some people in the world are experiencing pretty pretty vividly at the moment, but there's a hardship that we...
00:40:59
Speaker
as middle-aged white men haven't experienced being a woman coming out of the war with not much and raising children, you're pretty hardy, pretty thrifty people who were still managed without a lot to be able to give almost everything they had. So, yeah, that's that's kind of been the ethos ah of Molly Rose is to to be welcoming and sharing and giving and hospitable and inclusive.
00:41:28
Speaker
and and we yeah I guess not just with the name, but I guess a lot of the branding and i guess nature all the events you've done, they've not been typically beer-y. and I know we sort of touched upon this a bit in in part one, but you know do you think in this sort of more conservative time, whether it you know it is sort of, we were chatting to Tofa from Wildflower on the the show a few weeks ago, and he was just thinking that,
00:41:49
Speaker
you know It's not just the fact that that know there's been the cost of living thing, but he also thinks there's a bit of a sort of conservative sort of um you know sort of sheen over the world at the minute. you That makes it hard for people like you trying to do something different you know to break the mold. Is it harder in the current climate, do you think?
00:42:06
Speaker
We've definitely found it hard to sell tickets to things. Yeah. that it might be a little bit abstract and a bit different at the moment. I'm not sure if it is the conservative sheen across it.
00:42:25
Speaker
um I think we live in we're were we're in Collingwood in Melbourne, so there's a million people within kind of a kilometre of us, and a lot of them like good food and drinks, so I think there's an audience there.
00:42:42
Speaker
They're just doing less is is my gut feel for us because we're so small. Tof is selling his beer right across Australia, so he's probably feeling that impact a lot more than me. um But yeah, i think I think people are just doing doing less at the moment.
00:42:56
Speaker
And I guess talking, I guess that feeds into, um I guess for yourself, like a lot of people in the drinks, water to drinks and the hospitality world in the last couple of years, you've endured a pretty rough time. um You know, you obviously went through a period of restructuring, liquidation, you know the business was closed for a while. um From a personal level, what's that been like for you? I mean, obviously, yeah I know you pretty well, and it's been pretty tough, but you know hopefully you know you're coming out on the other side of it now. But I imagine, you know I guess not but too many people would necessarily hear what it's like for someone on the inside having to go through that sort of process.
00:43:29
Speaker
Yeah, look, it was tough. It was tough. it wasn't It wasn't so much a surprise for me as it was for everyone else. Not that we necessarily planned to do it.
00:43:43
Speaker
It was just always... ah yeah when When a business is in trouble, you get advice from people who know and and you talk to as many people who do know as possible and you talk to people who at work in the industry. Yeah.
00:43:58
Speaker
And so always knew that it it was a possibility. It was kind of down the bottom of the flow chart of options. And unfortunately we exhausted all those options. And so it was kind of always an option. I knew that we may inevitably get to that position, um which unfortunately we did.
00:44:20
Speaker
um hey But it didn't make it easier. i was just maybe a bit more prepared than I would have been if I had to. maybe Maybe if, look, I got an accountant in and they looked at the books and they said, holy shit, you've really screwed. You've got you've week. You've got youre to deal with this now. So you're closed tomorrow. It wasn't that.
00:44:40
Speaker
We were a bit more kind of ahead of the game with advisors and accountants and things like that. um So it wasn't a ah shock closure by any means, but we we did exhaust every other option before we we got to that. And getting that message on the outside, you know, saying it took people off guard and things like that. I know breweries that have gone into VA where people still ah up ask me if they're still closed and things like that. Do you you'll find it hard to get that message across as well? Like, hey, we're still here. We're still the same team and that kind of thing. Yeah, we we've found that hurt quite a bit um because the closure was very well publicized and the reopening wasn't.
