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Barrels, Belgians & British Boozers
3 Playsin 3 hours
“At the heart of [the beer industry] is the beer drinker who just loves beer, appreciates quality, and wants to share that experience.”
Ahead of their biggest event of the year, Ramjet Day, we joined Boatrocker founders Matt and Andrea Houghton at their Barrel Room in Braeside.
Given Matt and his brewers have released more beers in different styles than pretty much anyone in Australia since 2009 – not to mention their move into spirits after they absorbed former Perth distillery Hippocampus – there’s plenty of discussion of their approach beyond the iconic Ramjet and its many spin-offs.
We head back well beyond the launch of their first beer, Alpha Queen, to the European travels before they met that opened their eyes to the breadth and beauty of the beer world, how they manage such a diverse portfolio and adapt to the changing market, and the importance of community.
After Andrea dashes off to collect their kids from school, Matt offers his thoughts on many of the issues impacting the industry – from cheap kegs and VAs to Australia’s convoluted tax system – plus some tips for anyone thinking of starting out today.
Prior to the main interview, James joins Will from Kings Canyon to cast an eye over the week’s news, including the latter’s interview with Eclectic Brewing, a guide to beer in Montreal, and the arrival in our brewery directory of inner-west Sydney breweries Bracket and Pickled Monkey.
We also flag the launch of Blobfish 2025 – including a ticket giveaway for our beer club members – and there's the return, mid-show, of Milo Applebottom with another film tie-in for Point Break Brewery Invitational 2025.
Start of segments:
- 8:49 – Matt & Andrea Houghton, Boatrocker
- 40:31 – Point Break Brewery Invitational ft Milo Applebottom
- 43:42 – Matt Houghton, Boatrocker
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 to the Crafty Pint Podcast
00:00:05
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Crafty Pint podcast. I'm Will. I'm James. are doing, Will? I am great.
Exploring Kings Canyon with James
00:00:12
Speaker
In Melbourne, as always, where are you coming to us from, James?
00:00:16
Speaker
ah Well, as much as you said, it looks like I'm in a field in Horsham. I'm actually... near Kings Canyon, just did the Kings Canyon Rim walk with the family this morning. I have to say it must be one of the world's great accessible short walks.
00:00:30
Speaker
um I did lose my wife and daughter for a while when my son and I went off on a side quest exploring. But yeah, it's been quite delightful. But I thought I'd set up here and be able to see the glory of the Wataka Ranges behind me.
00:00:40
Speaker
However, my seat and my camera are rather low it looks like I'm just in a field. um So anyway, what can you do? You could to be coming to us live from anywhere.
00:00:51
Speaker
ah couldn Exactly. A field in Horsham. We'll stick with that.
Eclectic Brewing's Story and Awards
00:00:55
Speaker
um Anyway, on on on with with the show. um I guess one of the biggest stories we're on this week was getting getting the story behind Eclectic Brewing, who we discussed last week. They won most outstanding beer and show in South Australia. And you had a chat with the founder, um Chris Dillaroo, the other day.
00:01:12
Speaker
Yes, Chris, I think I mentioned that it's a bit unusual for a brewery not to have a tap room in this day and age. More unusual still is for a brewery to be making beer in a private residency, as I discovered when I called Chris. But it yeah, I was quite sort of surprised by the chat. Obviously, he's starting brewery in his early 60s, but he's been homebrewing for a very long time.
00:01:34
Speaker
He comes from the Home ah the homeb Brewers Club in Canberra, the Canberra Brewers, which has produced a a lot of ah production brewers, but also a lot of award-winning home brewers. I moved to Adelaide some time ago and a sort of always wanted to do this and felt the time was right right now. And yeah, he found success at the awards last year and this year too. And good time to chat as well since he's yeah expanding the brewery.
00:01:58
Speaker
Yeah, it feels but almost like a sort of um craft beer story from 10, 15 years ago, almost like this sort of the hobby style thing, doing it for passion, doing it, you know, on on the way he can, although obviously he's expanding now and and and trying to meet demand. But at the same time, making beers that are very much, you know, necessarily what you'd associate with ah uh, home brewer in his sixties, you know, with his award-winning beer being that and DDH Hazy IPA.
00:02:22
Speaker
Um, but it it's a fun really sounds like quite the character. So have try and catch up with him next time we pass through Adelaide.
Bracket Brewery's New Location Impact
00:02:28
Speaker
And from Adelaide to Sydney, we've just added a couple of the, uh, inner west breweries to our crafty pint directory.
00:02:35
Speaker
Yeah. So bracket, uh, moved into their, their new home, uh, in Marrickville earlier in the year. Um, I think I was there caught up with Mike about a week or so before they were about about to welcome people in. He was looking rather exhausted. and but certainly you spoke to him on the phone too. There's a lot of tired people in the beer industry, but never have I spoken to to someone as tired as Mike was at that point.
00:02:55
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, but they they've been open a few months now. um Our man in Sydney, Jason, went down for the listing together. It's had a really positive reaction, I think. I think a lot of their fans from the old place are delighted to see them back, and they've obviously he had time to think about you know making it a more consumer-friendly venue.
00:03:10
Speaker
um And there's also some of the comments he's... and the move has helped find new customers who are loving it as well um so congrats to him and roberta for getting getting the new place up and running and i think by the time this podcast goes out as well we should have the pickled monkey listing live as well it's one of the new ones in marrickville but it's been started by a guy mark feathers who's been around the sydney craft beer since since the open har hearts pub Back in 2009, I think it was, ah he's been pouring Pickle Monkey beers there for a number
Pickled Monkey's Expansion and Approach
00:03:35
Speaker
of years. Originally, they were contract brewed.
00:03:38
Speaker
When I called in a few months ago, they only had three or four of their own beers on their 20 taps. and They were contract brewed at the time. The brew was just being commissioned. That's now being commissioned. They're up to, i think, 14 of their own different beers on tap, and they're still adding more and more each week.
00:03:50
Speaker
um And it sort of stands out for, I guess, from every other brewery in Marrickville. He's taken quite a sort of sports bar approach. There's lots of big screens up there. You can get some real beer-friendly food. I think the idea is there. They're sort of trying to offer something different to a different crowd um and also offer that more sort of, I guess, pub bar experience.
00:04:06
Speaker
um And, yeah, so they they opened last year, but, yeah, really sort of um picking up a head of steam now, and they've future expansion plans upstairs as well. Excellent. Yeah, I'm keen to check it out. it's It really is a very broad mix of breweries at Inner West, isn't it? like yeah yeah Sports bar, small tap rooms, big tap rooms, Miami style rooftop bars. It does have it all. And this isn't even an ad for the Inner West Ale Trail.
00:04:33
Speaker
much as I'm sure Jason would love it to be. um Yeah, and then looking further afield, Montreal, you've been putting together a crawl or sent in by Georgie Preston um from her time in Canada.
Georgie Preston's Montreal Brewery Visits
00:04:44
Speaker
Yes, Georgie's back now, but she made sure to visit a bunch of breweries when she was in Montreal, so that's live on the site. ah Yeah, she's ah she had a great trip. I think she was planning on going to parts of America, but I'm not sure if we'll get any content out or not. I'm not too sure how many people are heading to America or not. At the moment, seems a more difficult place to get into than it has been before, and I'm sort of just realised, having said that, that maybe transcripts of this ah will appear somewhere and we we best move on.
00:05:13
Speaker
before we we also get banned from being allowed into the country.
Hop Nation's Blobfish Festival and Giveaways
00:05:17
Speaker
ah Yeah, and one of our favourite beer festivals, one we've been involved in partnering with since the very start, Blobfish. The Hop Nation team have put tickets on sale for that this week. We're very excited about that, taking place on September the 6th.
00:05:26
Speaker
and We've also got a couple of tickets for each session up for grabs for members of our beer club, the Crafty Cabal. So check that out at craftycabal.com if you'd like to win a $110 ticket to go and fill yourself with wild, sour and funky beers.
00:05:39
Speaker
No doubt you'll be there again, Will, chatting some of the brewers on the day. Oh yeah, I absolutely can't wait. There's every chance by the time this episode goes out, tickets have actually sold it out. So the Crafty Cabal might be your only means to get your hand on tickets, which is wonderful. And I'll definitely be there for at least one of the sessions, enjoying all that sour beer, which leads us quite nicely into this week's guests.
