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Another Round: The Art Of Being Evil
293 Plays2 days ago
“I can kind of do whatever I want and two or three weeks later send the beer out and see what happens.”
In the third of our Another Round episodes, in which we dip into the 100-plus past shows of The Crafty Pint Podcast throughout July while various team members are overseas, we return to our chat with Rhys Lopez, founder of one-man-band Evil Mega Corp.
He takes us into the thinking behind his unique operation, one that allows him to explore any avenue that piques his interest, and move more nimbly than pretty much any brewing operation on the planet. We also delve into the pre-EMC – and pre-beer – career of one of the most loquacious and thought-provoking characters in the industry.
This week’s intro sees James rejoin Will as he prepares to fly back from the UK, with the former recapping his brushes with the beer and whisky worlds in England and Scotland.
It’s been something of a back-loaded week in terms of articles on Crafty, with news of Six String’s return from administration landing as we were chatting, and articles on Malt Donkey’s “Fine Ales” and Shapeshifter’s exciting plans for Adelaide Central Market potentially not landing on the site until after this episode enters the ether.
We also look ahead to this weekend’s NZIPA Challenge at Rocky Ridge and upcoming events we’re involved with at Bracket Brewing in Marrickville and CoConspirators in Brunswick.
Start of segments:- 0:00 – The Week On Crafty
- 18:17 – Special Deal from Price Screen & Digital (use code PINT)
- 19:18 – Rhys Lopez Part 1
- 43:59 – Industry Insights with American Canning Machines
- 45:06 – Rhys Lopez Part 2
To find out more about featuring on The Crafty Pint Podcast or otherwise partnering with The Crafty Pint, contact craig@craftypint.com.
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Transcript
Introduction and Hosts' Updates
00:00:05
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Crafty Pint podcast. I'm Will. I'm James and Will, good to see you ah back in, well, I say in person, sort of remotely in person from the other side of the planet. sorry Sorry I couldn't join you last week. It just wasn't feasible to make it work with our fairly hectic travel plans over here in the UK.
00:00:22
Speaker
That's okay. Craig was a stellar stand in as always. Excellent stuff. Yeah, nice. This will be the last one before I am back in Australia. Although I think we've only then got a few weeks before you'll be away. So we need to work out a plan for the month of September.
Travel Tales and Local Experiences
00:00:40
Speaker
But you know, all in good time. How's the last of the trip been? What's any booze standouts? Yeah, well, I've realized last time we spoke, I forgot to mention the blated 50th birthday present I was taken to a Charnwood Brewery, a local Real Ale brewery for a bit of a look around there and try of their beers. But since then, we headed up to Scotland, wanted to take the family to the West Coast to show them the mountains around Glencoe and
00:01:05
Speaker
do a bit of island hopping. So that gave us the opportunity to visit um the distillery in Oban and try some of their whiskies. And then when we took the, took a drive through the Isle of Mull, which I have to recommend to anybody, I will admit I am teared up a couple of times while ah touring around the Isle of Mull. And i think it's partly down to how stunning the place is. There's certain bits you see where it's like, you couldn't design this place to be any more perfect if you tried. um but So is that near sky? Or is that part of the Isles of Sky?
00:01:34
Speaker
For the South, yeah, Western Isle. I've been there. that's um You've just said that. I was there in 2013. I went on ah as a backpacker, went on one of those sort of paid tours, and we went to Mull and stayed at the Isle Sky as well. And as you said, those words, it just like came back into my mind. I was like, oh that that is a beautiful part of the world. Yeah, yeah. you'll have passed through Tobermory, which the other distillery went to. And like Tobermory with its like um old, ah all the houses painted different colors and houses and shops along the front and its bay. um The sun even came out. So pretty much the entire time we've been in the UK has been this extended heat wave. It's been very un-British.
Exploring UK Beer and Whiskey Culture
00:02:12
Speaker
And I have to say, um houses in the UK aren't designed for hot weather. So it's kind of the the flip side of Melbourne. like we struggle We struggle in winter in Melbourne, over here there's no aircon or anything like that. But um yeah, Tobermory is like the most picture, um perfect postcard sort of town. Son came out there, spent some time at their distillery. They had a delicious cast strength. think it was a port or sherry, sherry balay whiskey I tried.
00:02:37
Speaker
And then we went straight from Oban all the way down to the south coast, spent some time at a little brewery on a regeneration owned by a farmer who grows all the grain most grain that goes into the beer and regenerative um farming practice. That was pretty cool. um And then, yeah, just visit a few little places around my folks. live I'm out in the back garden my ah parents' house at the minute for anyone watching on YouTube before we head down to Heathrow later today. um And it was interesting, like not just Charnwood Brewery, but another one called Tollgate Brewery, which is pretty much in the grounds of a local abbey. and They've all got two, and each of them have got two or three little tap rooms in either old pubs or
00:03:12
Speaker
um other so you know repurposed venues, which are very, very cute, which seems to be you know a similar practice to what we're seeing and in the in Australia for a number of, yes I guess, small independent businesses trying to find a market um and often mixing scale with car craft beer or mixing, you Cascale with keg beer from other people as well. um I also had a nice surprise. I went into a tiny little air bottle shop slash, I guess, tap room in Ashby de la Zouche, where i I went back to visit because i used to live there. so I was about four years old and um said to the guy, oh, can you just recommend whatever you think like the best sort of, you know, hoppy beers or IPAs? It was 30 odd degrees that day. just wanted something hoppy and and bitter and one of the four beers he recommended i try so what's the what's the best beer you've got from beak uh based on the isle of white that's sort of regard as one of the best breweries over here and he goes oh definitely go for that one he pulled it out the fridge i'm like i recognize that logo and it was a collab they'd done with future brewing in sydney so it was kind of interesting to go back to this historic little town where I'd lived from the age of zero till four and be handed a beer that was a collaboration with ah a Sydney brewery. um So yeah, there's been been a chance to ah definitely explore a bit more of the sort of the beer and whiskey culture that I had last time I spoke to you. And another little um
Malt Donkey's Business Journey
00:04:30
Speaker
snippet from home. I caught up with a couple of mates in London and we went to see um Geelong-based psych rock band Orb or organic rock band in a tiny little pub in Dalston.
00:04:40
Speaker
And they were bloody awesome. um So that was a nice little ah flavor of 1968 slash home. Wonderful. Well, while you've been gone, at a few fresh things on the site this week. I've been a bit ah South Australian focused actually because I've caught up with the team at Malt Donkey. I i think probably some listeners might have seen it. They were on landline a little while ago and that that was when I became aware of them and then I realized we'd had sort of email conversations with a few people. It's been a very slow process to launch and it kind of makes sense why because basically um Peter Mitchell who is the founder, he he's from a family who've been in the wool and textiles industry for a long time. Family business is over a century and a half old which you don't often say in a country like Australia and when he retired he started working with his
00:05:36
Speaker
Kids on all these fun little projects got into home brewing. They were going to make ginger beer, but he got pretty into making beer and became obsessed with malt basically and wanted to create his own malt. And I guess the long and short of it is that the malt donkey, they've developed these beers. They're quite, I guess, champagne looking and he wants to really focus in on malt and barley to one. The way he's done that was by having these beers that uh, showcase, uh, barley grown in different areas. So one of the ones I had had beer grown in, in that Angara or Pine Hill drank them with someone in the team in Melbourne last week. And they certainly taste different to me, which I suppose is the first test of, uh, anything like that. It's always hard to know if your mind's doing something with something like that. But I was really, you know, trying to go back and forward between them. And they, said you know, they do say they are the same beers and that even the head brewer said, you know, was nervous that this would all be for nothing they wouldn't taste different, but they've done a lot of testing and they're, you know, really trying to zero zero in on soil types and impacts on barley. And, you know, we do know these things have an impact. They they do with hops as well. Like like there is,
00:06:49
Speaker
an impact that growing somewhere in certain areas or certain times a year, like, you know, variety isn't everything in agriculture, how it's grown and the conditions and all that matter. And yeah, they finally brought it to life.
