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Going With The Grain
432 Plays21 days ago
“It's a big picture approach. I love it because our kids are going to have a future.”
The phrase “more than the sum of its parts” shouldn’t really apply when the parts in question are as significant in their own manner as Wildflower Beer, Organically Greenwood and Voyager Craft Malt. Yet there can be no denying that these pioneering operations are stronger together – their impact magnified by their ongoing collaboration.
Since first discovering each other, the trio – respectively a brewer favouring native, wild and organic ingredients, a farmer exploring innovative regeneration techniques, and a maltster of world-beating ingenuity – have encouraged each other to push their ideas further, to chase their wildest dreams, and to inspire others along the way.
We sat down with two of them – Wildflower’s Topher Boehm and Organically Greenwood’s Chris Greenwood – at an event conceived by the third, the Stu Whytcross-curated Grainstock. They told us about their first encounters, the friendship forged between their families, the exploration and experimentation they’ve enjoyed together, and their hopes for the future of grain, regen farming, sustainable brewing practices and the planet itself.
They’re fascinating and eloquent guests who take us from brewing with saltbush in Belgium to old man Ivan and his crop-enhancing “voodoo juice” with plenty of insight and laughter along the way.
Due to some unexpected and insurmountable gremlins in the system, which we only discovered three hours before this episode was due to be published, there's no full intro this week. Will and James had discussed the week's news – two more venue closures in the local beer world, a fledgling brewpub changing tastes on the Murray, and the new “Northern IPA” style – but instead you just get a brief word from James before the main course.
We’re always keen for feedback on the show, which you can provide here (just don't mention this week's intro), as well as nominations for good beer citizens in our Have You Done A Rallings? campaign and wonderful breweries you'd like to see named Bluestone Yeast Brewery of the Month. As ever, if you enjoy this episode, please like, subscribe, rate and review.
Start of segments:- 3:05 – Topher & Chris Part 1
- 33:17 – Topher & Chris 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 Production Challenges
00:00:05
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Crafty Pint Podcast. I'm James um and you may notice there's no Will with me right now. ah No issues there. Will was sat next to me for quite some time earlier today as we recorded next week's show and also the intro for this week's show.
00:00:20
Speaker
um However, we discovered in the last half hour that the the files we've recorded for this week's intro have just, they're corrupted, they're unrecoverable. And I guess the risks you take when you record a weekly show like go that is finished it and goes out so um so close to deadline is that we don't have time to get back together and record the full intro again. So instead, you have me with this sort of briefer and apologetic intro. um These things do happen. of Gremlins in the system every now and then.
00:00:48
Speaker
um However,
Preview of Sustainable Brewing Discussion
00:00:49
Speaker
we've got a great chat coming up for you. And it's a pretty long one as well. So maybe this is a bit of a blessing in disguise. um It does mean there's no chat about the stories we've run on the Crafty Pint this week.
00:00:59
Speaker
ah They include the impending closure by Stone and Wood of their Fortitude Valley Brew Pub. um The sudden closer last weekend of Misfit Taproom, which moved into Wayward Brewing's former home in Camperdown.
00:01:10
Speaker
A lovely piece on a new brewery in Tokemole on the Murray, New South Wales side of the Murray. And also a bit of an examination of the Northern IPA sort of created style that you may have seen around the traps increasingly recently.
00:01:21
Speaker
um So we'll include links in the show notes to all of those. i'm Otherwise, we'll get straight into the main chat. It's a really ah fascinating and i a wonderful chat.
Meet the Guests: Topher Bame and Chris Greenwood
00:01:30
Speaker
We recorded at Grainstock a couple of weeks ago with two of the, I guess, central figures in the push for more sustainable brewing practices, more sustainable farming.
00:01:38
Speaker
Topher Bame, many of you know, he's one of the founders of Wildflower and Chris Greenwood. and He's a farmer who's one half of Organically Greenwood, which has been working very closely with Wildflower and Batch and a growing number of breweries and Voyager Craft Malt, practicing regenerative farming practices, starting to grow some heritage grains.
00:01:56
Speaker
They're both very eloquent speakers. theyve Their families become very good friends. There's some great, um I guess, camaraderie between them. I'm sure you'll love the show. We're back in a weektime and a week's time with ah normal practices. But for now, enjoy the show. Cheers.
00:02:12
Speaker
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Speaker
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Speaker
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Sustainable Farming Practices at Organically Greenwood
00:03:06
Speaker
tofa Welcome to the podcast. Thank you for having us. Now, Chris, maybe let's start with you. I think a lot of people in the beer industry will know Topher a little bit better, maybe. But Chris, do you want to tell us a little bit about Organically Greenwood?
00:03:17
Speaker
Oh, thank you. um Yep, so my wife and I and our kids ah run a mixed grazing cropping enterprise at Collie Ambley in New South Wales. So about a... 80 kilometer drive from the Malt House where we're sitting now. So yeah, we're one of the closer farms to the to the boys at Voyager Craft Malt.
00:03:35
Speaker
um We've been there almost 10 years and our focus has been on soil health and building up a farm to give to our kids in a better state than what we got it. So that's that's us in a nutshell. But yeah, we're a family operation.
00:03:49
Speaker
um We're first generation farmers. um My grandfather did do a bit of farming, but retired well before mum and dad sort of come in. So yeah, we've sort of pretty lucky in the respect that we haven't got someone over our shoulder telling us that we can't farm the way we farm.