00:06:04
Speaker
Yeah, Boat Rocker will be one of the 11 brewers at Blobfish on the day. um One of the finest brewers of many styles of beer. and They've been yeah doing a lot of traditional English style beers recently. um They opened Australia's first sort of sizeable barrel room, which is actually where we recorded the chat with Matt and Andrea, the founders. um There's a bit of stuff going on around us in the barrel room, so we apologize if the sound a little bit not up
Ramjet Day Origins and Success
00:06:28
Speaker
to our usual standards in the first 10 minutes. Matt's a bit of a table tapper as well, and I think it took us a while to realize and tell him stop tapping the table.
00:06:34
Speaker
But um yeah, I've known them since the very start. They make some great beers. you know They've made some great hoppy beers, or some great Belgian beers, some great barrel-aged beers. um And yeah, Matt's always got got a fair bit to say on the state of the industry as well.
00:06:48
Speaker
And it's good timing to have them on. We we did pre-plan this a little bit because they're Ramjet day is this weekend. Ramjet's one of those longstanding cult beers, which Australia doesn't have too many that have been around for as long as Ramjet. And there's not that many days we celebrate a single beer or sort of 50 to 100 variations of a single beer.
00:07:09
Speaker
It's great chat, very broad ranging, you know touching on a lot of stuff in the industry as well as their story. um And yes, I enjoy that after the break. Don't forget if you'd like to give us some feedback, we've got a survey about the Crafty Pint podcast. We'll include that in the show notes.
00:07:22
Speaker
um If you want to give us your thoughts on we've done well, what you'd like to see in the future. um And also we're always looking for nominations in our Have You Done a Rallings campaign, celebrating good beer citizens at craftypint.com slash rallings and our Brewery of the Month and campaign sponsored by Bluestone Yeast, which is at craftypint.com slash slash bluestone fantastic well enjoy the chat hopefully we've gotten through this intro okay there's been a few technical issues that you hopefully won't even know about so settle back enjoy it and if you do enjoy the show make sure you like subscribe and leave us a review cheers cheers
00:08:00
Speaker
When it comes to choosing the right insurance for your brewery, the best decision you'll make is to talk to the team at Midland Insurance. Midland are the experts in insuring Australian breweries and have developed an insurance program tailored specifically to the brewing industry.
00:08:15
Speaker
Midland covers stock losses resulting from spoilage, leakage or contamination. They provide cover for food service, bar service, tastings and brewery tours. Midland has a dedicated claims department to manage any claims and they also offer highly competitive rates for all brewery customers.
00:08:33
Speaker
So if you're looking for a new insurance policy tailored to meet your needs, talk to Midland Insurance today. visit midlandinsurance.com.au or give Damien
Creation and Popularity of Ramjet Beer
00:08:44
Speaker
a call on 1300 306 571. Matt and Andrea, thank you so much for joining us.
00:08:54
Speaker
Thanks for having us. Thank you. ah We're just on the cusp of Ramjet Day, so let's talk about it a little bit and that iconic beer. Matt, maybe to start off with, how it first come about? um It was one of those little...
00:09:07
Speaker
points where everything stars aligned everything came together had a brewer who used to work at starboard distillery we then uh had an opportunity to get casks and one of the things we couldn't do back in 2013 was get whiskey casks um so it's like well let's make an imperial stout and put it into whiskey casks because that year Starwood were to release their very first whisky.
00:09:33
Speaker
So stars are aligned. We had an inn with Starwood, with our brewer. um We got along well. We met ah the Starwood distillery crew.
00:09:44
Speaker
They liked our beers and the rest is history. We actually had an opportunity to put together an imperial stout ah with local whisky, which was sort of unheard of. No other distillery at the time was making that volume of whisky to be able to then go let's let's fill up lots of barrels had you made any imperial stouts commercially at that stage not commercially no we'd done some trials uh with the the classic homebrew style of adding some wood chips that were soaked in whiskies to try and emulate that uh that flavor and they were really nice as as you'd expect uh we thought well let's scale it up but to do that we needed casks we didn't want to come out with a whiskey
00:10:26
Speaker
ah sorry, a whiskey infused oak chipped Imperial Stout as the release. you We wanted to have something that was barreled. Yeah. You've been going for four years. years by this There's been a whole bunch of other beer styles by that stage. Our own first beer came out in 2009?
00:10:43
Speaker
um Yeah, yeah. So we we couldn't afford a brewery at the time, so we were gypsy brewers. Out of Southern Bay at the start. Southern Bay, yes, yes, which was ah one of those amazing breweries that...
00:10:57
Speaker
always made me wonder how it actually operated for so long. It all had equipment that predated, literally predated the moon landing from the Courage Brewery in South Australia.
00:11:08
Speaker
ah Horizontal tanks that weren't pressurizable, really treating, like it could have made an amazing Belgian brewery um for its idiosyncrasies. But ah yeah, we sort of at that stage we'd reached that point of homebrew equipment had been put away. ah we were, well, still out a little bit, I guess, just refining certain recipes, but it was like, well, let's see what happens. you We were very naive and little bit yeah hopeful and young and young at young and dumb. Yeah, yeah, and yeah. Had there been any Imperial Stouts trial at home? Had there been some homebrew versions? that
00:11:48
Speaker
Not so much a homebrew, maybe just some from overseas that we took inspiration from. So Ramjet was the first stab and yeah. But then it sort of happened to, it stuck, yeah, it was one of those things like no one at the time had released a beer that was similar.
00:12:03
Speaker
um And we also, being very young, we knew it was a very expensive beer to make. And looking back at what we charged for it back then, and I know that was a long time ago, i think we were selling bottles.
00:12:18
Speaker
They were to be retailing for like $12. It wasn't much more than $10. It wasn't much more than $10. And we're like, we've just got to get it going. We wanted it to move. And we didn't want to go, because we didn't have a name We were just ah another brewer with yeah some beers. Big dreams. A handful of ideas.
00:12:39
Speaker
So it's like no one's going to buy it for what we should be charging. So we we thought let's just get it out. and Did you have any expectations that it would grow to be what it has? It it took off really quickly. it It got a real buzz around it from the start. i remember You probably sent me a four-pack or something like that. And I remember being around at Chevron Miro, like a good beer week, Chevron Miro, I was passed one evening.
00:13:01
Speaker
think it was, oh, this is Chevron Miro came back in from working late and we just cracked a bottle. said, I'll try this. And they were absentmindedly took a sip and they were like... Wow, what the hell is that? I think it had that sort of impression on people straight away. But I guess, you know, you would have thought it was good, but not that it was going to become this thing where, what are we now, 12 years later, you're still doing an annual day around it that people travel for. Yeah, although we had absolutely no idea that it would hit that level of success.
00:13:29
Speaker
um And a success is measured in, don't know how you measure because we don't really make a lot of it. So it's not a volumetric success. um It's a beer that beer aficionados like. um which is great but I don't think it's one of those beers that we could ever scale to even if we we have a distillery now but if we ever had ah you know a thousand barrels to fill and there's just not the demand and and with the ridiculousness of excise in Australia it's a beer that's probably best consumed and manufactured in small quantities.
00:14:00
Speaker
the way it is Definitely consumed in one second. Yes. Double digit. Apart from on Ramjet Day. Yeah, true. And you've made a whole heap of variations over the years. I'm sure there'll be some others debuting at Ramjet Day this year. And there's been you know Spirits, there's been Hybrids, there was you know there's Dramjet, Sparkling Dramjet. Do you either of you have a particular favourite, either vintage or spin-off of Ramjet that was the one that you're like, that's the one we nailed it?
00:14:27
Speaker
wow. um But my my favorite is one that rocks the beer world from a divisiveness point of view, which is Nordjet. um or The licorice. The licorice one, because it is just, if you love licorice, generally speaking, they will they will love that beer.
00:14:44
Speaker
um But it's one of those things. There's a variant. I love that there's a variant. But I think the ones that came first, the 2013, was probably the most luscious because it was aged in a lot of XPX barrels, ah which added an extra layer of of richness to the beer. but The sparkling dram jet was pretty good. The sparkling dram jet, yeah. People haven't heard that. So that was basically like hybrid...