00:07:02
Speaker
And what's the intention? Are the beers more a sort of showcase a for the wider business? Well, the the ah initial idea was Peter thought he would probably more supply ah breweries with it. And, you know, he never thought having worked in these kind of textile and wool factories, he kind of thought he'll do something similar with this. But they've... um And up front, they've said the price they're charging is expensive. There hasn't been that much interest. So they've decided to go and um but they've hired a brewer as well, who's at Tom Whitehouse, who has worked in basically every large, impressive craft brewer in the country. So Little Creatures, Pirate Live and Bolter, like in terms of making really excellent dialed in beers with craft focus, I think that's a pretty good product. person to get and and now they're looking at still, you know, having their own beer line instead rather to showcase what they're doing, but they'd still love to work with craft breweries if there's sort of a way to have this more premium thing. They are...
00:08:06
Speaker
calling them fine ales. It's an interesting approach to sort of, you know, say then what they're not doing is craft beer, which I guess can be focused on other areas. that They do want to say they look premium. They've, you know, we're talking about Cajun cork here, although they do have some that are, i guess, more accessible. So, yeah, it's definitely...
00:08:26
Speaker
they're They're trying to find a new market, which is impressive. Where it ends up, I i don't know. i mean i mean, we have seen that there's challenges in the more premium
Pirate Life and Shapeshifter Updates
00:08:36
Speaker
beer space. If you want to look at Dollar Bill or some of those mixed ferment breweries that even when the beer is world-class and stunning, And, you know, Cantillon in Australia sits on the shelf now. These aren't wild beers though. So they do have a different place. They've found interest in fine dining restaurants. They've ranged at Attica, which is one of Melbourne and Australia's premier restaurants. So it's it's definitely a fascinating place. ah that They come from a really interesting thing. They're doing something other people haven't done. Whether or not there's a market, time will tell. um Yeah. obviously Especially in the current climate, yeah.
00:09:14
Speaker
Yeah, it's for anyone to say, but, you know, there's still there's still wealth out there in the economy as well, isn't there? It's just where it's being spent and all that kind of thing is the challenge. yeah And I guess speaking of Pirate Life, before we get to the other story you've been working on from SA, we did update Pirate Life's listing on the website on the back of their win at the recent ade awards in Adelaide. So we'll include link in the show notes there. um That was in need of a bit of a... So I got onto that there the other day. But um yeah another exciting story from from Adelaide that um interestingly came to us when I was um attending to the call of nature at a pub in Adelaide at a conference just before I flew to the UK um and then ah passed the bat on to you to pick up the story wheel.
00:09:59
Speaker
Yeah. So the team at Shapeshift are setting up a place inside Adelaide Central Market, which if you've been to Adelaide, I would hope you've been to the Central Market. It's incredible. It's a great place to grab a feed. It's it's one of those just brilliant places to walk around and sort of be indulged in the senses, isn't it? It's a lovely the old building. there's been ah Don't choose where you're to eat too quickly because you'll probably see another five places within the next sort of two minutes that you want to eat at as well.
00:10:29
Speaker
Yeah. if If you were like, it's like, I think when you go overseas to Europe or something, you kind like, I need to just keep coming back here, but then there's the kind of annoyance of, oh, I can't actually do that because I can only eat so much and I'm only here for two days. but it' i'm I'm just going to be left annoyed, but fortunately, if you do find something to eat, you can then go and enjoy beer from Shapeshifter. He'll have a place there from The timeline is it should all be done, this new expansion by November. So by the end of the year, it was great to catch up with James McCall about the location. You know, importantly, I think the Adelaide Market team reached out to Shapeshifter and James was hesitant at first, but had the meeting and kind of came back in and went, no, this is something for us. So we're shows, you know, that that they'll be not too far away from Never Never Distillings, Cocktail Bar, as much as there's challenges around craft beer, there's still ah need, I think, to be like, okay, we're building this big, new, important thing in the city. We need to have a craft brewery there. And, uh, I think he could hear the smile James um on the side of the phone when he said that what they want to do is they want, he said they want to have the best beer dispensing system in Australia. He said, look, we haven't been to every ah one before, but they've got a dozen taps.
00:11:49
Speaker
and a hand pump they'll have all of them are set up individually so they can be pressurized differently the temperatures can be different so they can pour beer exactly how it should they'll naturally have some lucca taps um some japanese style taps as well so they can do really like crisp kind of japanese style lager pours too and he was like you know we don't want to be just another bar in the city we want this to be a serious premium beer experience where anyone who comes here will find like something different in and a way that beer can be poured a bit differently and shown with a bit of theater.
00:12:22
Speaker
Yeah. Sounds great. So that, that, that, because I'd like to be up on the site later in the week. I believe James was still chasing renders for you at the the time we're speaking now, but there should be something Literally we're just waiting so people can see what it will look like in the future. It'll be on the site. very know You can visualize it from Will's wonderful words. It doesn't matter what it looks like. Think about how well all these beers are going to taste and the food you will have eaten just beforehand.
00:12:45
Speaker
And talking about delicious beers, I'll pretty much be touching down and heading straight to Rocky Ridge in Brunswick for the first Australian wing of the long running NZ IPA challenge, which has been going on at Smith's Craft Beer Bar. or craft beer house think it is in queenstown for a number of years now uh running over a few days um there's what 20 20 odd breweries from australia and new zealand have submitted nz ipas will you'll be hosting a um a brewer sort of uh panel discussion panel on the friday evening and i'm doing a tasting paddle tasting paddle there'll be tasting paddles and uh and a blind tasting on the saturday afternoon as well um as i fight through my jet lag fog i'd imagine
00:13:28
Speaker
Yeah, no better way to fight through it. Right. And yeah, um, Chris from the, uh, he's come over from New Zealand from Smith's craft beer house. So, uh, he said he's not much of a public speaker, but he's so proud of this event that he can't wait to talk about it. So, uh, the team at Clayton hop who has also sponsored it. Uh, Maddie from Clayton hops will be there of course to chat as well. And a couple of the brewers too, I think. potentially Carla from Shapeshifter, we can ask her all these questions about what makes a great beer dispensing system.
00:13:58
Speaker
Excellent stuff. Yeah, so that's taking place at ah Rocky Ridge in Brunswick over this weekend. So we'll hopefully see a whole bunch of you
Interview with Reese Lopez
00:14:05
Speaker
there. i'm Talking of upcoming events, so but we're also involved in event with Bracket Brewing and Marrickville on August the 7th. So ah Jason, who who writes for us in Sydney, will be co-hosting a bit of a Southern Hemisphere Hop Masterclass and Sensory Panel with the brewery's co-founder, and head brewer Mike. And they'll be taking some of the freshest new season, New Zealand and Australian hops. They're making some special beers for the occasion, limited tickets as a discount for Cabal members as well. We'll include the show notes for that. And then I believe,
00:14:37
Speaker
a week-ish before that uh we'll be at co-conspirators to celebrate 10 years of that brewery team as well that's ah a cabal exclusive event so we'll include a link to that as well um which i guess brings us to this week's uh main chat it's see it's the third of our another round sort of reboots where while i'm making my way back from the uk and matt our podcast producer is making his way over to
Sixteen Brewing's Revival
00:15:01
Speaker
the US. um And this was one of our, I guess, most most listened to, most watched shows from last year, featuring Reese Lopez from Evil Megacore.
00:15:10
Speaker
Yeah. Um, it's a interesting chat you recorded with Guy Southern, of course, who's known Reese for a really long time. Um, he's a quiet, uh, I dunno, there's kind of nothing Reese won't cover. Gets into some of those controversial topics as well. He's understanding user of AI in his graphic design. Um, which, uh, yeah, was in, felt like it was in its early days back then when you spoke to him and yeah, it covers his whole love of approach to brewing and also the real, uh, I don't know, nano, nano approach that he's got that he hopes other people will do as well.