00:04:06
Speaker
So yeah, and we just question everything we do. Is this good for the soil? Is this good for the plant? um Yeah, we we just want to do our best to grow good quality food so that you know, healthy people, and healthy food, healthy people.
00:04:20
Speaker
So that's our focus. Yeah. it Topher, we probably see a separate show. So can you hear it briefly summarize who you are and what you do? Oh,
Wildflower Brewing's Unique Approach
00:04:30
Speaker
right. and Sure. I'm Topher Bame and along with with my wife, my brother and sister-in-law, um we started Wildflower Brewing and Blending in Merrickville in Sydney in 2016. So we're coming up on 10 years ourself. At Wildflower, we focus on using...
00:04:49
Speaker
native yeast and bacteria ah to ferment our beers. And since 2020, we've coupled that native yeast and and bacteria with organically readgen regenerative organically grown grain um from the Greenwoods.
00:05:05
Speaker
So that's that's our that's our focus. Yeah. And what took you down on that journey and it what was the sort of first interaction like with you guys? Oh, I don't know. Do you want to your side or my side? How did we meet?
Origin of the Partnership
00:05:18
Speaker
It was the bar, wasn't it? It was Stu. Oh, it was a Tinder.
00:05:21
Speaker
Yeah. respect to his yeah you you You couldn't swipe left fast. Yeah, yeah, exactly. and So we were we were three or four years down the rabbit hole trying to grow organic grain with a few failures behind us.
00:05:34
Speaker
And we started to see that the older varieties of grain that we were growing on the farm worked better. And ah I knew from a young fellow growing up in the Mallee that everyone used to grow schooner barley and it did really well.
00:05:47
Speaker
and I thought, I've got to find some seed. And I couldn't find any seed anywhere. And I heard that these fellas had this craft mold house. They had skoon barley seed. I thought, well, I'll ring him and see if they'll sell me some.
00:06:01
Speaker
I rang had a conversation with him. He said, oh, got some fellas that might be interested in talking to you about growing some barley for them because they want it grown ethically. They want to mate they want to know where it comes from. They want to know that it's someone that's actually a proper steward of the land. We're going to have a conversation before I let you have any seed.
00:06:20
Speaker
So, yeah, two fellas from Sydney appeared on the farm with stew. and we hopped in a land cruiser and went for a drive and it was like a two hour job interview for these two fellas with all these questions that were questions that i didn't expect from two you know sydney people and it was yeah it was a couple of americans yeah jesus both inma yeah ye yeah so yeah chris sidwar and topher came out and yeah we had a drove around the paddock and then had a look and everyone seemed happy. So Stu said, well, you better come get some seed and have it and just grow it for us and see where it went. And that's where we that's where it started from.
00:06:59
Speaker
um And yeah, we've just built from there. Yeah. And Tophus, so that was you and Chris from Batch.
Collaboration with Voyager Craft Malt
00:07:05
Speaker
Yeah, Chris here with the owner of Batch. So Chris and I together were Stu's first customers um at Voyager. So back when they were just on the one time, well, when they started. So um so when youre s saying Stu and Brad of of a Voyager.
00:07:19
Speaker
And um so we had been focusing. I think Stu's, I mean, the the focus of Voyager having single origin malt alone Being able to do that was probably a ah major impetus for me to think I can actually do what I want to do, because we wanted to make sure our beers were entirely New South Welsh, at least as a start. um But then being able to, so we stillid did that in 2017 when we started, but then it was just taking that next step with Stu.
00:07:47
Speaker
um And Chris and I saying to Stu, had had friends in the wine community who kind of started querying, you know, is there any organic malt? What are the way that some of these grains are being farmed. and And it was less coming from a perspective of, you know, what is the ecology of your drink instead of how can we make this more nourishing? How can make it taste better? You know, there's anyone who's had um organically or regeneratively farmed chicken versus something like a roast chook that's raised one way versus one that's raised another.
00:08:18
Speaker
um the proof is in the pudding, regardless of of what's better for you to eat. It just tastes better. And just want to make tasty beer. And so the
Taste Benefits of Organic Ingredients
00:08:27
Speaker
the impetus for us was going, well, we want to make tasty beer with malts that are, that were bred for malting.
00:08:33
Speaker
Malts that like barley varietals that um aren't just being pumped out in order, like with huge diastatic power. For efficiency. For efficiency or extra other things. So um that was in 2019, we came out um and had a chat with Chris.
00:08:49
Speaker
And Sam and um yeah, I guess that was from our side is we just wanted to make better beer. I mean, what we do is, is quite in a box. You know, we we really we really do keep ourselves quite confined.
00:09:01
Speaker
um I mean, that sounds funny because we do some weird shit. But like, what we want to focus on um is quite small. So the only way we can, in my mind, improve our quality is by improving the quality of the base ingredients.
00:09:14
Speaker
so And anyone who cooks knows that's the easiest way to make a tasty meal is start with good ingredients and then don't get in the way. so so essentially, you were on the farm doing one thing, were in Sydney going, we want to do this.