00:15:09
Speaker
high hybrid Yeah, well to tell us, that there was drum there was the Dramjet twins, there the Dramjet and the Sparkling Dramjet. Yeah, so same same product, we just decided to carbonate one. Initially the idea was we had grand ideas of ah let's create a product that, and in collaboration with Starwood, so we bought um a lot of whisky off them at a very reasonable price.
00:15:32
Speaker
And then we bought, I think was like maybe, it was like 600 litres of whisky. And we we emptied 100 litre casks but left was approximately 15 or 20% in the cask of cask-shank whisky and then topped that up with Ramjet direct from Fermenter and let that sit for six months.
00:15:55
Speaker
um The first iteration of, or the first release I guess of Ramjet was still and that was released in two lots. One was about three months old because we had a launch for World Whisky Day at at Starwood.
00:16:08
Speaker
And then the second, we let it sit on longer. And then we split that remaining stock ah into sparkling and still. And that was effectively a fortified RANJET. So took the ABV up to 18%, which, and yet it still drank. Yeah, absolutely.
00:16:29
Speaker
And what about Ramjet day? I mean, I struggle to think of something that would have existed that much in Australia before that, a sort of celebration of a single beer in that way. Like, is that how that came about? You just really wanted to well champion?
00:16:44
Speaker
Yeah, look, Champa, we often take the piss but out of ourselves and of I find humour in most places. um And I thought, you know, Ramjet, why don't we have a day? And we saw that Feral had Tusk Day. I'm like, he's got Tusk Day. Let's do Ramjet Day. and and But Tusk Day, they just send one beer, you know, to a bunch of venues around the country to be tapped, not sort of bringing people in to release a 12 variants on the same drink kind of thing. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Not just drinks, like, you know, baked goods and all sorts things. Oh, but everything is revolved around ramjik. Cook with it, eat with it, ah drink it, variant it, like make fairy floss out of it. We we do all sorts Ramjik tattoos. Yeah, just try and be utterly ludicrous for that one, because it is stupidly over the top.
00:17:30
Speaker
um But within... like I wouldn't say it's a... um you don't really get profit out of it, but you, you cover costs and everyone leaves happy and has a good time. It's just a nice way to celebrate. And it's a lot of the same people coming year after year. remember two years ago, someone came up to me and said, made a friend at Ramjet day like three years ago. And they were, they met in the toilets here. And, and they just said, thank you so much for providing an event where like-minded people come together. And it's always just such a,
00:18:01
Speaker
a lovely night like everyone is so friendly and relaxed and yeah just there to appreciate some good things. And they're they're seasoned drinkers. I've been to other beer events where the crowd might get unruly um but for what they get for value for money for the amount of beer and food and everything else um and ah as you say it brings people together they also like ah bringing bottles to share.
00:18:26
Speaker
Bringing their own booze to a Runjet day. We're more than happy for that because it's one of those things where they want us to taste, you know, they want to share the product. Is Tony Annette from Sydney? Is he amongst the people that come to town? has been. He didn't turn up last year. But he often flies down. He does, yeah, yeah, yeah. And their idea of, think it's the craft, I mean, it's in an affectionate way, but a craft beer geek loves drinking a product, but they also want to be able share their enthusiasm for that product by...
00:18:52
Speaker
you know And so on Rangit Day, you'll see people and we always go through the the tasting glasses because they've poured out you know all these tastes for everyone everyone to try and go, wow, yeah and and it's different flavors and ah and they get a lot of excitement in that, which is just fun.
00:19:06
Speaker
No, I mentioned Tony wisee on the Friday night Pint of Origin this year. I went into Carwin to drop off some and and extra T-shirts or something like that. was like, Tony, what are you doing here? Because I met him in Sydney a few months or before for another event.
00:19:18
Speaker
And he was down with a whole bunch of people from Sydney that were sort of lifelong beer aficionados as well. And they'd flown in for the Anchorage event the following day. And they were meeting up with friends from the Adelaide craft beer gang as well. And I was like, oh, that really heartening to know that it's still going? on. It's easy being in the industry, I think, to be jaded with the craft beer drinker and where the industry can sometimes take itself.
00:19:46
Speaker
But then you're at the crux of it, I think, or the heart of it is ah the beer drinker who just loves beer, appreciates quality and is happy to want to share that but experience,
Boat Rocker's Beer Styles and Admiralty Program
00:19:57
Speaker
I guess.
00:19:58
Speaker
And aside from Ramjet, you'll have made more different styles of beer and probably more different types of alcoholic drink than pretty much any brewery or you know and producer in Australia. Do you have any? yeah And that's just Ramjet as well. Yeah, no, no.
00:20:13
Speaker
But yeah any any real sort of standout favorites for either of you over the years? I know, but you know we you your I guess a of your inspiration came from Belgium, but also Germany. i mean, are there any sort real standouts from over the years that youve particularly loved?
00:20:25
Speaker
I still still have fond memories of Sternweiss. And one of my favourites, but we haven't made that again for quite a few years.
00:20:37
Speaker
Was that the double Chardonnay barrel Berliner Weiss? Yeah, it was. Brett Chardonnay. That was one of the actual Michael beers I've ever had. i been yeah Finishing finishing time in sort of three months, i think. So was already two years old and then three months um in starboard casks. and then And that was that was delicious. I think I've still got a bottle of that.
00:20:58
Speaker
i'll take I'll take it. yeah yeah we yeah when When they talk about bringing bottles to the... But but but um I really enjoyed some of our... like the and Looking back on them, and and someone did bring one a bottle of it.
00:21:13
Speaker
It's not a beer that would necessarily last, but Mitter, which was our Sardiné barrel aged Berliner Weiss. um And that was like, at the time, this is delicious.
00:21:25
Speaker
Six or seven years later, I'm like, it doesn't age too well, but it's three and a half percent. yeah and It's probably not going to cut the legs, but then things like Gaston and going to mention Gaston. Gaston was a really highlight as well. yeah Yeah, there's so much going on. And i think one of the things that we, but we make so many beers and I don't look at untapped anymore because as a brewer, it's depressing seeing people's reactions to some of your beers.
00:21:47
Speaker
But I did see how many beers we've actually made and we brought up a point about how and you just go what the f**k have we done it is like as it is To put it all through all the systems and it hasn't been involved in all those. Who's that someone Andrea?
00:22:03
Speaker
Yeah we have the go oh let's make this yeah let's do it and then it's like okay well then we need to and so much has to happen from artwork and trying to come up with new designs and everything else let alone costings and making the system actually function which is An excellent job at doing all of that. Is there like a defining ethos you think in terms of boat rock a beer? Like how do you sort of try and define what you do?
00:22:33
Speaker
i don' know I think it's more about just, and it sounds and I've said this probably a few different events, but we always ask ah why not and instead of why. And so if someone says we should make a XYZ beer, I'm like, yeah, why not?
00:22:48
Speaker
And um we'll give it a crack and we'll try and hopefully there'll be a historical context behind it where we look at you know, a beer that may have some form of history, um, being a beer style, it's no longer relevant or has lost favor. Um, but also beers that I've tried from travels, Belgian beers, Australian market. I want to get Belgian beers more and more prevalent, but, uh, I think that's going to be a bit of ah a longer, ah spin, but yeah.
00:23:16
Speaker
How's it gone in terms of some of those beers, where whether barrel aged or the higher ABV, certainly, you know, the fancy big bottle package, has that there's pretty much been wiped from your um release schedule in the last few years as things have checked? Or have you still...
00:23:31
Speaker
Got that still small niche of more you know yeah and customers out there that are still looking for it. That small niche has shrunk even more and the price point that you have to charge for those beers is really like it's people are having trouble dropping $25 on a four pack.
00:23:49
Speaker
ah When it comes to $25 for a single bottle, they're really questioning. So I think they've been, we've seen, you know, places like Wildflower and Mountain Culture having to share a venue and that's obviously just to try and get a I guess ah a ethos together for them that works to obviously be able to sell Mountain Culture beers but to get another crowd in because the way Wildflower was set up maybe the the number of people and everything else the pricing may not have have worked as well you saw the shutting of Black Arts Dollar Bill struggling to get their venue open and the volume in those products I i just don't think the appreciation
00:24:26
Speaker
For the the wider beer drinking public, fully understands what's going on with barrels. Are you able still keep a few of them like pouring through through the venue? Yeah, we do. you take We've got some in the fridge. We've got plans to release some more. Yeah, there's more coming.