00:15:43
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And I think, he you know, a bit more about his life but before Evil Megacore, even before Brewing. and But yeah, he's he's a he's a great guest. So that's actually, it's been a lot of fun, even second time around, or for many of you, hopefully for first time around as well. um So that's coming up after the break for now, however.
00:15:59
Speaker
Actually, before we wrap the show up, a bit of breaking news. Probably this is a real insight into how the sausage gets made and ah the slightly chaotic week we've been having. But we've just received a word that Sixteen Brewing, have their docker has been approved. So they went into voluntary administration in June. Their docker has been approved, which means that the Sharon and Chris Benson keep control of the company.
00:16:27
Speaker
um I'm basically reading this as we are, but, you know, they are excited. Great news to hear that the team can still keep running the business. They say they're under no illusions of how tricky the forward period is going to be. But, yeah, so congratulations to the team that they've managed to maintain control. i think it is, it's you know, this really important and pioneering brewery on the Central Coast. So good to see that it will continue, at least for the time being.
00:16:55
Speaker
Yeah, best of luck to them. um yeah And so, yeah, look forward seeing there some more beers, new beers coming from them and then filling their expanded tap room.
Episode Wrap-up
00:17:06
Speaker
They only opened about 18 months ago as well. So best luck to yeah Sharon and Chris. um As for this week's show, I guess, as we said, the chat with Rhys will be coming up after the break and Will.
00:17:16
Speaker
If you like it, make sure you subscribe, leave us a review, comment, anything like that. Or if you just enjoy hearing us at break news, it's very rare that we get to do this. So leave us a comment just for that. Hey, and on with the show. Cheers.
00:17:32
Speaker
Cheers.
00:17:35
Speaker
Hosted by Smith's Craft Beer Bar in Queenstown, the NZ IPA Challenge is one of New Zealand's most epic beer events, and now it's coming to Melbourne for the first time. Be part of the fun at Rocky Ridge Brunswick from July seventeenth to 19th as 20 outstanding breweries put forward their best interpretation of a New Zealand IPA for your vote of approval.
00:17:56
Speaker
There will be blind tastings, industry panels, tasting paddles and plenty of laughs on offer all weekend. 20 breweries, 20 beers and only one winner. Who will it be? Brought to you by Clayton Hops, Rocky Ridge and the Crafty Pine.
00:18:10
Speaker
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00:18:23
Speaker
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00:18:47
Speaker
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00:19:06
Speaker
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00:19:19
Speaker
rece welcome to the show thank you Looking ah magnificent there, very lips sort of little Leonine. Yeah, paddle pop line is what I get called usually. Paddle pop line, yeah, I can see that actually, yeah. What are the what other secrets of your your your beautiful hair?
00:19:34
Speaker
I'm half Asian. No, also like when your name rhymes with grease, you've got to wash your hair fairly frequently. Like it's just a kind of hazard of a, you know, you don't want any like nominative determinism. There you go.
00:19:46
Speaker
Nice, excellent. Well, i moving ah swiftly on from hair products and hair maintenance, um Let's start with the the here and now, Evil Megacorp. Yes.
00:19:57
Speaker
um What is it and how did you get to this point? So Evil Megacorp is kind of a subscription based nano brewery that is just me. So it's an ironic name. I spent kind of, it's my 20th year in the craft beer industry. Wow. In various roles. I've been in brewer the whole time.
00:20:15
Speaker
But I've been in brewer for about 10, 11, think. um And yeah, it was basically just a ah during kind of coronavirus, I was talking to partner at the time about potentially, you know, what I would do if I won lottery. And I was like, you know, probably just get Toronto liter brew kit and just make the beers that I want to make.
00:20:33
Speaker
And she said to me at the time, she was you could probably do that now. And I did. I mean, I shouldn't have, but I did. um And I kind of bit the bullet and, you know, started like looking at kits and stuff like that, got some stuff made out of China.
00:20:48
Speaker
from Ted Hubs, company that I've used several times already before for different builds the other side. And yeah, and then just, then it was all a bit real. And I kind had to do it. To be honest with you, the first time you told me about I thought it was a joke. And you went, and you looked at it dead in the eyes and went, I borgaged my house, dude. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And went, this is real. Yeah, well, it's, I mean, I've always wanted to do this kind of thing, not exactly like this, but I kind of started saving for this about 14 years ago.
00:21:15
Speaker
So it's been ah a long kind of project. yeah but obviously it's taken a lot of incarnations over the time. you That was before I had been on social media and stuff like that. yeah so yeah and and just you know there's a lot of different uh the the market and the the kind of layout of of the beer industry is quite different to how it is then so it's obviously changed a lot over that time and did you have the name first did did everything come from the concept you know evil megacore what would that look like no that was a joke so it was originally ah you know like it's like it's like uh you know the the high school thing about you talking to your mates and you kind of like oh we're gonna make a band and it's gonna be this and you're gonna be on bass and all kind So when you're like a bit more nerdy in beer industry, it's like, we're gonna make a brewery one day and it's gonna be this and that. There's a few people that I was, you know, just talking shit over beers with.
00:22:00
Speaker
and um And, and, and Evil Megacorp was kind of a bit of a joke name because at the time, ah in the same way that like now everyone's brand identity is all about the beach we love the beach we love going surfing we love the outdoors three girlsll more seagulls yeah exactly yeah um but yeah yeah so the the brand identity of that time kind of like 2005 2008 was a lot of really big companies being like you know where ye olde you know and they buy these sepia tones and they'd you know and they'd pretend that it was about some guy from 150 years ago who was doing this thing and and trying like pull that brand recognition to to become, I guess, because they like self-conscious about crafting this new thing and everyone really wanted to focus in on this kind of thing. And in fact, when they called boutique beer, you know? And yeah, and you know, it was kind of a piss take because some of these are like massive companies. And so it was, you know, craft washing the whole the whole thing.
00:22:59
Speaker
And so, yeah, it was like, what if you did the opposite of that and just, you know, be this small, hardscrabble, independent and, ah pretend to be this big evil mega corporation and you know I sometimes I take a joke too far.
00:23:11
Speaker
And does it actually work on a sort of daily or weekly basis you know you are the one you are the sole employee you are yeah you are the ben benevolent dictator of a mega corporation. I prefer to call it a worker's own utopia but um yeah no it's ah yeah my my I don't really have a schedule it's pretty good so like I I have a six-week rotation. So originally it was ah a four-week rotation because of I'd i' partially funded bru like pay you know like so i i partially funded the last little leg of it by pre-selling subscriptions.
00:23:45
Speaker
and um And so then I really had to concentrate on repaying those people. And it took longer than I expected it to. And so I ended up extending subscriptions for the real earliest people that jumped on. And um and with that, I had to kind of like make a whole lot of beers. I was just churning it out as much as possible, working seven days a week, you know, making no money and and getting those beers out.
00:24:07
Speaker
And then, but yeah, now I've reverted to like a six week rotation. So I've got four tanks, I send out four beers every six weeks. Gives me of breathing room where I can kind of take a few days off here and there, i can do some extra beers and stuff like that.
00:24:19
Speaker
So yeah, really it's kind of a feast and famine type thing. i'll um so you brew all those beers in one week and then... No, okay no, I kind of usually like I'll brew like, um ah you know, brew them over kind of three weeks, but at the same time, you know,
00:24:34
Speaker
There's all the other stuff, you know, label design and labeling and shipping. Making hostage videos about new releases. Yeah, yeah, my really good real schmick social media presence. um ah Yeah, and like, you know, there's there's also the, I've got the old stock, that there's leftover stuff because you're never going to make exactly, you know, 400 cans of a thing. It's always going to be a little bit more and then i have the leftover, put that online and then organizing that, orders come in over the, you know, the next kind of week or so, sending them out and getting more ingredients, for writing new recipes, doing collaborations.