00:09:28
Speaker
unaware of each other but yeah but need needing to be brought together essentially. yeah exactly It was a match made in heaven but you just didn't know each other. Yeah. And it was like, you know all credit from our side to the team of Voyager because they really put the wheels in motion. you know If it wasn't for Stu saying to Chris, we'll take the crop, regardless of the specs, regardless of whether it's going to meet multi-grade or not or whatever,
00:09:52
Speaker
We'll take the crop and we'll malt it and we'll give it to to Topher and Chris. And I guess like for our side, I thought, well, I don't mind if, you know, the barley has a little bit of oats in it or a little bit like if the cleaning wasn't perfect or the grain size were a little bit differently.
00:10:06
Speaker
If you're going full conventional and fully into the commodity, you know, um market, that has to be completely precise and use of different chemicals or, you know, synthetic fertilizers change that.
00:10:19
Speaker
And so, but I have to give it to Stu for being the one that says, well, look, just a handshake agreement. You guys will buy it over there. And that's, that's us. who' saying ye yeah And so he just said to Chris, you know, we'll, we'll buy it from you. And and then you guys luckily, you know, thankfully planted it. So yeah.
00:10:32
Speaker
And Chris, you know, you're, you're out here growing this stuff and and hoping to grow it. Like, where did you think it would sort of go or where did you hope it would go if you weren't sort of immediately committed? connected
Barley as a Sustainable Crop Choice
00:10:41
Speaker
with Voyager did you have hopes for it or you just wanted to grow it in the right way so but we'd been supplying the organic dairy industry with grain and the organic uh chicken feed right there was chicken feed it was in the dairies and it was in and we were growing a bit of wheat going into some flour millers but we were We knew barley was a good fit crop. It's not a high user of fertilizer. It'll do well in a tougher situation. does better It and does better than wheat in the drought conditions.
00:11:11
Speaker
So we wanted to, and it's good in the rotation. It's good to have different crops in the rotation. We can't just grow the same crop every year. So we were we would just wanted a variety that worked.
00:11:23
Speaker
And that's why we went down, we went chasing that Schooner Valley. um And yeah, well, we never thought it would lead into what what it is now. um But yeah, we're so, so glad it did because it's built some amazing relationships with some great brewers and some really good people. So we're yeah we couldn't have imagined it to work out as well as it has.
00:11:43
Speaker
And similar question to you when you were first introduced to Chris and Sam and saw what they were doing. Do you think, oh, this We'll do one batch or whatever. We'll just like try this out. Or did you think this would go somewhere? You know me. I don't i don't i don't go half in too much No, i we wanted to move from token to staple.
00:12:02
Speaker
Like so often these these ingredients that are um grown in different ways or or highlights in some, we see them on products or on menus as like a special item.
00:12:14
Speaker
And then back to the conventional stuff we go because we're going to market that Our method at Wildflower is very much not that it's, if we're going to do it, that's it. that's It's going to happen across the board.
00:12:26
Speaker
um i'm I'm originally from from Texas and i had like I'm not completely at home on Sam Chris's farm because it's a bit bigger than any farm I would ever be on in in Texas.
00:12:38
Speaker
But i'm you just know someone's character by shaking their hand. So I knew it would last. ah know it would last And and that that has, I mean, our kids are staying together. They know each other. and They've, you know, it's it's a lot more than just say a commercial relationship, I would say. so But it's the the belling that's the whole industry, the whole crafty industry, everyone's friendly. Everyone talks to you. Everyone's got a similar goal and they have to think that we're farming, but we've got the same goal. We're trying to make really good grain to supply to the monsters and
00:13:12
Speaker
the molesters are doing their best and then all the brewers just want to make good beer. and We're all, we've actually all, he saw you say we're in a box. We all feel like we're in our own box, but when we're all working together, we come out with some great products, I think. And if we, yeah, but that last night, everybody wanted to come up and say good day and thanks for having us on your farm yesterday. And,
00:13:31
Speaker
It's a great feel. It really is to have everybody there that's happy yeah and just floating along. Yeah. I didn't say yesterday, yesterday for context, um ah not quite a few of the people who are attending the festival came to Sam and Chris's farm and we had a barbecue. We were serving beers out of the back of a ute that were you know from with grain from that farm.
00:13:52
Speaker
ah It dawned on me only later, you know going back six years ago, just Chris said, well, I'm bumping, you know, Stu picking us up from the airport, leaving Sydney, a you know, a Ferris Spartan. Okay.
Experience at Grainstock Festival
00:14:07
Speaker
You know, you keep it in and going down and then, you know, fast forward to six years. it it's It was pretty cool to see then this huge group of people all on that same property. This place has, you know, been very important for us. And and I think done a done a fair bit in the industry in terms of making things available, giving giving brewers an option.
00:14:26
Speaker
um And companies an option to look at their carbon footprint of their beer or the way that the flavor of their beer, whatever whatever they go into it for to have 150 or so people there going, oh, this, yeah yeah maybe maybe this has some legs. no yeah We arrived a bit later.
00:14:44
Speaker
put our car into the car park. Yeah. Having driven past the sign that was a bit of corrugated iron with grain stock, you know, spray painted on. Simple works though. Yeah. got Got out of the car and just saw this gathering in the distance by the tractors and going and the blue sky and the barley field is like, this is beautiful. This is like, this is a yeah like, this it felt felt like a touch point for people who hadn't used your grain or knew the story whatever it' to come there and go, ah this is the manifestation of like what it is. Like it was really quite something, you know?
00:15:12
Speaker
I like, Given where the, I don't really want to shift this conversation too much, but even where the market is and where a lot of companies and breweries in particular, which I can speak about, have gotten to something like that, where it's just the the simplicity of it.