00:24:43
Speaker
We've got our Admiralty program as well. So we do ah small batch sour beers for them and and dark barrel aged beers as well. Yeah, and that allows us to, think, get, I guess, ah a volume of sour beers out to, I guess, a dedicated audience who appreciate ah the products as opposed to relying on on the tough sell of a sales rep going, you know, here's a box of 12 bottles of beer for, you know, $200.
00:25:12
Speaker
so but And the bottle shop's like... Yeah, yeah, pretty much. So it's definitely that aspect of beer, it's a tough sell. But having said that, the dark side of beers, they they seem to sell really well. We sell out every year, Bramjet.
00:25:30
Speaker
Santa. Fat Santa always comes through. So yeah I think there is that that appreciation of the sweeter, darker ah beers, barrel-aged beers. um But again, it's a tiny niche.
00:25:43
Speaker
Do you think people are a bit less willing to explore as well maybe with some of those barrel-aged sours? Is it just cost or do you think there's something going on? Yeah, cost and unfortunately there were some really bad examples in the early days and if someone has dropped $25 or $30 on a bottle they're like, this smells like rotten eggs and has got a disgusting, what a X, Y, Z flavour, people just go, don't know if I really want to down that sour. Is that what it's all about? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think that's one of those things where any beer style gets...
00:26:12
Speaker
um an initial, I guess, growth spurt, then brewers are very much, they always go, that's popular, quick, let's let's try and get something done like that, be it hazies.
00:26:24
Speaker
And in the early days, we saw some absolutely atrocious examples of hazies. We see it across the board, every beer. um Because I think people in a beer industry that is, overtaxed and overburdened with costs and everything else.
00:26:38
Speaker
They're trying to look for ways to get a sale of their product that um because it's a harder slog getting their product out to normal normal avenues. So maybe that's, yeah, they have been definitely wary.
00:26:50
Speaker
Yeah, and we've we've got um the glass of your Yorkshire Pale on hand pump here. ESP actually. I was thinking it was a bit darker. Yeah, and the Yorkshire Blue. But yeah you've been leaning quite heavily into those sort of more traditional styles for more than a year now. i mean, you had the Northern Redout at the start of last year. i think the success there even took you by surprise.
00:27:10
Speaker
And since then, there's been, you know, the Yorkshire Pale. There's been a whole yeah whole bunch of English-style beers. Is that something... is That a price point thing, I guess it also feeds into your interest traditional styles, but you've definitely been one of the breweries noted notably sort of pushing that angle.
00:27:25
Speaker
Yeah, look, I mean, I've always loved those styles of beer. um There was something, had a magical travelling trip through Europe back in 1998, going to pubs with Michael Jackson's Beer Guide and just walking into ah an English pub with low ceiling beams.
00:27:43
Speaker
And back in the day, I mean, I hadn't met you then, so... but you know I love the idea of getting a pint, rolling a little, rollie, and you'd sit there and you'd have old geezers coming in and you'd just sit through your pint because there's a backpacker you don't have to do. Reading Michael Jackson's book. Thank God Andrew didn't see you then. Otherwise it would have been no chance. then you will Leave him alone, little weirdo. Pretty much.
00:28:09
Speaker
So it was very funny set to like, I guess, you know, I love that that time in life to be able to have a pint, you can sit on it for hours. um It really doesn't alter too much with the quality of beer or anything. is a little and probably get a little bit better. um And don't know, it's just a different way of drinking and appreciating beer. So it was always a ah fun fun product.
00:28:33
Speaker
And now that was gone back in time, how did the two of you meet and was beer involved early on? It sounds like beer and breweries have been part of your life the whole time. Were you aware of that in the early days? I didn't really drink beer when we first met. actually thought beer was pretty disgusting.
00:28:48
Speaker
um based on cheap jugs of beer and and university days and although had traveled as well and I had an auntie who lived in Belgium so she took me to the bars there and and that's when I really tried some of the the fruited beers and things like that that definitely caught my attention but there wasn't really a lot of that around when I first moved to Melbourne.
00:29:11
Speaker
I'm definitely not adding the lonely hearts, but can anyone make fruit in Belgium? Exactly. You probably would have answered that. yeah, so I really didn't didn't drink it a lot, but I did think when I went around to Matt's house, he had the a garage there which was converted to a homebrew set up, which was well beyond what I imagined a homebrew set up would be like and were half-cut fridges and pipes of wires and all sorts of... Half-cut brewers. I don't know what was going on. I think the neighbours thought you were up to no good, but...
00:29:49
Speaker
um But yeah, from there, you really opened my eyes to to what beer could be like as well. And so, yeah, definitely started a new appreciation for beer back then. And the business, when did you sort of know, you know, it was time to to start? Because the early days, of you guys were, what, selling cases of beer out of car and stuff, right? And it was at a time when you could do that and...
00:30:15
Speaker
growing other people's equipments and things like that it was and it was one of those things where we'd we originally had the idea of starting a brewery that's you know how hard can it be um yeah money obviously and the the gfc came along that sort of put up plans of a brewery slash brew pub scenario to rest But it's like, well, we had the, you know, we had the recipes, we had the design we had, you know, of our our first couple of beers. And it's very funny looking back at those days, because you look at the designs and you go, what the heck was I thinking? I've actually got ah there's some up in the top shelf up there. um
00:30:51
Speaker
like They stuffed up the color of the green on the first bottle. um But it's like, well, we're here. Let's. at least see what happens. If no one likes our beer and we can't sell it, and then we'll go over the crack and we put that to bed and we start doing something else. and I think that was our our mindset back then. It's just like, let's see what happens. i think the investment back then was still significant. Back in 2009, it was like $20,000 to get ah product out. um
00:31:22
Speaker
And then we did it and thought, Let's see what happens. i ah with there There weren't been too many Victorian brewers making a beer like Alpha Queen back then. I remember, i actually again, I remember my first Alpha Queen as well, sat on the old the circular like coot seat with all the cushions on it in the front of Grumpy's Green and yeah ri he's great here back in the day. And I would have seen it in the fridge and gone, I don't know what that is, and I'll grab it anyway.
00:31:46
Speaker
And remember thinking it was delicious. And I have probably made contact with you not long afterwards. But... i'm But yeah, it was it was, I guess, a bit more malt character than the people were making hoppy beers, probably a bit hoppier as well. Yeah. That helped.
00:31:58
Speaker
It was sort of a bit bigger in character than, mean, there were other parallels around. There were. And it was, like was i mean, it was one of those things where I, if anything, I'd say, like, I enjoyed the malt character. We had really nice ah English malts in there, but I think it was probably for the market, maybe a bit too malty. And the hard thing with a brewery like Southern Bay, they're not set up for dry hopping at all.
00:32:18
Speaker
Mm-hmm. um So we did dry hop, but you had an issue because they also pasteurized everything. And the problem with that as well is that then you pasteurize and you get an extra malt layer component in your beer. So the beer itself was probably extra malty than perhaps what it should have been.
00:32:38
Speaker
um But yeah, look, it was was different, I guess, but it and it it did change every single time because things in... um and Southern Bay Brewery were you know really quiet. Rudimentary. Rudimentary, yes. So things were things are different. I do remember one particular batch and whether their pasteuriser had not done, because again, an old piece of equipment and some beers the massive tunnel pasteurizer probably as wide as this table um you two and a half meters wide yeah 20 plus meters long and i think you know some of the the the bottles going through this pasteurizer probably would uh be properly pasteurized remember some i opened them up and it's just like and there was a a
00:33:24
Speaker
around I can smell diacetyl in there. I remember because the very first showcase at ah Fed Square, which was like the Victorian Brewers showcase in like here we had our beer. And I remember Harry Potter at the time, some lady had to be a beer, so butter beer, butter beer. And I'm like, oh fuck.