00:25:07
Speaker
Yeah, it's all a bit of a mess. But yeah, so then there's like one furious week where I've got all the cans together, all the labels, everything's in milk crates stacked around me. I own like 85 milk crates and it's crazy. I'm so rich in milk crates. I'm pretty sure that Masters and Browns own milk crates. No, no, no, no, no. I bought every single milk crate except that two that I stole from, nevermind. But yeah, so,
00:25:31
Speaker
I've got the receipts though. But yes, I'm like furiously putting them all in boxes. There's so much like double, triple, quadruple handling, which just because of the nature of it. You know, chucking in a little sticker, taping them up, printing out the big, you know, getting all the spreadsheets, chucking people in various carriers, some people prefer Aramax or Careers, or Australian Post, yeah all that kind stuff.
00:25:49
Speaker
And then, you know, i have one big day where i ship it all out, and then, yeah, start thinking about the next thing. So just to step back though, the the subscription model concept, where did this all come from? um I think the first subscription that i found out about and and and bought into was Molly Rose. but um And I had met Nick, it's Nick, right? Yeah. thank Sorry. I'd met Nick just in brief passing when he was having a beer at the back of my share house, my housemate, many, many years ago.
00:26:24
Speaker
and And he was like, you know, he's a very nice guy. He was very nicely telling his wife, years for shit, at homebrew. Which I we really appreciate. Yeah, i like feedback from the pros always give him. And I think he was just going head over to a Stone and Wood. So this is a while before that he's out of Molly Rose. um And and i was like, oh that guy was nice, you know, I'll kick in for that. And was like, oh this is a pretty cool model. And then did the numbers online. This how much I pay, and this is how much I'm getting. i was like, this is actually a really good like way of getting your your base level of your stuff that kind of keeps you ticking over.
00:26:56
Speaker
And so yeah, that was kind of my inspiration. I mean, since then, obviously Dollar Bill, I'm a subscriber of that and a few other ones. And yeah, I think it's, um if you're doing stuff like like Nick and like Dollar Bill was doing where it's like,
00:27:09
Speaker
or he's doing, where it's like really, really beloved by a really small amount of people, it's a really good model. You know, because you're not trying to own your postcode, you're not trying to get people, you know, leave their houses and walk through the door.
00:27:23
Speaker
You're just appealing to the the weirdos who are probably a lot like you, yeah you know, that want that want that kind of that want that kind of unique experience wherever they are, you know? Yeah, think i think it's a really good model for that. so Your initial subscription is sold out in what, 24 hours or something? nice Something stupid? No, it was like a year and a half. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I thought, well, anyhow. I thought you were you said to me, yeah when you opened it up, you're like, wow, I had no idea people were so excited. No, no, so I hit my number.
00:27:55
Speaker
like um yeah so So, because I'd invested all of my money into this thing yeah in order to like kind of in order to access the money from the subscriptions, I needed to prove it was a legitimate business because I got frozen by PayPal who thought I was running some kind of scam. I mean, I was, but not in the way that they thought. It sort of is, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So then I had some help with some people. I got some rushed production on some T-shirts and some glassware, and then I could send it out, and then I'm like, all right, that's done. But I had a meeting with an accountant on, like,
00:28:33
Speaker
June 16th and he said you need to earn $20,000 in the next two weeks that's not gonna happen I'm like nah I reckon I can get it done yeah so then I just had to learn how to make website and I did that and I released the thing sorry I'm telling the story way of order I released these subscriptions I'm hey guys help me out they get me to that $20,000 so then I can offset it on tax and blah blah blah during COVID that the instant asset write off thing. So I really needed that extra refund in order to finance the next stage of it.
00:29:02
Speaker
um So yeah, then I sold all these subscriptions and then i was trying to release the funds so that I could be like, see, I'm i'm real. I'm a real, this is a real thing. there I promise mom, you know, this is a real thing. But yes, then I need to get that money out and then PayPal froze it and then I had to get some merch and ship that out. and yeah it was a really fun, stressful couple of weeks. but yeah, I got it. um You talked about the weirdos you know who might like what you're doing, your beers or what have you.
00:29:30
Speaker
How do you go about designing the beers? Because they are some pretty unusual and unique styles. I mean, I know you had a bit of sort ground to experiment with your other side with the misreleases, but it feels like these have gone to another level of madness often. Or do you just start at 8% and then work up? Well, so the thing about other side is that other side, you know, makes half million litres a year and has all this stuff and all that kind of stuff. and And, you know, any business like that,
00:29:57
Speaker
you know, run out of their excise allocation after the first two months or whatever, cash flow becomes really important. So, so while I was able to experiment, there was still a, um, a strong motivating factor to make sure that it was kind of still accessible to most people, you know, like you didn't want to you didn't want to you didn't want to really swing for the fences too much because you still got to move that beer as quickly as possible in order to like fill the tanks with the next thing, you know?
00:30:23
Speaker
Um, And that wasn't that wasn't from above or anything like that. That was just me understanding the material realities of of running a business. Commercial reality. Yeah, exactly. so like, the difference is is that I've kind of already sold it. So, you know, if you're going to get a ah green pandan oat cream, you're just going to get it. and like you I've already got the money. What do you want? Also, you don't say this is...
00:30:45
Speaker
what the next four beers are going to be. No, it's like the most expensive lucky dip in Australia. Yeah, exactly. So like, I mean, so like I do do some, some experiments. Firstly, just like cooking as well. So that, that helps.
00:30:57
Speaker
um But sometimes i'll like oh I'll get a new ingredient or whatever and then from there like I'll see how it tastes and how it presents and all that kind of stuff and then I'll just have three more questions that I want to answer with beer down track. It's like, what if I do this? Or what if I put that, you know, or if I you know kind of make these syncretic styles kind of come together and and and create something else. But like... Do you try and have a theme to each release? like They happen accidentally a lot. You know? like um No, not... not Not consciously. I try and do as a few things on purpose as possible. but um but ah
00:31:34
Speaker
But yeah, it's just like, you say I do like weird, interesting stuff. Honestly, if I left it up to to what the the subscribers wanted, it would pretty much mostly be like Hazy's Double West Coast Pastry Stout. That would be it. So like, I try and one of every four, try and to make them eat their veggies a little bit. yeah And I try something that would You know, maybe something that been made before, or you know, like a new idea or some historic style or something like that. And terms there's the beers that are pretty out there, and there's the name, like the names often come first, or the names come afterwards, and then the label design, and we'll talk about you today. In terms of the names, the labels, and even some the merch I've seen you pushing as well. Yeah, my range crops.
00:32:22
Speaker
ah you know it's just just don't take anything too seriously anymore. So it's just, if it's something, sorry, I'll stop you in the table. If an idea makes me laugh, I'll kind of use it. Sometimes it's a beer name comes first, sometimes style comes first, I'm trying find something that's appropriate to that.
00:32:37
Speaker
But yeah, you know, like. What's it the beauty of only having to answer to yourself? Yeah, and like and also just the way my stuff is scheduled is that like, I print all the labels in my house. So I do all the design in my house and then print the labels. So I'll can my beer and then go home and drink it, decide what the style is, and then like, you know, write a description as I'm drinking it, often design a label, sometimes even come up with an entire concept, and then print it overnight, and you know.
00:33:07
Speaker
Wake up, my my brain turns on and the printer's not running, I have to change the label over or change the ink or whatever, and then the next day come and manually label it, you know. And have you had any blowback from people about using AI for the labels? Yeah, all the time. What's your take on that? Obviously, the idea is it's a one-person business, and if you're not a graphic designer, what else are you going to do?
00:33:33
Speaker
But what has been responsible for going, AI is a terrible thing, it's taking away creative jobs or what have you? Look, I, how long have we got? We can think about this half an hour, but like, I think about it a lot, obviously, and the ethical ramifications of it and all that kind of stuff.
00:33:49
Speaker
I think AI in general, like I don't like to call it AI art, you know, like i prefer AGI, like algorithmically generated images. I think that's more realistic explanation of what it is. I mean, it's not AI. It's never going to be artificial intelligence. I don't think that's ever going to be possible.