00:45:24
Speaker
um And so we hear it all the time. A lot of people say, oh, I didn't know you were still open, didn't know you were still there, um which is really sad because we're doing great things still. We've got a fantastic team. I've still got all the same employees working with us and doing uh i mean we've changed chefs but that was amicable and sean was already kind of flagged me 12 months ago he's like oh i think i'm i think i'm looking for another job at the moment i've done my three years with you and i need to move on to somewhere else to learn something else and so that was already on the cards sean's gone i've got a new head chef now uh apart from that we've got the same team and and everyone's still doing fantastic work and our beer is still great and
00:46:07
Speaker
So yeah, a bit sad that we weren't able to get the message out before, but that's kind of the point of this mini relaunch now, um getting all the communications in line, making sure everybody knows exactly what we do, make sure the menu looks like we want it to, making sure the venue looks like we want people to feel it when they come in, and then announcing to everyone that we're here and we're still doing good things. I imagine by the time you sort of exhausted all the options, um by that stage, I'm assuming you your sort of retail side of the business sort of been catching up on wholesale, just the way the market had been going. So I was thinking, know would that have meant that a closure, even though it's temporary, could potentially have a bigger impact on you than, say, one of the
00:46:50
Speaker
bigger breweries that's in wholesale for example where the message might not get out so much that if if people are just engaging with the brewery by picking up a six pack or a four pack every couple of weeks it's probably different to people are coming through your door yep 100 we we had flipped around and and the in venue revenue was a high proportion of our revenue as a business um but it hurt on both sides um lost a bit of consumer trust uh from like how ah wholesale customers, they kind of backed off a bit and we're feeling that comeback maybe only this year. Last month, we kind of felt like some of the customers who hadn't ordered for 12 months was starting to slowly find a position back in their venues and their bottle shops for us, which is great.
00:47:39
Speaker
um And you mentioned as well, you know keeping there's lot of familiar faces still on the team. The team's maybe not quite as extensive as it was you know maybe a few years back, but there's a lot of familiar faces who've been there for a long time. yeah i guess that would have been key to you, but you know was that How did you sort of keep those people around when, you know you as you said, you probably delivered a bit of a shock when you said this is what we're going to have to do? but you know i you know I know that some people that work for you, there they're believers, they're real believers. you know so how did you manage that side of things? Because you know staff retention at any time is a tricky thing in in hospitality.
00:48:12
Speaker
Well, as much as I could within legality and within... the best interest of the business. i I'm open and honest with the team because it's so small. We all work together. We're all on top of everything. and We also share a lot of different roles. um So they were all um aware that the business was in trouble and that we we were investigating options so that we could continue.
00:48:45
Speaker
and And then as soon as things were about to happen, I i explained exactly what was going to happen and and um how it would affect them and when they'd be paid. and um yeah And they were all happy with that and we followed through we've done everything that we said we would. And so, yeah, they're all on board.
00:49:02
Speaker
Yeah, think it's key. it And what about what's your take on, we've already touched on it a bit, but you know interest rate, cost of living crisis, do you think... this is something we've just got to deal with temporary or the market shifted a bit? like Like, do you see where it's sort of heading in terms of dining out and things like that?
Melbourne Hospitality's Economic Challenges
00:49:19
Speaker
Do you see a future where you can have people come in more often than that kind of thing? Yeah, look.
00:49:26
Speaker
The market's definitely shifted. We're in a ah pretty tough time economically. The world is, and Australia is. And Melbourne, we were feeling the brunt maybe 12 months before the rest of Australia. I'm probably feeling a good whack of the brunt.
00:49:43
Speaker
Melbourne's one of the best food cities in the world, and there's no way that it's going to be kept down forever. um There has been kind of a dampening of new and innovating so innovative stuff available, new restaurants, new bars in Melbourne, which is a little bit sad, but there's not going to be long before that turns around and people start wanting to go out and see more things and spend more money.
00:50:10
Speaker
And we yeah we're going to be here when that happens. Yeah, the city is not going to be held down for long, but maybe five years. Well, this at least there's nothing happening globally that's going to impact logistics and oil prices and things, so we should be fine. no, no no all All that seems to have cleared up. Look, how long was the Great Depression? Was that 12 years, 15 years?
00:50:32
Speaker
Went straight into a world war as well. It did. It did, Will. Thanks for that. We're just condensing it all, pandemic, cross-living crisis, world war. But, you know, the boomers had it so easy. just they did. They're about to remember, so maybe the next generation.
00:50:46
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's everything cyclical. Things will come back around. Seb and Matilda are going fine. Yeah, completely fine. um And I guess we've we've got so this far into the conversation. we haven't touched upon actual beer too much, um which I guess is pretty odd given you're brewer at heart, even though you're many other things as well. um How would you describe your approach to brewing and creating recipes, flavours?