00:15:28
Speaker
That's where we started. Like, that's where all, like was talking to to Sam last night about, you know, the the, the kind of marketing campaign that Hop Nation did around their, you know Melbourne Black whatever. Yeah.
00:15:39
Speaker
Just simple. yeah And it was super effective. You know, it like this is not that farming is simple, not but but just bringing everyone out there. Yeah. You know what? Grain stock written on a corrugated iron point that way.
00:15:50
Speaker
Perfect. Yeah. Perfect. that's That's this industry. You know, we're not, I don't know. Yeah. and Big marketing budgets and stuff. Yeah. What's it like having yeah people there for you? like I spoke to a number of breweries who said, you know, we go to hop fields every single year and haven't been to a grain farm or anything like that. and And they're like, this is such a different experience for them where they're so used to seeing hops. Like, it must be really nice to show them the paddocks and things like that. Oh, it it is fantastic. but When someone comes and looks in the paddock,
00:16:16
Speaker
And we drink some beer, especially when it's someone that's, we've got some beer there that's been from the grain on the farm. That's for us, that's pretty unbelievable that we can stand in the paddock and drink last year's barley and look at this year's barley.
00:16:29
Speaker
And yeah, we you don't get to see the soil. You don't get to see what we're trying to do unless you put your boots on the farm and have it actually come and have a look. And Many that have come, they come every year now. like We've got um Rich brings a crew from Ben Spoke almost every year out at Harvest to say to this is where it starts, guys. This is how where it comes from originally. It's an agricultural product.
00:16:53
Speaker
It's not just something that turns up in a bag and we turn into beer. Yeah. So, yeah, and look, for us, we love having it. It's, yeah, I can't, we did we started to do a list a while ago, Stu and I sat down and said, who's actually come to the farm and who hasn't? And I was blown away by how many people have actually come for a look.
00:17:10
Speaker
And the list of breweries and distillers that are using the grain off the farm, know, it's, yeah, for us, it's it's fantastic. It's really nice. And, yeah, to have our beef and, you know, some great beer there that was off, that come from our farm, like, yeah, super proud.
00:17:26
Speaker
Like we use as brewers, weight wise hops versus barley or cereal grains, like between 100 and 250 times more bile is cereal grains in every batch by weight than hops.
00:17:41
Speaker
Yet we focus so much on the other. It's bizarre to me. They're kind of obvious and sexy because the aroma is so pungent and overpowering. So is Molso. People can get easily suckered in by that, I guess. Yeah.
00:17:55
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And going to the start, what was the first beer or the first project you worked on together then?
First Collaboration with Organic Schooner Barley
00:18:01
Speaker
our first project we did was um was the organic schooner barley um and then that just immediately became our base malt so into gold um our our base beer um and then sort basicly it was a wildfire beer first it wasn't the batch beer we we took it at the same time okay um so batch moved entirely over as well yeah um and then yeah we've done we've done a few weird beers from your farm can you come can you come to stew or chris and go
00:18:28
Speaker
We've got this idea. Can you can you grow something in a year's time? They fear that. No, there's still things i would want to do. i mean, I've been keen on doing a mixed cropping, like a mixed um species paddock, um like a few hectares of, you know, kind of companion planting, like the old ah Native American, the three sisters idea of having a legume and a grain and gone, missing what the third sister is.
Exploring Mixed Cropping Systems
00:18:55
Speaker
But anyway,
00:18:55
Speaker
could companion planting different grains together at the same time and either harvesting at different times or harvesting at different heights to get things out of there. um Both Stu and Chris tell me that that might not be actually a good idea. Because you'd like a field beer kind of, wouldn't you? Exactly. A beer from a single patty. Yeah. So I'm kind of thinking like, why don't we grow our grist?
00:19:14
Speaker
you know like But um there's there's difficulties with that and also with the aspect of me having an i idea in Sydney going, can we do like just a ton? No, no and we can't even turn on the tractor for that amount.
00:19:30
Speaker
But I don't know. mean i don't think I have. I haven't gone too off the rails recently. tells ah Tell us about the Saltbush project. Oh, yeah, the Saltbush. That was pretty cool. yeahp um That was 2022. That Samantha should be here to tell that one. oh yeah chris sister stupid Yeah. It's still pretty much a sore point. Yes.
00:19:47
Speaker
So,
Challenges with Saltbush Brewing
00:19:48
Speaker
uh, we did a beer, but i did a beer and we fermented it on straw. So I put, uh, so ah that's another thing. I mean, our mash tun is, is wooden at the brewery and the actual false bottom.
00:19:59
Speaker
You should, you should go back a bit further that. Should I? because The actual, the first time that we sent you straw. Oh yeah, it didn't take any, well, Maldi and Rats. No, no first's got the first lot you took, because we brought it to the brewery. Oh yeah, yeah.
00:20:11
Speaker
And you put it in a small batch. but Yes, so that that was for Tinga, that was for this beer. So if we fermented a beer with straw in a punch-in. I just put it in there i was like, what's it going to do during a fermentation? i don't know. So we we made a little 500 litre batch and we put, um what's it called? Old Men's Alp Bush?
00:20:30
Speaker
Yep. Old, that's the bridle. There's a plot, that there's heaps of land out here. See, now I'm going to have to tell the stories. There's plots of land out here that have been ah from a government um initiative in the 80s or 90s or something.