00:34:04
Speaker
This is just what happens when you put billions and billions of dollars into an algorithm and you can make it more sophisticated. Like, it's just another speculative bubble that people can make a whole lot of money off. It doesn't matter if it ever works out, you know? There's no there's no one really critical about the whole AI thing because the doomsayers, you know,
00:34:22
Speaker
are saying it's going to be this revolutionary thing that's going to be devastating. And then there's no pushback from the other side because they're like, yep, it's going revolutionary, it's going to awesome. You know, like no one's actually saying, actually, it's probably not going to turn out that way at all.
00:34:35
Speaker
As for me and my use of AI, i really don't, I understand people's kind of innate aversion to, you know, replacing artists.
00:34:48
Speaker
This isn't fucking art. This is commerce. You know, like it's not, it's not art. It's its is it's a stupid picture of my dog on a beer can. You know, like it's not art. And also there was no, there was no capacity for, there was no capacity for artist to be used. You know, there was no chance for that ever happening because just didn't have money for them.
00:35:04
Speaker
And I don't have the time, you know, I can't, I can't can a beer. I'd be like, you tastes like this. i want you to do it like this. And then they do it immediately and then I can set it off to the printer. That's not how works. um But I think that like,
00:35:18
Speaker
there's There's also another thing that I considered is like, am I, by using AI art, am I giving myself an unfair advantage over other breweries that are paying us that don't have that cost?
00:35:29
Speaker
But I'm not on the shelf next. You know, the beer's are already sold. No one's buying my can for the AGI. You know, like, they've already bought it. Like, it's just, it was either that or I just palette swap a logo. You know, this is just more fun. You know?
00:35:43
Speaker
But here we go AI sucks. Like as a concept, it sucks. But it sucks because it is going to take away people's jobs. You know? And it's like, I'm accessible.
00:35:55
Speaker
You know, I'm there on the internet. I answer my emails. So like people will will put their ire towards me about this. Not people that have been born ideas, but you know, just other people who want to have a spray and, you know, feel some righteous indignation. I can relate to that.
00:36:10
Speaker
But, you know, like the real issue is that it's going to be taking away people's jobs who are like bookkeepers and, you know, translators and said all those low-level jobs. Transactional things. Yeah, but when you when you start a career and you do the, like, kind of dumb, easy work, as you're learning your skill set in the company, those jobs going to disappear. yeah And so there's going to no bridge between, you know, running the company and then starting on day one.
00:36:33
Speaker
Like, it's it's it's just going to be used to take away people's jobs and reduce the, or, like, make people compete with this free thing or this cheap thing. You know, and and it's, yes, it's very anti-working. It's gonna be devastating, but not because it's good, but because this is what capitalism does.
00:36:50
Speaker
You know? It's a handy tool for you at least. Yeah, well, look, I don't, yeah, as I said, I don't think picture of my dog's really gonna change the world, but, you know. little song guy You wanted ask a question about the dog as well. Was it the dog in religion or something? Oh, yeah, yeah, no. So, when we caught up from an interview last year, the last thing you said to me when we were leaving, you were like, forgot to mention my dog's religion. I, I invented a religion for my dog. So kind of talk us through the dogma.
00:37:18
Speaker
What? ah No, I was just ah like, ah I can't remember um why I probably had a few beers and I was was just wondering like if my dog, my dog Birdie, she's like a little, you know, Frenchy mongrel type thing. um It's like, if she had a religion, what would it look like? And this was like really early in the AI kind of thing. And like most of the most the AGI stuff is just trash.
00:37:41
Speaker
I was like, ah, let's have a little dick around. And I eventually set it on something. I tried a lot of different variations of it, but it wasn't until i got to like Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity as kind of like a, you know, great colours and all that kind of stuff. and And yet, so I was like, you know, my dog is ah ah as kind of like a Pope type figure with the sunlight streaming through the stained glass. and because It's just a great delivery. Renaissance almost. Right, but I just had the edges for fun. yeah And then I was like, what if I call it, are you their dog, it's me dog?
00:38:09
Speaker
and And I was like, that's gotta be me. So. These things come together. Yeah, exactly. So of course you gotta use an Abbey style and you know. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know, she's been on a few more since then. Like, ah did know my first barrel-aged beer. was like, I walk around the park every day. and she really wants to make friends with the black swans that live at the lake and they fucking hate because she's a dog. um So it's like her in like this kind of Roman battle kind of thing like you know like the ah war elephants and stuff like that like a war swan. Yeah yeah. You know? and War swan. Yeah. We've got another one coming out next week yeah which is like her as a playing a banjo as like ah one of those um
00:38:51
Speaker
what What's that, Mexican? Mariachi, like a mariachi kind of musician. Yeah, exactly. That's not a song. Maybe we should talk about some beer at some point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not that important. Aside from that, mean, it sounds like you're pretty happy in your own company, but do you miss the company, you know, as you are working solo the whole time on the people making for everything you do?
00:39:15
Speaker
I thought I would more than I do because I'm really unscheduled. I can just like, I can catch up with friends and it's been really good. Like, people that I've known for 20 years in the industry or whatever that I have kind of lost touch with because I've been so busy and you know and they've been so busy, whatever. I can kind of fit in around them and be like, hey, look, I'm taking lunch at one. Do you want to have a chat? like, yeah, absolutely.
00:39:35
Speaker
um I've got like a kind of core range of of three or four people that I'm always bouncing ideas off and stuff. and And yeah. So you do have a core range. Yeah, yeah, a core range of reprobates that never push back on my stupid ideas. But yeah, no, and also like, like,
00:39:52
Speaker
being a head brewer in ah in a large kind of company is also quite lonely sometimes. Like you've got, you are the kind of middle part between the contradiction between, you know, owners management and production.
00:40:05
Speaker
You know, so like, like that can be quite, quite lonely as well, you know? But yeah, no, I thought I would have more of an issue with it than I do, which has been really nice. Yeah, so the growth's been amazing.
00:40:18
Speaker
It's... date well You've landed where you wanted to to be, but how sustainable is this? It's wild.
00:40:30
Speaker
yeah It's wild to watch from the outside. like it It made sense to me, and you've actually landed landed the the premise of no scale, ambitious. Yeah, google doing a no growth. Yeah, no growth, um single person operation. But can you do this from until retirement? Is that is that viable? ah well Probably not physically.
00:40:49
Speaker
Like, um like yeah my my body won't, like, especially the smaller a brewery gets, the more physical labour is involved. yeah So I probably can't do it for the next 25 years. yeah um So yeah, know.
00:41:01
Speaker
What about Stainbed Eleven as well? Because i guess you look at even like sort of beer bars, the 40th beer bars, it could be, you think you have to work a lot harder to keep people coming through the door there than you might the traditional pub. um And I guess, you know, with brewers that aren't just relying a sort of, you know,
00:41:19
Speaker
Approachably priced core range beer or whatever always trying to do something you know different and whether it's one drop or range beer like they try to do you know be like almost like the hype brewery. How do you have you some hope to maintain that going over over time people like it this is still the cool brand that I want to be part of you know?
00:41:37
Speaker
um To be honest, I just don't think about it. My my my goal is to do something that I would like and I feel that I'm not you know, I'm not a unique, special individual. If I like it, other people probably like it, you know? So like, if if I can do something that that that appeals to me, I'm sure there's, like, I don't need that many customers. I'm nearly sold out completely, and that'll be 600 people. So what that is, that is 1% of 1% the entire population of Australia.