00:33:43
Speaker
Well, that is not what I want. I i opened up another bottle of it's like, oh, thank fuck for that. It's not that one. is So there were obviously obviously see some bottles in that pasteurizing rum that just were
Influence of Homebrewing on Boat Rocker
00:33:54
Speaker
not being fully pasteurized. And then obviously pedicoccus or diastole, something was causing And I'm like, far out. like yeah But she was happy with Butterbeer. And in terms of um opening the brewery across the road from here, know you picked up Newlands kit that hadn't even been opened. Is that right? From Tasmania? so Someone had had plans to open a brewery and that all fell apart. She picked that up. But was that, you know, I guess how did you end up here and was that always part of the plan to get your own brewery?
00:34:22
Speaker
ah Yeah, definitely always our own plan for reasons for like what Matt just said, just the know the quality quality issues and then sometimes we might get our batch might get bumped until later on and then we'd be out of stock for a while.
00:34:36
Speaker
yeah So we knew we really wanted to have our own ah and set up and have control of the whole process from start to finish. um As for location, we didn't really set out for Brayside. We We did a big scout of the city. We were looking Brunswick. I think we were just talking about it the other day, how we looked at sites where other breweries subsequently went into. Um, so yeah, Braceye kind of came about because we knew other people with businesses in the area and it suited our needs at the time.
00:35:10
Speaker
Um, Yeah, we we hadn't really planned and didn't have the money for setting up a venue. um So we thought let's start a production brewery, we need cheap rent. And when we first started in 2009, it was it's really cheap rent. It's not now. No, it's gone up a lot. um But yeah, we were looking at the Temple Brewery, which is now keykeeper Keeper.
00:35:33
Speaker
So but we looked at the pricing and just gone. Well, there's no way we could do that as a startup brewery. um So we found good old Sunny Brayside sort of went from there. And it's suited our needs for now. Like there are drawbacks, there are positives with every commercial space.
00:35:52
Speaker
For those who don't know the area, I mean, it's sort of, we are right in an industrial little heartland. I don't know if Brayside really has much of a population. The population is zero. It's got own postcode, but it's got no population. It has its own postcode.
00:36:06
Speaker
Oh, well, she has a bit of truce. She has a of water. We're in the South East anyway. yeah and is And is there a hill because of that recently released Belgian beer, the patron site of Boat Rocco. Yeah, isn't that? And I looked up it's a hill. at the Hillside.
00:36:21
Speaker
Hillside. Okay. And Braeside means hillside in in oh and Scottish side. So thought let's do it. Right. I didn't go quite far enough to to try and work out what you were doing there. Okay. Yeah. that So it's, yeah, like, buts again, it's both things. It takes the piss out of most things, just in in ah in a fun fun kind of way, definitely.
00:36:40
Speaker
And then I guess a few years later, we're sat in the barrel room here now, i'm surrounded by barrels for those who are listening as opposed to watching. um First of its kind in Australia, least on this this scale, and you know, you had how many barrels when you first opened? Oh, think see recently more now, but... Yeah, well we first said we had maybe 120 barrels, something like that.
00:36:59
Speaker
We'd initially bought 60 barrels. i remember Andrea remarking, ah before we bought the Newlands kit, um I got 60 used wine barrels from Yarra, Yarra and Yarra Valley.
00:37:12
Speaker
30 reds, 30 whites and Andrea's like what why are we buying that? That's a lot of furniture for the garden. big so And they were like $50 each back in the day and they threw the racks in. So I'm like bonus. um What's the most you paid for a barrel, empty barrel since?
00:37:32
Speaker
I think it would be, it was a PX barrel, which would have been about eight or nine hundred Australian dollars. So I was just like, we need it, we need it. It did make a very nice barley wine and whiskey is currently sitting in it as well. so um But it is one of those things where barrels but he The interest in barrels went like that, um barrel beers, and it's like, yep, we can do this, we can do that.
00:37:58
Speaker
Then obviously other players come in as well. um And I think there's there's definitely been, as the the the COVID era struck and costs went like that, consumer consumption of of some of those wild ales dropped. I'm hoping, i mean, they're hard to find ah really good imports at a reasonable price. So I'm hoping that there's still that level of demand.
00:38:24
Speaker
Get through at least one of these barrels a year, hopefully. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's pretty much. If you're done by the time the kids, kids are out school. Yeah. And that's the thing. I mean, I look at a lot of the pensions behind you, which obviously your viewers can't see, but they're such beautiful things. Barrels are absolutely beautiful.
00:38:42
Speaker
Pensions are easier to handle because it's 500 liters in a single unit. These things are an absolute pain because when you want those ones, you've got to take all of them off and put them somewhere. And you've got in a venue, you've got festoon lighting that you then have to remove and get them heat's attach so we got it yeah got unscrew heat oh There's just so much involved to actually just get two barrels out.
00:39:06
Speaker
um And particularly in a venue, you've got limited time to actually operate. say Friday's out of the question. You can't make too much of a mess on a Thursday because you've got to clean it up on the Friday. There's all these things that that I guess we probably hadn't thought ah too much about that.
00:39:24
Speaker
You sort of go, we can just deal with that at the time. um And we do. And you just go, when you have to know you've got to get certain barrels out. But it does make the place feel a certain like you know you walk in here and instantly you are sort of taken away I think from the industrial space outside. is, it doesn't, yeah and look we've tried to make this place perfectly with a beer garden with fruit trees, citrus trees and trying to make an ugly duckling a little bit more of a swan and then looking inside really it's a besebrick factory with a tin roof.
00:39:55
Speaker
um You throw some festoon lights and lots of barrels around and it does It does make it a lot warmer, um which is ah a nice, yeah, it's one of those things. It is, as much as I hate them, it's a, again, it's a a love-hate relationship with barrels sometimes. ah Well, I think talking barrels is probably a good segue into talking about some the non-mear products you've made.
00:40:11
Speaker
I'm also aware that Andrea, there's children waiting to be picked up from school. Yes, I'm sure of my life. Thank you for staying around for at least part of the chat. We'll take a short break now, let you get off, and then we'll perhaps come back and talk about the distilling side of things and your views on been going in the industry and In recent years as well. I promise I'll swear to you, mate.
00:40:30
Speaker
Cheers. Cheers.
00:40:35
Speaker
Hey, listeners. Will here from The Crafty Pint. And once again, i am joined by my very dear friend, the Surf Coast's most famous and most acclaimed gossip columnist and beer writer, Milo Applebottom. Welcome, Milo.
00:40:50
Speaker
Will, it's a real pleasure to be here, and of course, we're talking about the biggest event on the surfed coast, the Blackman's Brewery Point Break Invitational Beer Festival, or the B-B-B-B-B-B-B-F, as I like to call it.
00:41:04
Speaker
um Now, when it comes to beer, this festival, you didn't even laugh at that joke, Will. Come with me on this. ah Now, this festival, when it comes to beer, it is a real who's who,
00:41:15
Speaker
of
Blackman's Brewery Invitational Festival
00:41:16
Speaker
of the brewing world. You've got Blackman's Garage Project, Kaiju, Banks, Goodland, all the rock stars coming together. ah You've even got some European stars coming over, I think.
00:41:26
Speaker
um Now, of course, this event is inspired by that classic bromance action movie, Point Break. And you and I, we've had a bit of history with this. We've been pairing beers with movies. Now, have you got something lined up? Well, you've got the beer. I'll get the film. Let's make it happen.
00:41:44
Speaker
Absolutely. They said it couldn't be done and that it shouldn't be done, but we're back doing it again. so this People want it, Will. The people want it. What I've got in front of me is a beer I really enjoyed recently from Rocky wi Ridge, WA's Rocky Ridge, who also now have a home in Melbourne.
00:42:01
Speaker
And I'm pretty sure I've given you some pretty low-hanging fruit here, Milo, because I picked one of their recent hazies, the Knights that Say Dnieper. Well, well you've you've walked me into a trap there because obviously Rocky Ridge, one of my favourite breweries, by the way, Will, they have been referencing the the famous comedy film Monty Python and the Holy Grail and the Knights Who Say Knee with that beer. So...
00:42:26
Speaker
Needless to say, I won't be falling for your trap. I won't be digging up any inexpensive shrubberies, but I'm going to go down a different path and look at a different kind of swords and armor classic i starring another West Australian. I know Rocky Ridge started over there with Heath Ledger.
00:42:43
Speaker
um Now, like this beer, this movie has all the ingredients of a good time. There's comedy, there's romance, there's action. Not to mention there's even a packed grandstand doing a medieval rendition of We Will Rock You by Queen.