00:20:48
Speaker
The amount of irrigation water that had come in from the river had raised the um salt table, correct? It raised the water table so as the water table comes up it brings the salt with it.
00:21:00
Speaker
So anywhere that was low lying and not having water put on it became a bit of a salt discharge area. Which is not great for crops. So over irrigation and poor farming has, I'm going to say poor farming, but farming from ideology at that time had created tracts of land that were not able to be farmed on anymore.
00:21:20
Speaker
the government so and oh look what we have in our backyard this this this plant that loves that and so um on your property when you all acquired it there's about 80 acres just a little bit um of of saltbush um out there so you you drive through this it's crazy it's a different climate in there it's completely different anyway and you know there i was going we should put this in a beer so we tried a bunch and maybe you brought the first one one um ah fresh, but, and then we, from, we brought that, put that into the beer, fermented it in straw. This would have been 20, 21, I reckon, or 19 or 20.
00:21:55
Speaker
And the beer was amazing. It's incredible saline character. This, um, this straw character, um, was sort of dusty in like a really, um, zesty way. I know that doesn't, does two words. stop make sense It was, it was fascinating. Um,
00:22:11
Speaker
I took some to Belgium um for a festival a few years later, and I've had people like message me from Belgium. So being like, can you bring that beer back? And it was like, it's a 500 liter beer. How do you remember?
00:22:21
Speaker
Anyway, um so we did that. That was pretty awesome. And then in 2022, Chris, my brother-in-law, who went for the business with with me and and our and our and our wives,
00:22:32
Speaker
I went over to Belgium to make, ah Belgium and France to do some collaboration beers. And I took different things from Australia to put into the beers. And so we brewed um with Danny at Fantome with Chris and Sam's saltbush from the property that I had cryovac into you know um clear bags. And I was just waiting to get waiting to get pulled over at any of the immigration spots that I moved across because I had that.
00:22:58
Speaker
I had organic hops that were cryovacced in flower form. um So we had all kinds of weird shit. um But yeah, we you know we made ah made a beer at Fantom with the saltbush from Tingha, Yann's property, which I mean, for us from a brewer's perspective, it's pretty cool.
00:23:14
Speaker
How was it from a farmer's perspective, preparing the saltbush? and That was a nightmare. That's why my wife's still scarred by the way. We started with trying to dehydrate a little home dehydrator to dry it out.
00:23:28
Speaker
And I think she did 100 grams in three days or something. And so I was like, oh, we need kilos. I said, I like five kilos. really take Yeah. So anyway, Stu actually got involved and he said, bring it up to the malt house and we'll throw it in the kiln.
00:23:41
Speaker
And Samantha went, beauty. So we just went and cut a whole ute load, brought up to the mold house. And Sam just went, here, Stu. And Stu went, oh, no worries. And they put in the kiln and um turned it all on. Yep, dried it down. Beautiful. Tomorrow morning, we'll package it up and send it.
00:23:58
Speaker
It wasn't dry the next morning. so I think Stu and that killing it for four days or something. Really? Yes. to try it I think Stu was in the same situation as Samantha at that point. This fucking salt bush. I have this mental image of every time irene ste or chris they see my my name or the thing like wasn't goingnna be this day hey how are yeah I have a question here saying, you know other things are there things either of you have done that would wouldn't have happened if you hadn't met?
00:24:31
Speaker
It feels more like maybe almost everything you've you've done wouldn't have happened if you hadn't met. is Is that sort a fair reflection on things? that Like you both throw ideas each other and things come come from there?
00:24:44
Speaker
Yeah, i I
Recognition at the Malt Cup
00:24:45
Speaker
think definitely. One thing that's come of this that's pretty amazing is we've got a really old variety of Australian bred barley that's actually ended up on the world stage. And that wouldn't have happened without this project yeah because we need a bit organically, the grain doesn't yield as well as conventional. So we need to get paid a fair bit more to to do it organically.
00:25:07
Speaker
So I think if there hadn't been a ah wanting customer that was willing to pay, you the boys would have never started malting the organic grain. It just didn't fit. They were busy enough. They didn't need it.
00:25:18
Speaker
um But the fact that they actually said, yep, we'll take it at any spec. These guys are going to buy it. And Stu and Brad had been sending Schooner Barley over to the Malt Cup for a couple of years, and it hadn't been making making it past the first round.
00:25:34
Speaker
Stu thought, right, we've got this organic grain that's way out of specs, protein super low. We think this might just scrape through in the malt cup. Sure enough, it made it through the first round of the malt cup just by the skin of its teeth on its numbers.
00:25:49
Speaker
The minute the guys tasted it, it won. And here's this... 30-odd year old Australian variety that the world didn't know. And all of a sudden, because it's turned up and it's organic so far out of protein specs, it made it. The taste is is amazing.
00:26:06
Speaker
So that i don't think that would have happened. It might have happened down the track, but it certainly wouldn't have happened as soon as it did. um And yeah, we're pretty proud to think that we've got this on a world stage and people have gone, no, this is really good.
00:26:19
Speaker
And how did word spread beyond batch and wildflower to other breweries? Well, you've got the mouthpiece on this side.
00:26:30
Speaker
I've been known to be a bit fervent at times. um But, well, I mean, like Stu mainly, really, like, again, just giving that to him because he made it available on his list to people.