00:42:07
Speaker
i need a quarter of that. Like, that's all I need. yeah So like, I don't, yeah, I don't really need to, I don't feel like I need to, waste my time thinking about it. But but at the same time, like every week is R&D week. you know like I can kind of do whatever I want and two or three weeks later I can send a beer out and just see what happens. you know So I feel like I can move with the market you as long as I'm paying attention. And what is the end goal for Evil Magi-A-Corp, do you think? if you If you look a few years down the line. um Yeah, not much. a like ah wow I'd like to pay my house off, that'd be nice. yeah um I'd like to get to the point where I can kind of have a consistent thing and you start taking some holidays again, that'd be nice. um
00:42:52
Speaker
Yeah, I think going back to your question about, you know can I do this forever? Probably not. like If I was ever going to expand though, I'd probably want to make it like a worker's owned type thing. So I really need to get it to the point where I can, I've pulled enough out of it to pay what I put into it, um that I'm happy kind of like sharing that with someone else.
00:43:11
Speaker
I wouldn't want to, i wouldn't want to just hire someone. Like I personally, I don't like ah the way that we structure society where you, you know, you give someone less than the,
00:43:24
Speaker
you know, the value of their labor and you take the surplus. um I don't like that so much, something in my life, you know, i know that that's how the world works, but I'd rather not do that if I can afford it, you know, so I just do all the work. and And when it comes to point where i'm not going to do that, then it's going to be a kind of a more egalitarian split.
00:43:43
Speaker
Well that seems like a perfect time to take a break and come back to sort of talk a bit more about, i guess, life pre-EMC and outside of that and Rhys the philosopher. so we'll take a quick break and then we'll come back.
00:43:56
Speaker
Cheers.
00:44:00
Speaker
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00:45:03
Speaker
six zero two today
00:45:07
Speaker
Alright, we're back. Rhys, do you want to step back in time and tell us what sparked your interest in beer? Where did it all kick off from? Little creatures. So I was studying in university and I was telling a friend of mine who was a bit older than me, a good mate of mine, Nance Stills to this day, was like a 17-year-old kid. I'd just turned 18, I think, that week and going to go get a job doing night fill.
00:45:33
Speaker
I'm just going to need some money. think I need to 18 for that. what I'm saying. um That was just coincidence. He's like, you're 18, right? Come do this thing. i work at this restaurant. And I'm like, all right, yeah, cool. I'll come to a trial. And those little creatures, kind of undersolded at being a restaurant. It's massive, you know, beer barn on the water kind of thing. And i was like, this is the old crocodile farm. But yeah, I just loved it. I just fell in love with beer and just, you know, that same thing that got everyone in that kind of 2004 kind of era where it's like, just like machines and people doing stuff, you know, it's like, it's like actually, you can actually see something being made in there and that's just, I think that really that the the romance of that as especially as as as we all kind of experience the kind of you know like the de-industrialization of jobs moving overseas for manufacturing everything coming about email jobs and that kind of stuff like there's something really romantic about that and myself you know I got that as well and it's first time I realized that like like you know the the ah the the you know beautiful kind of hoppy expression from that
00:46:38
Speaker
Little Creatures Pale Ale, I didn't know that beer didn't have to taste like two weeks extra dry. Yeah, yeah. You know? And yeah, and I just kind of fell in love with it from there. It's probably something about the speed of change in that space as well that works well for you.
00:46:52
Speaker
ideas. What are you implying? I don't know. you know, you talk about things being moved offshore and all the rest of it. And definitely for myself as well. Like there's, every two weeks there's something new and you can be involved in this this mini project that's part of a larger project. you know, like,
00:47:08
Speaker
I can imagine being down in in Frio in those early days and things being very manual and working it out as you go along. Yes. Well, i mean, I was- You were glassy at that point. Yeah, I literally, i was just hospitality. I i never actually brewed a cruise set for one week with Tom Champion, who's now the head brewer of- Fellens. Fellens. Actually, think it was about like five weeks. Broke his arm.
00:47:27
Speaker
And so we actually need someone just to move stuff around. Yeah. and and I was the the passionate kind of annoying guy that just always asked questions when trying to have lunch and stuff and so yeah I got that one.
00:47:39
Speaker
I think you've written the name for your project instead of will make it called passionate annoying guy. Yeah wow I think it's implied. That's all the videos. That's his cow punk band.
00:47:52
Speaker
um and And in terms of go from there, sort of falling in love with your preaches and the beer. What were your sort of next steps into brewing? Well, I mean, I hadn't decided I wanted to do beer then. I was just like a passionate amateur and then, you obviously those days couldn't really get American beers that weren't oxidised. So I went the kind of Belgian, German kind of route.
00:48:14
Speaker
Still don't love English ales, so I kind of avoided those ones. And then, yeah, I was a hospo kid, so just kind of went traveling. was still studying at that time and you know it took off, went to India for a while and then came back and I was like, yeah, after after rolling around India for a while, it kind of makes you a little bit um Fremantle feels a bit sleepy, so I was like, I'm gonna go somewhere else and move to a different city and I kind of, I did that for about four or five years. i Was there an element of journalism model along the way or something? Well yeah, that was my one degree. with Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, degree in journalism. So, it was broadcast actually. Because that was the most fun. You got to like play with dials and stuff. Like originally wanted do print, but I was like, I just don't i just don't think about the future.
00:49:01
Speaker
But, you know, now, podcasts and stuff, If only. But yeah, so yeah, I was just doing that and you know, they kind of moved to a new city in Australia, worked there for six months and then go overseas and tour around for a bit till my money ran out and then moved to another city and did that for about, yeah, four or five years and had a really good time. And then... You ended up back at the Monk though. so Yeah, I did. Yeah, that was after. So yes then I came back and I kind of beaten the wanderlust out of me a bit. So... um
00:49:36
Speaker
I bought some things to weigh me down. i remember i bought like a fridge and a a couch. My mum was real happy about that. I was like, I'm going to stay here for a little bit. And then, um yeah, i think i went back to Creatures for a bit at that point. Then ended up working restaurants and stuff like that. And got a job doing i was doing the brewery tours at Creatures and teaching people about beer and all that kind of stuff, which really helped my develop my knowledge and palate and stuff.
00:50:00
Speaker
Got a job doing some sales stuff for a local distributor and then from there got a job brewing at Gage Rhodes. It was brief kind of period where I was Brewcourt for a bit in between that and then from Gage Rhodes went to The Monk which is now defunct.
00:50:18
Speaker
and from the monk I got that's probably the first time I met you and you just brought it what would have been maybe one of W's first sour beers I think it was definitely W's it was almost Australia but I think Brennan O'Sullivan had done one just before yeah because he does that yeah he's i idea today was bre no arm but ah hook but yeah so like ah yeah the kettle sour think back in those days we yo it just put it in fat free yogurt yes that's important but yeah and um and yeah and and yeah then from Monk I just got a message I think from someone and they're like talking about this brewery project they want to start and I just left Gage Rhodes and they were saying they want to this contract brewery so I just presumed that they want information about you know from someone who was on the inside what the contract thing was Gage Rhodes was
00:51:13
Speaker
really heavily contracted the time that was there. After I left, they did the return to craft their transition. um But yeah, so then I just went and went in Freo, had a Rubin, I remember, with these guys and they were telling me all their their ambitions and stuff. They came from a music background.
00:51:30
Speaker
And then at the end of it, they offered me a job. I didn't even realise this was into you. So I was like, okay, yeah, let me think about it. And yeah, and that was... 2015, 2016, thereabouts. I reckon the photo we used for that article was taken outside the Monk as well, I think. That sounds right. Yeah, yeah. About the start other side, with socials at the first beer. The first beer was festive. Festive, that's right, yeah. I might have actually been with Sib. Yes, yeah, yeah, back in the day. That's right, it was at the Balmoral. Yes. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, the festive, the original festive, that was when we just- The launch was in that tiny tin shed. Uh-huh, yeah, Stack Street. Yeah. But yeah, no, that first batch of festive was just me trying to be way too clever. And it was like, all these different malts in there. It's like, it's fucking summer out. What are doing? Yeah, slow down too. Yeah. I just, it was like my first try to kind of, you build something from scratch. But yeah, no, it was, actually it wasn't first try. I did a lot of red ales and red IPAs at the Muck before that.