00:42:58
Speaker
I'm talking about, don't know know the movie, but it's A Knight's Tale. That is fantastic. One of my all-time favourite Heath Ledger movies. It goes Knight's Tale, 10 Things I Hate About You, The Dark Knight, as far as I'm concerned. There you go.
00:43:12
Speaker
Fantastic. Well, Will, thank you very much, Matt. Another fantastic beer and movie pairing. And if you want to have more fun with beer, movies and mayhem, make sure you get along to Blackman's Brewery Point Break Invitational, Saturday the 16th of August. It's coming up soon in Torquay.
00:43:29
Speaker
Head to blackmansbrewery.com. .au for tickets. I'll see you there, Will. Can't wait. See you there, Milo. Cheers, mate. Cheers.
00:43:42
Speaker
Welcome back, Matt. You've made yourself an old-fashioned. Thank you. I figured it was the wife's gone, and so I can have something a bit stronger. Kidding. I'm sure she'll watch this at some stage, as as well as will the family. But an appropriate time to have, ah yeah, something we're just hopefully about to release, which is a bourbon-esque, can't be a bourbon, um and I'll make an old-fashioned.
00:44:03
Speaker
Okay. ah This is the latest ah new spirit off the boat rocker. That's right. va belt yes Yes, exactly. well all our All our lockdown spirits are coming to fruition. So we did the first days of lockdown apart from running around in circles going, what do we do? What do we do? What do we do? um We had a still, there was an initial sales plummet of everything, um but we still had a distiller employed. We had washers. You can only make so much hand sanitizer.
00:44:32
Speaker
We could, that's it. and and the still I reckon I've still got a ton of yours home. We've still got so much of it here. as is like I mean, we are slowly churning it through. People still have a habit of ah putting their afghan in the toilet, putting a hand sanitizer on. So, yeah, we might go through a litre every six months. Still got a couple of hundred litres. so um But we put lots of spirits away in barrel knowing that, you know, may as well do it. So from a pated whiskey to a ah four grain um American style whiskey.
Boat Rocker's Distillation Process
00:45:05
Speaker
Obviously can't call it a bourbon because we're not in America. Yeah, pseudo bourbon. Yeah, yeah. um Much like the pseudo lambics. But yeah, and that's a say it's just like, it's reached that point now. It's had to be five years in barrel.
00:45:16
Speaker
um virgin high char American oak and it just worked really well in cocktails and neat as well. Does that have names? Four grain whiskey so far. but We thought about having something, I just don't know, if the whiskey market is such a unique beast as well. And I guess that's one of the Interesting things that where we embraced the distilling of spirits from a creativity, making different products and having fun. And then, know, the thing that excites me as much as the whiskey, we've now got three barrels that are empty that we can put beer into. That'll give us that bourbon-esque flavor profile that we can play around with and and be be creative on the beer side of things as well. so
00:46:01
Speaker
And what first took took you down that path to distilling? Was that something mean that was always part of the long-term plan? Or you were like, i have under way I've made every style of beer going now. I've got all these barrels. What am I going to do next? Yeah, look, ah I love, i mean, as a home brewer, ex-home brewer, probably arguably still home brewing really and across the road, I just love making different products. And it's just like,
00:46:22
Speaker
oh, we can do this, we can do that. um It probably drives our staff batting when I just go, oh, well, let's let's think about making this. And so the opportunity to get the distillery, like my first thought was barrels and we can fill up barrels. Were you making them before the hippocampus moved over here? no, we hadn't touched spirits at all. Drank them um and wanted to, and was a little bit shocked with the price of used barrels, particularly those from America. So back in the day, there were 400 bucks, they're now probably close to six or $700 for a used good quality bourbon barrel that's that's been freshly emptied.
00:46:56
Speaker
And so the opportunity going, my my brain was not really fully grasping how many barrels you'd need to actually make the volume of ramjet we'd need each year, which we certainly don't produce that much whiskey. um But the idea to be able to create different flavored products from gins and other avenues and we had the barrel room.
00:47:13
Speaker
Obviously, the they had to sell products through the barrel room over the bar and then also, again, that level of creativity. can Distillation is an amazing process where you can extract flavors that are not achievable just with the normal maceration you do with beer or infusing products. So that allowed us to create other flavour profiles through spirits.
00:47:38
Speaker
But having said that, being able to create certain flavour profiles by extracting aromatics from fruits and then putting that into beer as well, which is always just another little arsenal to the palette of of what you can play around with. have Have you found it a little harder to get into that world? Obviously we talked about the pseudo lambic before, brambic and, you know, marketing some of these products a little bit in maybe an industry that might be a bit, I don't know, maybe a bit less willing to experiment or is spirits the same? You just have the same approach? I think and spirits are, the gin world initially was very accepting of, you know, any, you could throw anything in gin.
00:48:18
Speaker
And it was accepted that, oh, it's gin, because gin was very much the darling, ah the spirits world, much like craft beer was. um And I think it also reached that point where craft beer, people started throwing things at craft beer that you probably shouldn't be throwing at it.
00:48:35
Speaker
And the same thing happened with gin. And with the increase of excise in Australia to exorbitant levels, people's desire to throw away $80 or more on a bottle of gin that might have, you know, fairy floss and rambutan and whatever. And what sounds interesting, they not don't often always work together. And so that the cost of failure for the consumer was a much greater hip pocket expense. And I reckon that's where gin has really gone like that.
00:49:09
Speaker
There are some great gins out there and they're still going along well, but a lot of the sellers are ah really feeling the pinch at the moment, much like craft brewers. I think everyone's spare cash has has dipped down.
00:49:20
Speaker
um And i think things like whiskeys, we did create a ah ah Forget Me not be a forgetme Not. Yeah, which was a distilled at Starwood, which was Alpha Queen. um And we thought, why not? And that was, you know, people really enjoyed it. now We've now got two barrels coming to fruition. They're about six or seven years old now, so they'll be absolutely crackerjack.
00:49:44
Speaker
But, you know, the whiskey market, ah talking with um the guys at Starwood, because we talked to them you know, relatively regularly about how the whiskey world is going at the moment. And it's tough yards for them as well, because they're trying to sell products that are generally always over $100 a bottle.
00:50:01
Speaker
um And the consumer just doesn't have that money. So for them to be creative, and they're a major whiskey distillery locally, and struggling to try and get the same level of sales for $140 whiskeys. And then we go on going, we're probably not going to sell that whiskey for $130, $140. And we don't have a name for whiskey.
00:50:22
Speaker
We have a name for, i guess, we we won the trophy for Champion Alternative Spirit. um But i just don't think... the market is necessarily there and a lot of venues now I think are going back to traditional much like we are with beer and going back to classic styles with a slight twist. It was interesting I've heard that term used in relationship to wine and spirits by a few different people pretty recently talking about ah are people sort of embracing the classics? But I'm wondering if that kind of means they're just going back to the cheaper big brand, you know, bigger grape varieties or the, or the you know, the Tongari or whatever, where're where it is going to be 25, 30% cheaper. And going on or going back to the classics, like, no, they're saving some money.
00:51:08
Speaker
Well, that's my cynical and I've, we went to, I won't say the name of the the cocktail bar um prior to going to this dinner we were talking about, which the viewers obviously have no idea about. um And amazing place, loved it.
00:51:24
Speaker
But i I noticed that for what would be a normal pour,
00:51:30
Speaker
glasses were a bit small, the pores were quite low and they were again they were embracing classic cocktails. But then looking at the back, an amazing line of ah drinks. But you go, and most of them were probably owned by Pernod Ricard, Bacardi, who's the other big... Yeah, yeah. And you just go, and and they, that this is the nature of spirits and I think wine has definitely gone that way with yeah like consolidation of all those brands um and they like you do lose some of that creativity and I guess a lot of bartenders maybe they just want that consistency of quality um and style without any sort of you know variation which I completely understand as well but I think a price point that comes at a much cheaper price point it's just the nature of the
00:52:19
Speaker
the beast. Everyone's trying to save some money and in ah in a tough environment. and and In terms of the sort the spirits and li so liquor side, of the gap out how broad has yeah sort of output been in that area? Obviously, there's been a number of gins, big fans of the jungle gin in our house. yeah There's been, you know, obviously the bourbon company.