00:26:42
Speaker
I think for the first two years, there wasn't enough... Cause it was drought year. So there wasn't quite enough for it to actually to sell to anyone else um outside of batch and wildflower. And during that time, like I think one of those years I came out and was, you know, sat on the header and act like I was harvesting barley for about five seconds before going, all right, Chris, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If if if anyone's watched Clarkson's farm, there was a lot of that, a lot of the that stuff going on for me, but, um, but like,
00:27:12
Speaker
yeah you going back to your earlier question, you've tying it into this one in terms of what wouldn't happened. um I'm fairly inquisitive person and it's been being on the farm and seeing the way things are done, seeing what's left behind.
00:27:24
Speaker
Where does that chaff go? What happens to this you know sprout? Have we done that too? Remember the the barley sprouting, the germinating, taking those little tills whatever they're called during the molting? I don't know.
00:27:35
Speaker
seeing all the different aspects and the um waste streams that are created during the harvest, um the straw being there thinking, oh, we could use that for a mash tun. Rather than
Impact of Organic Practices on Brewing
00:27:46
Speaker
going on business with standard practice. Exactly.
00:27:49
Speaker
Being here. Why don't this? Yeah. Well, could we use that or what we what happens with that? um And ah being able to talk about that, I think then as well. And, um you know, we were very lucky to be a a very, very, very small brewery with with ah oversized impact. And that's me saying it's just bigger than the tiny aspects that we are um as a brewery. And I think, I don't know, I guess I got some people asking questions about saying, well, can I have some of that? You know, because I'd like my beers to, you know, we we want to be carbon neutral. And so that, you know,
00:28:20
Speaker
using Chris and Sam's malt cuts out about 30% of your carbon footprint of any beer that's made with it, just overnight. You don't have to put, you know, don't have to change your plastic patecs to paper ones or you don't to change anything about your brewery.
00:28:35
Speaker
um There's a big aspect there or people just going, I just want to know where my grain is from in the same way, then going, we want to know where hops are from. so I don't know, I think it struck a chord with people for a while. Yeah, and I think people have picked it up too and used it just to try it maybe as a marketing point. Okay, we'll make a beer with some organic grain and see if we can't get someone interested.
00:28:56
Speaker
And they've brewed with it and we constantly get this feedback. Your grain behaves totally different to how all the others do. and And we know there's a lot of practices that we do differently.
00:29:07
Speaker
um One of us, we don't use any fungicide on the grain. Well, the fungicide's there to knock biology out. yeah So you put it in a brewing situation, um you've got to get that fungicide to break down. It's still there. when even It's still there through the malting process.
00:29:23
Speaker
Whereas you use the organic grain, it's got nothing on it. It wants to grow. It's alive. Yeah. I don't know how many photos of you on my phone, of foam just coming out of tanks and smiling people. Like, we've never seen this and this is so good. And and they've just tried it.
00:29:38
Speaker
And then we've got breweries that are 70, 80, 100% using our stuff because they just consistently see a better product. and And like at the end of the day, for a brewery, it's not a huge, it's a more expensive product. But when you take it into account of the cost, their total cost of goods,
00:29:54
Speaker
you know, you're talking about an extra maybe five, 10 cents a schooner. and So it's it's not a huge additional cost. to look at soil, not actively kill it with glyphosate or whatever they call it now, because I think they got rid of that name or whatever. no Roundup, it's still glyphosate.
00:30:11
Speaker
But they the Bayer's kind of, anyway, jumped along. You're killing the soil, but asking it to grow at the same time. And then you're harvesting that food, which has been grown in soils that have been killed, but then had all the inputs added back in.
00:30:24
Speaker
and asking it to create something that nourishes our body. Like it's the same as wine. Like you drive vineyards and you see green rows in but green patches in between the rows and then right where the vines go in, just dead earth.
00:30:37
Speaker
And you're like what the fuck? Like you're you're you're killing the soil directly where that grapevine is pulling its sap from. Whereas here you have an entire... microbiology that's feeding a living organism that then gets malted and I can imagine the multi process must be so different for your stuff versus other stuff because it's not covered in glyphosate for desiccation right before harvest or something and then the multi process is different and then we consume that like you know when yeah it's for me it just makes sense sense to me I don't know maybe I'll put my tinfoil I'll take it off yeah but we're also hearing for some from a
00:31:16
Speaker
Another perspective, the distillers that are using our grain are actually saying to us, it's cheaper, which is when I first heard that, I thought, what's going on here?
Economic Benefits of Organic Grains for Distillers
00:31:25
Speaker
and And not knowing much about the distilling process, um these guys are getting bigger cuts.
00:31:32
Speaker
And ah Craig and Rust at Ballerine, um on the Ballerine Peninsula, He's documented it and he's showing that he's actually using more expensive grain but producing more yield.
00:31:43
Speaker
So for what's in the bottle, it's cheaper. Yeah. And he's... We've half put theirs up. We'll cut that bit. but they're seeing a yield increase and he's getting into some really funky flavors that normally they can't get into because they start getting what they don't want and you know he's ah i've i've never liked new make but i've actually had some of their new make with our grain and it's quite you think this is not new make this doesn't just rip the enamel off your teeth this actually has some flavors in it um so they because they've got these water cuts
00:32:19
Speaker
um You know, it doesn't produce in the brewing sense. Yep, you've got to use a little bit more to make the same amount of alcohol, but it's an old some of them are old varieties too. so Great. Well, let's take a quick break and we'll be right back.