00:51:12
Speaker
I haven't done it for a while. i like things I like drinks to be balanced. So...
00:51:20
Speaker
I bring that to my brewing. So I like beers to be crisp and clean and refreshing. I like to finish a beer and whoever finishes that beer want to have another one of exactly the same beer straight afterwards. And so that's what I try and build into every single one of our beers.
00:51:37
Speaker
Um, so refreshing, balanced, uh, and more ish. Um, I also like reasonably dry beers. i had a It's a German-Belgian thing. They like dry, kind of crisp beers. I'd say that would be one of the key characteristics of ah of a sandery sandery beer. Yeah.
00:51:59
Speaker
And i'm not I'm not sure what else. I don't really know how else to describe it. i like to make all sorts of beers, but that's they're the unifying factors. And I guess that side of things wouldn't have... have was ask has it evolved over time? I guess some of the beers you put out there might have evolved because of the changing tastes or price points or whatever. But essentially, I guess whatever beer you make from what you're saying, you'd have the same underlying principles yeah feeding into it. I do.
00:52:24
Speaker
i do. i mean, we've made a few hazy IPAs, and so they they head towards the sweeter side of things, but we keep it pretty restrained on that side of things.
00:52:35
Speaker
um Apart from that, all our beers are fairly similar to how they always have been. We still make our first two core range beers were Skylight and When Life Gives You Lemons. I've got both of them in the tank at the moment. Both of them, apart from changes in suppliers, are the same recipes as we made, what was that, six years ago when we first did them.
00:52:57
Speaker
And what's your setup now? Because know you've sort of had a mix of approaches. You know, you used to have work made off site and fermented on site and some of the bigger batch stuff brewed by your friends in industry. Where do you sit now in terms of how you and I guess how do you manage it? you know, if you have the same product potentially coming out from different places, have you managed that over time? So, you know, you are going to be a stickler for everything being as you know consistent as it can be.
00:53:20
Speaker
Yeah, I don't mind slight batch-to-batch variations as long as it's delicious. Like if it's a fault, then it's like, that's no good. But if there's a slight variation, then I'm not super fussed because in my mind,
00:53:38
Speaker
you get a batch of beer, it lasts you a month. The keg that goes out on the first day, if it's still tapped at the end of the month, it's going to taste very different at a venue that's not pouring it very quickly. Ideally, it would go in a week, but that's not how the world works.
00:53:51
Speaker
um If a beer sits on a shelf for two months, and then somebody cracks it versus one of those fresh, it's going to taste completely different. So slight variations in fresh batches. I'm not super fussed over.
00:54:02
Speaker
I do like beer to be fresh when people get it. So that's what we focus on is making sure we we brew the right amount of beer. We keep it fresh when people get it. um We have got a pilot brewery, which make it means we can make a whole bunch of different beers on site and make them in smaller volumes, which is great.
00:54:19
Speaker
um And we do still brew work offsite and bring it in. um
00:54:26
Speaker
we've contracted in volume. We've brought everything a lot closer to Molly Rose in terms of where we sell our beer. And so we're making everything in-house and we've got a can line and a kegging all ins on site. um So yeah, we we do everything in-house except for the larger batches of work that we buy in.
00:54:44
Speaker
And I guess that'd be fairly consistent, you know, change for most brewing businesses these days is bringing everything to be sold much closer to home as well. There's been a lot of consolidation.
00:54:55
Speaker
ye Logistics is expensive um and people are buying less. So you want to sell your beer and like making it's expensive so the margin is tighter. So you want sell your beer closer to home so you can make some margin on it and follow it and make sure it's being drank fresh and all your local best customers are enjoying Molly Rose beer in the best way they can.
00:55:19
Speaker
Do you think that's sticking around as well? Do you think that's the future? Consolidated, local. Yeah, local breweries. I think for the moment, ah local breweries is where it's going to be. I think it's a very, very, very hard thing to be a medium-sized brewery trying to sell out in the wild at the moment.
00:55:40
Speaker
I have national brand. um that's tough and people are doing it like well done to them but holy crap that's tough um there's the cost of living pressures and then larger businesses who are able just to put beer on the shelf cheaper than most can make it and so competing with that and $42, $45 cartons. Like, how do you compete with that?