00:52:34
Speaker
But you know, they can handle it. But then you were involved, I guess, in that very early stage of outside through all the growths then becoming established one of WA's best and you know bigger breweries as well. So what was that like? Sort of going, i guess, a lot of different jobs in different breweries and then suddenly, you know, being a central part of this. It was awesome. It was a really, really good learning experience and probably invaluable to what I'm doing now.
00:52:58
Speaker
Like um just the whole, ah I mean, music festivals are full of creative type people and those kinds of people are really prone to changing their minds immediately.
00:53:11
Speaker
So that, you know, it's like when you build a brewery, you don't just you don't just design a brewery, you probably design like seven breweries as the plan changes and you go back to the drawing board, start all over again. um And, but it was all the stuff. It was doing the logistics, doing the rep side of things, you know, obviously like acquisition of of materials that need to go down to this place that's making it for you. Oh, we were doing the kind of contract brewing thing for first two years. And then, you know, like planning out how the brewery is going to be, what's the structure look like, is this cool room big enough if we change the amount of tanks we have and all that kind of stuff.
00:53:45
Speaker
Like that was really, really invaluable experience. and And unfortunately, I was the person in the organisation that had the most brewing experience, which was bugger all. So I kind of had no one to turn to, just had to figure it you know. and uh yeah and you kind of you kind of um maybe survivorship bias but you kind of just stop worrying you know and in terms of your time there are any beers that you you know hang your hat on and go i'm really proud that but that was an awesome beer lately hmm in particular i mean i just love
00:54:20
Speaker
Red ales and red IPs. I was going to say red lime. Yeah, red lime. And slow it's a great beer. Yeah, that malt bill. that actually i actually think I stole that from an American brewery and tweaked it a little bit just because we ingredients had. So for an American brewery in one of those like you know those brewery magazines, kind of, make it at home. go there as I just copied down ratios and then plated around with that in my basement, my basement my bottom floor of my um apartment that i was doing in Fremont for years. And yeah, and then that evolved over time and became Harvest. And then Harvest kind of was the basis, the blueprint for for Redliner.
00:54:58
Speaker
um Yeah, i I just love Redliner. Which is hilarious because the the beer that you did with Nick from Molly Rose for Pint of Origin this year. So I was with James at Molly Rose. We're like, well, I'll try the EMC.
00:55:10
Speaker
collaboration I'm like that is a Lopez malt bass tastes like every other side malt bass in the red space yeah yeah yeah well I mean I it does have a lot of my fingerprints all over that beer we did that kind of in a phone conversation me and Nick but um as he was like well what would you do for this this and this and like halfway through he's like we make beers exactly the same I'm like awesome yeah um yeah it was great hear that Nick was involved so early on your sort of hard brewing days. don't think he knows that either. Oh really? We'll see if he listens because hang out with him every now and then see if he brings this up. Nick. And I guess moving away from beer, even this conversation. Yeah, we're talking about beer way too much. But even this conversation already has been, I guess, very sort philosophical and physical viewpoint come through in the way you talk about the way you view business, the way you view AGI. I guess where do you sit in terms of how has this evolved and do you manage to feed it through the beers and try to get any messaging out there to the EMC tribe about your views on the world. Your views on the world, because you do have a very developed and quite individual take on everything. Yeah, yeah. Well, okay, so I mean, my joke answer where I sit politically is like, what's that convention? It's like,
00:56:47
Speaker
ah socially libertarian, fiscally Maoist. You know, it's kind of, that's kind half true. But yeah, not like I'm a very lefty kind dude.
00:56:58
Speaker
I did journalism, obviously. I kind of had, like, my dad's from a Muslim country. And my formative teenage years were when the towers fell and just seeing and ah being interested in media and world events and all that kind of stuff, seeing the kind of the the vitriol of of of stuff being poured onto to Muslims in the Muslim community. And it's just not reflecting my experience with Muslims that I've known, you know, and then people that people my family are Muslim. I like, this doesn't actually feel right. You know, and so I was like, I was inherently from very young age, really distrustful of kind of anything.
00:57:34
Speaker
and And that led me to kind of you know like questioning, is like okay so why are we having this war on terror kind of thing? And and and you know there's the Francis Fukuyama idea that was the last gasp of of of kind of nationalism or whatever against this globalised, beautiful, democratic, liberal democracy, capitalism thing. He's a bit of an idiot, but that might be true to a degree. um I think like ah the the answer was always like, why is this like that? And the answer from all sides of politics was like, that's just what Muslims are like. you know They're just these bloodthirsty weirdos. And the only thing that really had an explanation for it was dialectical materialism, Marxism and that kind of thing. It was like, people are like this because their material conditions dictate that. you know
00:58:25
Speaker
And so yeah, that's kind of... um got me kind of curious about it and and materialism has never led me wrong you know like it's it's helped me make correct decisions in the beer industry and the the way I should go about things and and and what I should put attention to and helps me understand people that have different backgrounds to me because I'm like okay if I was that person and this was my experience how would I think how would I look at the world You know?
00:58:49
Speaker
And like, honestly man, i'm like, the little stupid differences of nothing compared to the big stupid similarities. Like, we're all basically the same. yeah You know? So I just, you know, I just think, like, I think you've got to be like, the world's getting weird, right?
00:59:05
Speaker
It's getting bad. going get a lot worse where it gets better, if it gets better at all. And you just kind of like, gotta find common ground with people and then kind of work with them, not against them, you know? Do you think other and businesses within beer, other breweries, bigger brewers, whatever, could look at some of the elements, I guess, unlike the ethos of Evil Megacorp and you go, oh, we could be more like this and it would be a good thing. Are there things that you wish people would look at go, we could take that out of Reese's crazy little thing and make what what we do better in some way?
00:59:37
Speaker
i I mean look, that would certainly be flattering. But i you know like I've been ah you know kind of a bit of an iconoclast most of my life and it's not fun if you don't have the kind of personality for it and like i wouldn't i wouldn't recommend it you know like uh yeah you kind of gotta just be pretty uh pretty sure about yourself and the way you go about the world and and and kind of cop the slings and arrows you know like i don't know that i don't know that i wouldn't suggest it to someone um yeah you know like I yeah I I'm just opinionated and I'm confident and and that comes with downsides and I'm totally cool but I would feel i mean obviously i wasn't very vocal about as much of this stuff when I worked for other side because I knew that any kind of negative attention that would come on me would
01:00:35
Speaker
financially impact my friends that I worked with. You know, like if if I'm- Consequence. Yeah, that's exactly. And that's fair. Yeah. You know, but if I'm being a dickhead online because, you know, I think that guy's committing genocide. um If someone doesn't like it and they stop buying my beer, it comes out of my pocket.
01:00:51
Speaker
That's fine. Yeah. You know, but if it's impacting on other people, that's when I feel like a sense responsibility. Shut the fuck up. Yeah. I guess talking and making a difference through beer, tell us about your Medicine Sans Frontières project that's just sort of happening round about now while we're talking. Yeah, yeah, it brewed to be a couple of days ago. So Medicine Sans Frontières, Doctors Without Borders, is an organisation, I think possibly some of the best human beings in the world. You know what it is to be a surgeon or whatever, all that medical, that university debt, you've got this $400,000 a year job and all that kind of stuff, high stress, blah, blah, blah, but you know, you get...
01:01:27
Speaker
very well remunerated. These people volunteer to go into active conflict zones and set up hospitals. they've got You can check out their website, they've got those big inflatable tent hospitals and they perform obviously for free um medical emergency medical treatment to anyone that needs it irrespective of their race, religion, political affiliation, that kind of stuff.
01:01:49
Speaker
At the moment, three big places they're doing is South Sudan, Gaza and of course Ukraine. um But it's like, it's dangerous. and These people are putting their lives in line for nothing, just for humanity. You know, like I think since 2023, since December 2023, I think 12 of them have been killed in just Gaza.
01:02:07
Speaker
You know, like these people get killed for doing this. So I've supported them for many years. And I've been donating monthly since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But now i'm in a position where I can kind of do it more.