00:32:32
Speaker
Cheers.
00:32:35
Speaker
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Speaker
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00:33:17
Speaker
Welcome back. Chris, do you want to tell us about how you went down this path as a farmer? Like, it like why did you want to be regen farmer and what drove you to do it? So bit more background on myself. I'm university educated, University of Melbourne in agriculture.
00:33:34
Speaker
um Farmed very conventionally to start with. um Yeah, did everything that I now say is wrong. um Yield was king. That was how we made money.
00:33:44
Speaker
um But we were... uh farming over near Swan Hill and were growing Lucerne hay for the racehorse industry and quality was what sold really good good good quality hay was where the money was so we were looking at ways to make the hay better quality because last thing we wanted was a downgrade in price um So we sort of were looking for something to tweak it, to make it better.
00:34:08
Speaker
We met an older fella who came in to help with some voodoo juice, so to speak, to help make it better. And he did. And we sort of started looking and saying, well, hang on, what what are we doing? What's different?
00:34:22
Speaker
And... I said to Ivan at the time, I said, okay, we'll give you 50 acres out of the 200. So the guy with the voodoo juice was called Ivan as well. Yes, so. This great. I love this voodoo juice. oh This is clearly made up. Ivan Mitchell's his name. and um Mitchell just burst the bubble a little bit. Anyway. yeah he yeah We let him have his 50 acres and I had to watch insects eat it twice. Then I'm just like, we've got spray it.
00:34:49
Speaker
And he's like, no, no, let him go. We've got to breed up the good the good ones to eat it. And I'm like, oh, anyway, we let it go. we used all these fertilizers.
00:34:59
Speaker
And at the end of the year, we produced the same amount of hay, but we had a much better quality where people, so you could see it in the bales. You could see the better quality, the better color.
00:35:12
Speaker
And we had all these good insects in the paddock and we had spent less money. And I went, right, next year you've got the whole lot. So we we kept farming the way, with changing just just changing little things. no we'd We'd never used lime on those farms.
00:35:28
Speaker
We started using lime. We unlocked a heap of nutrients that we knew we had that weren't available. And we consistently saw the quality go up. We had the chaff mill saying to us, don't even bother sending a sample, just send truckloads.
00:35:42
Speaker
And then Ivan said to us, we were doing a bit of cropping as well, and he said to us, I reckon you could do this organically and be quite profitable and really build the farm. Because by then I'm asking all the questions, okay, is this good for the farm? Is this chemical good?
00:35:58
Speaker
Is this chemical, what damage is it doing? If I'm doing more damage than good, I'm not using it. So straight away I'm asking millions of questions because I'm off the recipe. yeah And there's nothing in a book, nothing online. this theory was There is. You're having this conversation with this guy going, this intrigues me now. and Well, it's not it's not conventional agriculture. So the mainstream people have haven't got the answers. They look at you stupid. We add ah we had a crop of but ah wheat at Swan Hill and our ah normal agronomist who was doing the chemicals screaming at me, you need to put 200 kilos of urea on this paddock.
00:36:31
Speaker
Now save it. It's not it's great paddock, great crop. um yeah you're gonna have no protein in it, it's gonna be worth nothing. And Ivan came in and said, oh no, we'll just put some urea out through the boom spray and we
Transition to Regenerative Farming Practices
00:36:45
Speaker
put out 20 kilos and so we put out 10% of what we would have normally put out.
00:36:50
Speaker
And our agronomist the time was just losing his cool with me. And I rang him when we on the harvester and I said, this paddock's doing 10 tonne of a hectare and it's the highest protein grade wheat you can supply. And he's sitting on the harvester and we'd be going, I don't know how you did this with 20 kilos of urea.
00:37:10
Speaker
We proved that it wasn't it didn't need that much. It just needed a little bit at the end to get it there. So we we kept saying, anyway, we... We knew we needed more scale.
00:37:21
Speaker
So then we looked at the property at Coley Ambley and purchased it in the end of 2015. And yeah, where where we are now. But we can consistently ask the question, is this good for the soil?
00:37:34
Speaker
Is this good in the long term? And we do or don't do it. And look, we're not using, there's nothing we're doing that's new. We're actually using a lot of things that are, <unk>ve We've been growing grains for couple thousand years without all these fertilizers and pesticides and insecticides.
00:37:52
Speaker
um But we've forgotten how to do it and we're just bringing back all those old methods and look there's some great conventional farmers out there and they're using all the tools that we're using plus the chemicals and you know doing it very well um and look organics not the be all end all either i could take in some organic farms that horrify me the way they farm So it's a whole, it's a big picture approach and it's, yeah, I love it because our kids are going to have a future.
00:38:23
Speaker
um We're not totally reliant on, you know, the urea price went through the roof a couple of years ago. Everybody lost their shit. We're going to go broke. How are we going to survive?
00:38:34
Speaker
um And the same now, there's some chemicals that are looking like being banned. they Again, they're like, oh, we can't. What are we going to do when they get rid of Paraquat? yeah there is a There is another way. We've got to adapt. We've got to evolve.
00:38:46
Speaker
And that's how we look at things. is yeah Is this good? Is this bad? Yes, we've got to do some bad. But no the lesser of two evils might be some cultivation rather than some glyphosate.
00:38:57
Speaker
yeah um And what was the land like when you bought it? was It was a well-farmed property. It was a traditionally farmed rice farm. um We could find residue at crops that would have been there for three, four years. It was biologically, it was pretty dead.