00:52:37
Speaker
How far and wide or broad has your palate been? Look, I think it's been a lot less than um than the beer side of things. ah we We can definitely, well, we have the luxury of our canning line um and any product, I guess, that we want to make, we could turn it into an RTD.
00:52:59
Speaker
Obviously comes at a much higher tax bracket. um But it's been, yeah, number of products has been far significantly or significantly less. Not far that's terrible English. But um it's one of those things where ah we we, again, classic styles, a lot of classic styles, that we were making the Chino, which no one, you know, apart from...
00:53:19
Speaker
marionette liqueurs local producers don't really do it um we're trying to make out of limoncello which a lot of people do limoncello but if you can do those sort of classic things we find that and there was some distilleries around who would be doing wacky ingredient products but I think um maybe that works you know four five years ago or if you're in a regional town where you know it's the the main attraction to go to or something Well, that's really it. I've been looking at, you know, Bilsons had everything from Fruittingles or FruitTangles, they had to change it but due to ABAC rulings and um yeah, crikey. And yeah, I get it, they're just trying to make, find a market and, you know, see what sticks because they're running a business.
00:54:03
Speaker
But it is one of those things where... What are you doing? Yeah. And you've you've talked that we've talked about, i guess, the price sensitivity around like people going to the classic brands or whatever it might be and the cost of living there.
00:54:15
Speaker
um i mean, you seem to have managed to navigate, survive so far, you know, um with all the changes that come along. What have you made of what's been going on um in this of the wider beer industry with, you know, VAs and closures and stuff like that? And has it sort of impacted your business or is just something you look out on the outside and go,
00:54:34
Speaker
God, this is, you know, it's tough out there. Look, it I mean, it is tough out there. It's always, matter running a small business, doesn't matter what time of year, what economic environment, it's always hard slog because there's there's going to be pressure. If it's good times, then your pressure is to, shit, we've got to produce more and get it out to market.
00:54:53
Speaker
But then you've got to need, you know, the money, near the cash flow to come in to do that. Or you
Financial Challenges in Brewing Industry
00:54:57
Speaker
need to scale up your brewery or whatever it needs to be, hire new staff. um But then in the down times, That's like, well, shit, we've got to tighten our belts. We've not spend this. We didn't, you know, turn lights off or, know, shut the door on this and all these different things. And maybe you've got to look at, you altering some of your grain bills for what you're producing and how you're making a product because you really need to get you know you you can't increase your margin as a brewer uh we can't increase your price i should say the same as you know if you're a supplier and an essential supplier for example like aurora just gave us a letter saying oh we're as of first july eight percent increase in cans and you're going that's like double cpi um but you go well we use them and we sort of need their products we can't make our own cans
00:55:45
Speaker
um We could go to Visi but Visi would exactly the same and we've got our print design for our stout there. So you just go well that's it is what the price is but then for us to put our price up we can't just raise our price by eight percent.
00:55:56
Speaker
In reality we probably need to raise it more than eight percent to make it work for what we charge our products. You just go well you just got to wear this stuff and Until you hit a point and then you got double excise s whammy twice a year. So that's going to got to put your price up there.
00:56:11
Speaker
And then all the while, ah Derek, our sales rep is going, fuck, we're going to sell the product. And that's the hard part. So you you have always prices like that. how do you How do you circumvent that? And there's no real easy way to do it.
00:56:24
Speaker
um and So back to the VA a scenario, but they were shooting us in the foot. I think a lot of the the ones the names who had gone were selling very cheap kegs and that did impact it impacts the industry. As we selling in selling cheap kegs before the VA's came in? Before the VA's and then afterward and then post-VA a administrators, they don't give a rat's ass about.
00:56:44
Speaker
the industry that is trying to to get some money back for their their creditors, which I understand as well, they've got a job to do, but dropping cheap kegs. So it's one of those things where you go, this is not helping and industry-wide issue um with how beer is viewed and how they treat beer. And it's ah it's a very messy environment, I think.
00:57:09
Speaker
And we're in this scenario now where like I look at, I see, you know, the IBA is sadly down to one and a half full-time members too.
00:57:21
Speaker
But just go, how can you run a national organization on that? But there's not the money for brewers to be able to give the money and we wanted in a strong industry, but I don't know how you get around that. And the VA's, the consumer has become critical of craft breweries going, oh, you just, you know, and particularly crowdfunding as well. So there've been some really bad things happening with crowdfunding. And and so then you start going,
00:57:44
Speaker
Yeah, so it's it's a it's just adds to the overall negativity, I think, and mindset towards craft beer. Because it's no longer, let's do it, we can do anything.
00:57:56
Speaker
That's just like, oh shit, how are we going to do that? so and have you how How do you sort of maintain or find new tap points when there has is or has been competition out there from really cheap cheap kegs that you can't compete with with unless you want to go to next? in No, no, I'll hopefully stay away from that. But it's it's one of those things where well we don't contract and anybody taps. I know there are brewers out there who pay for an annual fee.
00:58:23
Speaker
ah To secure a tap point, um we work on what they call rotational taps. So ah a lot of bars will just go, we'll we'll have a stout that rotates or a pale ale that rotates or an IPA.
00:58:34
Speaker
um So Derek will field phone calls and go, yep, um Derek, I need an IPA. Well, I've got this, this and this. Well, now that it's the reality is it's I've got this. has ah Gone are the days of doing you know new IPA releases every every second week. um And so those bars, this will always roll through, but they won't keep you on longer than that keg, but they'll come back to you in four weeks' time when they're going through four other breweries, which I love dealing with. ah The concept behind that is brilliant. If they've got a small bar, four taps,
00:59:07
Speaker
You'll get a look in probably once a week across as long as you meet the criteria for a pale ale, an IPA, a dark beer or a light style beer or maybe a sour come to come summer.
00:59:18
Speaker
So is there a case of sort of finding the venues where the the managers or the owners are like, no, I'm in this for these reasons and I'm going to treat those people fairly and pay the proper price as opposed to going, you know,
00:59:30
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, in an ideal world, all venues would be, know, and even the ones who do offer a good variety would be like that. But they're always looking for cheap prices. And what happens is, you know, breweries are desperate to sell volume.
00:59:42
Speaker
And we're seeing stupid prices for for some kegs down to, you know, 180 a keg. um And that's just not sustainable. there's no There's no margin. There's no profit on that. No one's making any money.
00:59:54
Speaker
I understand, look, breweries that are doing that are obviously need to just... pay wages and pay staff. for that and They're probably at that point potentially where they just go, just make, long as we can cover costs, then we keep the business going.
01:00:10
Speaker
um But you need more than that. to And that that's and it becomes a race to the bottom, unfortunately. And I guess having this venue helps. like You can sell your product you know maximum markup. is I guess you're only open you know relatively few hours a week. yeah Have you sort of thought, but looked into the prospect you know the possibility of ah other boat rocker venues anywhere? or I mean, some people these days have been taking over pubs.
01:00:34
Speaker
but only putting their beers on even if it's not called by the you know the brewery's name. Is that something you've looked at or are you too much in a producer's mindset to ever go down that road? Look, I think, mean, in a hindsight, this was the right place for a barrel room because this on a high street would be 250,000 plus per annum. Yeah.
01:00:52
Speaker
um and walk-ins and our beers and products that we make are definitely uh you people have to come and see us yeah so i think we've got that we'll need to go there um but look i've often thought that we would be Well transported if you could have the taps into a smaller venue, but they would have foot traffic off a high street. But no, we haven't looked at other venues. It's one of those things where I like the idea of it, but then the reality of who's going to run it, who's going to oversee it, who's going to make it work.
01:01:27
Speaker
And that's, I just, I can't see myself. and Enough things to keep your eyes on. Oh, looking looking at looking after this place and that place and making sure that things don't completely fall apart, um including myself or Andrea. It's one of those things where you just go, that's probably enough for now. and I think when when the, and hopefully in the next year, two years, that things improve
Navigating Brewing Market During Economic Fluctuations
01:01:53
Speaker
economically. um things as I was going to say, do you think we will get, what I'm sure we'll never see anything quite like the 2010s again, but think it this is a temporary thing and things we'll we'll get back to where you might need to have two or three two or three ipas on the go at a particular time or whatever. I hope so. But i I do wonder, I mean, when we got at the craft beer game, it was a very unique time to to make beer and really you could be creative and people wouldn't care about dropping 20 30 bucks.