00:56:06
Speaker
A carton of 24 beers too. That tastes pretty good. Like, i've I've tried it and it's like, oh, that that's that's pretty good. um So how how does a brewery, medium-sized independent brewery compete with that?
00:56:19
Speaker
our answers on a postcard to to to any of the people still trying to be medium-sized breweries. um I thought finishing on a sort of like, you've more recently written some um articles ru about beer and food pairing. And I know that's obviously been very central to the whole Molly Rose story as well. um I guess, where's that passion come from from you? And also, if you were to try and win over someone to the concept of beer and food pairing, what's your ultimate pairing that you'd give to them and they'd have this just flavor explosion in their mouth?
00:56:51
Speaker
Pretty much, I love eating good food. i um I homebrewed a tiny bit when I was younger. But when I was still kind of learning to homebrew and brewing terrible beer, I was cooking like five course meals on a Sunday for my housemates at a Unishare house.
00:57:07
Speaker
So I love food. I love cooking great food. I love buying great ingredients from markets and farmers markets and growing my own ingredients. and um i have always loved cooking and eating it's from my family um so i mean the perfect way to enjoy good food is with good booze uh whether it's wine or beer i personally think that beer is a more versatile pairing to food uh than wine uh the bubbles in it to start with and you can go acid or no acid thick sweet dry crisp bitter spiced not spice so you've got absolutely everything winemakers have just got grapes red or white
00:57:45
Speaker
I mean, that's a simplification, right?
Beer and Food Pairing Passion
00:57:47
Speaker
But it's true. um So just pairing beer is incredible. the The best pairing... Oh, that's really fucking tough, James. because I guess it's seasonal. It is seasonal. Because I really, ah really, really like a crisp, clean beer, whether it's like an easy drinking pail or a lager, and a big bowl of chips and just sitting there and demolishing both like yeah salty chips and beer. It's like so good. The Belgians know what they're doing. Yeah.
00:58:19
Speaker
But I mean, that's not really a ah romantic beer pairing, is it? Depends you're with. ha Well, you know, if if people do want to find out more, you've written a few articles about it. I've written i've written articles about it. we we will We will be doing, when we do collab dinners with...
00:58:37
Speaker
other brewers, distillers, winemakers, et cetera, we always do three or four courses and we pair the drinks and the food with that. So we're still that is still happening. We did three or four but in the run-up to Christmas. We love that and we'll not cut that out of our business. So it'll still be around.
00:58:53
Speaker
Great. Now we're talking of still being around. Best of luck with the relaunch taking place now and for the future. We look forward to many more you know sunny afternoons in the beer garden and maybe future events along the way as well. So thanks for joining us on the show and yeah, best of luck. Thanks very much, James. Thanks, Will.
00:59:08
Speaker
Cheers.
00:59:11
Speaker
Brewers, be sure to get your entries in for the 2026 Melbourne Royal Australian International Beer Awards by this Friday, 13th of March. Winning a trophy or medal can be a game changer for your brewery.
00:59:23
Speaker
Here's Steph again from Champion Brewer Filter to tell us more. ah The biggest impact of winning a trophy is the hangover you get the next day. um ah Really good in terms of a sales perspective. It's great for our guys to go out there and know they're selling the best beers in the country or the world. um But also just to know that we can share that story with our you know with our loyal followers to to let them know that you know the beer that they're drinking has been recognised as the best.
00:59:51
Speaker
You've got to be in it to win it. Entries for the 2026 Melbourne Royal Australian International Beer Awards close this Friday, 13th of March. Check it out at melbourneroyal.com.au forward slash
01:00:07
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.
01:00:21
Speaker
We wouldn't be able to produce the podcast or the website, events or festivals we run without the support of the beer industry, whether that's suppliers, bars, breweries or bottle shops. If you'd like to support the show or partner with The Crafty Pine in other ways, please reach out to Craig via the details in the show notes.
01:00:37
Speaker
And if you're a beer lover who'd like to support what we do, you can join our exclusive club for beer lovers, The Crafty Cabal. Visit craftycabal.com for more. And until next time, drink good beer.