01:02:21
Speaker
So I got in touch with them and they gave me authorization to use their logo and stuff. They didn't authorize my label, which I'm totally okay with because when you see it, you'll understand. um But yes, then I just, you know, went online and it's like, hey guys, doing this beer.
01:02:37
Speaker
Pre-sold 124 packs. and then a whole bunch of people donated directly to them as well through that page. So, so far we've raised seven and a half thousand dollars. I want to really try and see if I push to 10, that'd be amazing. Not for any good reasons, just round number.
01:02:52
Speaker
But yeah, I should have a little bit more left over in about two weeks, it'd be ready. Maybe I'll sell some more. And I'm trying to see just how much volume I get before I do the final release, obviously, because I don't want to oversell. it How did you decide what beer was suitable for such a...
01:03:08
Speaker
such a project ah well that was actually because obviously ah so it's not I'm not donating like part proceeds or you know profit split or whatever it's everything so all the money except for the shipping and GST all the money that people have spent on that beer is going to MSF that means that I'm paying for So I kind of, I've been wanting to this for about a year and I've been like, scrambling away kind of leftover bits, you know, like didn't use that whole bag of grain on that, you know, that last bag that I used in that thing, put that to the side it's kind of like, it's like a composite of, I think about five or six different base malts and then just like little bits of leftover bags of hops and stuff that I back sealed and kind of chucked in the freezer. And of course it's an IPA because that's what everyone else, you know? If we're going to ask people to buy four pack something sight unseen, I'm not going to do something too weird.
01:04:00
Speaker
Oh and also I got some watermelon terpenes with his gun. ah it was great It was great to see that reaction before he even said the beer was going to be. Amazing. Sold out for him. Yeah, amazing. you Really, really cool man. And it shows the weirdos who are into what you're doing are good weirdos. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're soft in the caps.
01:04:20
Speaker
i guess you know I guess looking even more broadly at beer, you've been working on breweries with a number of different roles. you know What's your take on the health of things now, you know whether in WA or whether wider? and you know Where do you think it's heading? Like, you know, you're very much the pointy end, but you know, yeah. What's your thoughts?
01:04:38
Speaker
Um, I think Bea is suffering. I mean, you know, you talk about excise and the costs of everything, like shipping is increasing and all that kind of stuff. But like, I mean, the excise component notwithstanding, like, well, it's actually connected as well because the excise is directly, you know, related to to CPI and except for when it goes down, of course, they never take it down, but it's directly correct connected to CPI since COVID.
01:05:05
Speaker
most multinational corporations and, you know, the the capitalists are essentially doing a capital strike and they're driving up prices because they can. You know, everything's rising as a result of that. And that's hurting the area, but it's hurting everything. You know, it's hurting everyone that rents or has a mortgage.
01:05:20
Speaker
And that's just, like, beer is is not immune to that. and And I think that, in interest especially somewhere like Western Australia, where everything's so spread out, transport is huge. You know, that's a massive impact on stuff.
01:05:33
Speaker
Like, I think that... Beer is going to shrink as you know global trends are shrinking and stuff. I think there's a lot breweries out there that, I'm definitely not naming names, but a kind of have been existing as kind of zombie corporations for a while, where they're able to you know pay off the interest of their debts, but not attack the the you know the principle of the loan. And then you have this kind of shutter where you have this post-COVID reaction and and some of them drop away you know like that's kind of just what happens you know i think though that like we are going for a massive transition period and there's opportunity you know i think it's also concerning like like clearly craft beer was very much a millennial thing you know like the younger generations aren't really engaging with beer in the same way but
01:06:23
Speaker
But I think we just haven't found the thing yet. know I think people like One Drop, Rocky Ridge as well, like these like really hyper-prolific, really experimental brewers are creating something and eventually something's gonna hit and then hopefully we're away.
01:06:38
Speaker
And what's exciting you, I mean, presumably One Drop and Rocky Ridge, what they're doing? Anything else, whether it's breweries or beers or ingredients or styles or this, you know you've mentioned terpenes there, is that something you're having some fun with? I like terpenes. Terpenes are really good ah because with me in particular um beer is so limited that anything that i can get a couple of extra liters out of is literally paying for my groceries you know if i get extra 10 liters yeah that's like my groceries for the month yeah you know that's awesome i love eating groceries um but uh but in terms of like stuff that's really interesting like i'm really interested in i've been talking with um a couple of people from lollamond about about
01:07:22
Speaker
just their weird ideas because they're all hyper passionate beer nerds too they just don't work at breweries anymore so they have these ideas they can't use and so like you know recently there was the the Lollamon you know tour around Australia and one thing they did was suggest using like diamond lager yeast pitch at 15 degrees couple of days later or at 1.3 for a fermentation pitch Nottingham and then trying to get like the thiol production from that and then the biotranspiration from this one and and kind of create a unique kind of fermentation profile um Kind of set my brain on fire. I've been co-pitching stuff for a while Just to kind of see what happens, you know I'm really lucky in that like
01:08:06
Speaker
because I'm printing on my labels, I can be like, oh, that over-attenuated or that under-attenuated, now it's this. i And I can just fix that on the spot, you know. So I don't i don't have that um that react that buffer zone where I need to get everything lined up four weeks beforehand and blah, blah, blah, and ship on that day.
01:08:23
Speaker
So, yeah, being able to play around with that. I've got one in tank at the moment that's amazing. It's like really, really interesting. And it's just a straight West Coast IPA, but it just it's really, really cool seeing how those two things interact with each other.
01:08:35
Speaker
um yeah like looking at another one that i want to do soon which is like trying to get trying to decouple the hefeweizen strain creating the uh uh 4vg for not uh clove phenolic and the the kind of cream last tape banana esther and see if like pitching in series with that can decouple those two things and stuff like that and you know that is actually really interesting to me but It's not sexy, no one's going to buy a beer because of that, but it feeds me.
01:09:05
Speaker
Well, you know we we've sort of got inward into Rhys there, we're looking back outwards again, and if you had sort one sort of you know hope for beer in the future, you know having seen it in so many different ways, what what would that be?
01:09:16
Speaker
I'd like to see more people doing what I'm doing. I'd like to see more owner-operators where they are successful, I think there's a lot of potential where like, really hard at the moment the uh for the medium-sized breweries particularly with the changes in the last couple years to the excise threshold and all that kind of stuff that's quite difficult for those guys but there's a lot of opportunity for people smaller than that um i think the nano thing that i'm doing or maybe they have a corner bar or something that and have your little you are the go-to place in your suburb like that kind of stuff could be really cool like sorry i know you want to finish but i just like i think that there's
01:09:56
Speaker
I think the internet has kind of really flattened culture a lot. Like I remember like 20 years ago, could go to Melbourne and see people dress different, you know whatever. And you go go to ah go to Sydney and there's this particular food trend that's happening. Now everything's kind of homogenized and flattened because yeah the internet's great, but it's made it really easy to spread ideas um to making sure that kind of everyone in every suburb of Australia knows what bar me is. yeah like There's no longer these kind of regional like quirks and trends. yeah I'm hoping that a proliferation of really small producers like myself can maybe start creating movement like that.
01:10:33
Speaker
You can have these kind of hyper-local styles and trends start to emerge just because there's a whole bunch of dumbasses like me competing for a point of difference. yeah yeah Thanks, Rose. It seems like a really nice way to resolve this chat. There's a lot happening in EMC, but there's a lot happening inside of you and it's been quite quite quite quite a journey to watch be around for many years. And if nothing else, I'm just happy that you you're articulating you to the best of your ability through your one-person operation. It's amazing. I don't think there's any other option. No. No one else will have you. It's bleeding out me one way. Yeah. That's great. Thanks a lot for coming on the show. Awesome. Thanks for having
01:11:17
Speaker
Thanks.
01:11:20
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.
01:11:34
Speaker
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01:11:50
Speaker
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