01:02:24
Speaker
But now I think for, Wicked's probably still make a beer and people will buy it. But if it doesn't work or it doesn't taste right, then I can imagine that the consumer might, we're old enough and hopefully trusted enough as a product or a brand that people would go, oh, it's Boat Rocker product.
01:02:43
Speaker
yeah like you know It can't be that bad. and So hopefully they try it. But then if it was shit, then they might question that the next time they're going up a limited release. And if it was something wacky or different, then they're more likely to potentially shy away from repurchasing our product. And i think that's something that, um, yeah, I'm, I'm. So you can understand why people are being risk averse.
01:03:06
Speaker
Absolutely. Because there's some, across everything, theres there's shit products out there. And I think very few producers, be it beer, wine, spirits, chocolate, whatever it is, ice creams, you are they, excuse me, a thousand percent happy with their product or are they like, that's great.
01:03:28
Speaker
It's good enough to drink or that's good enough for the price point. But if beer is bad, there are enough bad producers out there who will go, fuck it, it needs to go because we need, we've outlayed the cash on this. So it needs to, it needs we need to recoup. Yeah. um But that just does damage to industry.
01:03:46
Speaker
Doesn't matter what industry it is and to their own brand. so It's one of those things which was always terrifying me about Ramjet every year because everyone holds it in such high regard and you taste it and I'm like I think it's really good. Fuck it's gonna get lots of lots of you know feedback and everything else please be good or or god forbid like a barrel is sour. Yeah.
01:04:08
Speaker
Um and I'm like oh fuck and we have had to dump one barrel of Ramjet in a lot of years and that was tragic. Yeah. But it was not right. At least you dumped it before it went in with the others. Yeah yeah exactly. Matt, if you could rewind the clock and start Boat Rocker all over again, is there one thing you really wish you had have known when you started the business?
01:04:26
Speaker
um Good question. but
01:04:31
Speaker
We always knew that running a small business was going to be tough. um I think I would have, in an ideal world, started with more money, but you never have enough money to get set up. I mean, like, look at what we started out with.
01:04:48
Speaker
You put that on paper now and people would just, you you couldn't, it's not achievable. And I know the dollars expand and everything else, but we,
01:04:57
Speaker
coincided with being able to find second-hand equipment, cheap production space, doing everything myself or with ah good friends who who knew how to do the ah technical legal things like electricity and plumbing.
01:05:10
Speaker
um We sort of had that that absolute luck of the draw and luckily Andrea ah was a a CPA. So she understood numbers and and how to make things work from that point of view. so don't know if I'd necessarily change anything from what we had done. i mean, because most things were out of our control. And I think we still would have done what we did.
01:05:37
Speaker
we would have just forged ahead regardless. um You could argue, know, put the barrel room on a main road or whatever else, but we didn't have the money to do that. You know, buy a bigger brew house. But really, we haven't needed to have a bigger brew house. um There's so many little things. ah Maybe the only thing would be, although we are bottling now again, so we've got Ramjet to be bottled this year. yeah Why buy a bottling line when you could have had a canning line, but then everything changes. Everything's transient.
01:06:07
Speaker
Bottles will go back into fashion. um Canning lines, if we bought the canning line back when we bought the bottling line, the quality of canning lines wasn't good enough. So we would have had a dud canning line, whereas we've now got a really good canning line and and also a really good bottling line. So it's one of those things where, i don't know, I just think everything just swings around about, just sort of does that. And we'll get back to hopefully pumping out bottles of beer and lots of cans of beer as well. So yeah, to ask the question, I probably wouldn't, nothing I would have stayed away from. Okay.
01:06:39
Speaker
but that's That's reassuring because most people can kind of jump in straight away and go, yes, this, this, this, and this. So there you go. i think because we were so naive, like we were naive about running a brewery because it was like, well, how hard can it be? I'll take my beer to people and people we hopefully like our product. And if they like our product, they they'll buy it and they'll they'll pay their bills.
01:06:57
Speaker
but But they, you know, they mostly do pay their bills, but you get plenty of people who don't pay their bills. They pay late. ah Most people like our beer. I think that does sell well enough. um but what What could I change?
01:07:12
Speaker
know, there's a lot of things you could look back on. and But I don't know. I always sort of figure that whatever's behind is behind we'll work forward. And hopefully that's up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And coming to the present, and i guess it's an interesting time to enter and i've any small business right now.
01:07:30
Speaker
but if someone was looking at the beer industry now going, right, I'm good. do what Matt and Andrew did all these years ago, follow my dream and start a brewery now 2025. What one piece of advice would you would you give them?
01:07:42
Speaker
I won't say don't. That's not the right mindset. I think if you if you're confident in your abilities to brew, to run a business ah or you're just absolutely mad and you really think you can yeah you can get it done regardless of of whatever happens, I would say just monitor cash flow ah and where expenditures occur and have something that suits the market.
01:08:13
Speaker
um And I guess that's the thing for us where I mean, ah we were a mad, enthusiastic home brewer who wanted to do barrel beers and Lambics and Wild Ales and Imperial Stouts and English beers and like it.
01:08:29
Speaker
um Absolute plethora and that's evident by all the beers we've made but it's one of those things where maybe focus more would be an an advice on something that you know i don't necessarily subscribe to you know just having one beer and and yeah but that You can also make it really well. Look at Pilsner, Raquel, or Kepa, local, you it one beer.
01:08:54
Speaker
So there is an opportunity there as well, but you've just got to find way to navigate the consumer. I think that's the biggest issue is that you've got a product, you can make a product, you make a bloody good product. you going to sell that good product? And then you've got to get it out to market.
01:09:07
Speaker
There's probably lots of things, lots lots of pieces of advice, not just one. But make sure you make sure you've got a market that you can sell to. Absolutely, because ah if you come to the market with just pale ale, it's either got to be fucking the best pale ale on the market or...
01:09:22
Speaker
And you will never achieve it or it's got to be the dirt sheet. yeah And that's just a race to the bottom and that never works. So you've got to have something incredible. But what you have now? because There are an amazing array and a lot of the good, you know, I look at, you little creatures got ah brought out by lion.
01:09:38
Speaker
It's still really good. But, definitely think it has changed a little bit, but that's that's a moot point. But it's um there are some really good, you know, Bolter, XBA, excellent. So how are you going crack that market on that price point?
01:09:50
Speaker
um I don't know how you do it unless you've got something that connects with consumers. and That's local for the most part. There are also breweries that connect locally. So it's so complicated. It's not it's not a simple answer. It can't be.
01:10:06
Speaker
And, um, if you had one wish or sort of hope for craft beer into the future, what would it be? Poor, good one. ah My biggest wish locally, ah is taxation.
01:10:19
Speaker
Get rid of shittest taxation rules in the world. ah Don't increase it. And that would be part one of the whiff. The other part would be for understanding of consumers for how much tax um goes into products and the cost of actual products. Because...
01:10:37
Speaker
At the moment, the current regime is to basically, it's a race to the bottom again, but for flavor. Because the sufferers, the consumer, because the only way to make price points to hit sales volumes, to hit targets of this is to dumb down beer even more.
01:10:54
Speaker
And as soon as you start adding flavor, flavor costs money. And as soon as you want flavor, but the consumer can't afford to pay for it, then it just damages the consumer. So, and taxation, i mean it kills me that we,
01:11:06
Speaker
ah like ah yeah spirits which is different, that's completely screwed over as well. But a 15 litre tub of bulk spirits, we might sell it for a thousand bucks. But 600 of that is to the tax man.
01:11:18
Speaker
And then you go, and then if another distillery decides to make it you know, $900, well they're only making $300 but still we're going pay $600 in the tax man. And so you go, well there's this point where you just go, they can't, and it goes up and up and up. And same with beers. And ah feel like as much as I i love drinking wine, they're they're on a pedestal ah that needs to be just level pegging with with beer.
01:11:43
Speaker
But whether that ever happens, I'm not sure. So maybe not, but yes. Fantastic. Yeah, well, we might leave it there. Thanks so much, Matt. Cheers. Thank you. Cheers, guys.
01:11:59
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.
01:12:13
Speaker
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01:12:28
Speaker
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