00:39:12
Speaker
um it didn't It didn't have a great smell. The soil was crusting. It had a few issues, but we've certainly yet turned things around there. The soil's alive. You pick it up, you smell it. It smells sweet.
00:39:26
Speaker
Our crop residues are gone in six months, not not years. um But it's take it's yeah it's been a long haul, and we've still got some paddocks we're still working on. We're nowhere near being there yet.
00:39:38
Speaker
um And we've been pushed with some droughts and some wet years and were we're learning the whole way through. So there's no straight path. We actually went to a ah farming seminar in Queensland pre-COVID to meet a fellow from the States who wrote a book on organic zero till growing soybeans in Pennsylvania.
00:39:58
Speaker
And we thought, I've got so many questions for this bloke. We paid extra to have a session with him after the conference. So good. We're going meet him. We're going to have all the answers. And we sat down with him.
00:40:09
Speaker
And at the end of the day, he said to me, I made this work in Pennsylvania. And he goes, and it works seven out of 10. He goes, you go 20 kilometers from where we farm. It doesn't work.
00:40:20
Speaker
He said, you've got to find a way to make it work at Collie Ambley. He said, because in Collie Ambley, it is so different to Pennsylvania. And yeah, and it's really hard. A lot of the fellas doing really good things are in the UK or in the u US. s They start with two foot of snow on their soil every year. They start with a full profile of moisture.
00:40:39
Speaker
You know, that's their biological reset is the winter when it gets so cold. Our biological reset is December, January, February when it's that hot, the biology goes to sleep because it's too hot.
00:40:51
Speaker
So we what happens in Australia is so different to anywhere else in the world. So we're finding the ways that work. and yeah and And I'm sure that the way I'm farming now, we won't be farming when my kids take it on because we will learn something else.
00:41:06
Speaker
You talked about the smell of the soil. You did in your welcome talk yesterday. You talked about how the soil smells good now. Yep. Is something you can relate to? Like, couldn't tell us a bit more about the smell of the soil. You know when a beer smells bad, is it is that same kind of thing? Well, the soil has... can use what you sense it to go, no this is healthy soil. What does it smell like? Most places you go on a conventional farm, the soil has no smell. Okay. It's just dirt.
00:41:29
Speaker
It's just... it's Just dusty, soil. It's just dusty, crumbly soil. It's got no smell at all because the smell is the biology. So if you're not feeding your biology, it's bit of a competition around us with some of the conventional fellows as to how much fertiliser they can put on to grow a massive, big crop.
00:41:49
Speaker
um But then then in the next breath, they're buying a bigger tractor to pull the same deep ripper that they've been using for 20 years because the soil's getting so compacted and so heavy that it's tight. They can't do anything with it.
00:42:02
Speaker
The, you know, the corn falls over because it's got a small root zone. Whereas you can just stick your hand into your soil and just pull out a club. Yep. Yep. All of our neighbors say, how does your, how does your country work up so soft? It's so mellow. Um, you know, you'd be driving across it after a rain and you can feel the ute.
00:42:20
Speaker
Whereas you drive across some conventional ground nearest it's like driving to the road. um So yeah, we're seeing it, but it's, it's the only described is it's alive. It's a sweet smell.
00:42:30
Speaker
It's alive. It's there. We can cultivate a paddock and the next day you go out there and you can see the and just on daylight and you see all the cold webs are back. The spiders have already started to rebuild that nest.
00:42:44
Speaker
Everything's just comes back so quick. I think we discount olfactory senses as a scientific tool far too often. like our our ability to smell as humans picks up things that very, very, very expensive computers and you know like not computers, but um machines can't pick up or they do, but in very, very slight amounts.
00:43:07
Speaker
And we have all of that built on right onto our face. We're picking up, you can pick up things in the parts per billion, like certain chemicals get through your nose.
Nutritional Benefits of Organic Produce
00:43:18
Speaker
And so testing soil health by just smelling it and going to your body knowing this smells good. smells like walking into someone's home garden. It smells alive. It smells alive. And I think that like they're...
00:43:33
Speaker
I still wonder where where we will get to in terms of being able to test food, poke it and prod it for nutrient density, phytochemicals, all things that we don't even, and more things that we don't even know about and be able to look at a piece of protein or a grain grown on this soil versus one grown on this dirt and go, well, I only need to eat one of those grains to get the same nutrient density as it takes me to eat four of those ones.
00:44:03
Speaker
It's like eating tomatoes in the supermarket versus one from the backyard. One from the backyard is satisfying and and is all we need. Tomatoes the supermarket pumped up with water. They don't taste like anything.
00:44:14
Speaker
So you have to have more of them to feel satisfied. And I think like, just in terms of smelling it, I think we should really lean into the idea of us being able to smell and taste things and go, that's, this is good for me.
00:44:26
Speaker
And also I don't need to over consume because it's enough. I feel nourished and satisfied. And anyway, i when I smell your soil, that's what I, I. I go, sure, maybe we don't need as much, which, you know, economically is not the, everyone wants to sell more and make more and whatever.
00:44:42
Speaker
But what if we fed the world with less, better food, like less volume, but higher quality. And were as aware of this before you met Chris, or is this something you'd be and you've learned over the last five years?
00:44:57
Speaker
um I grew up, mom had a pretty big garden and and that was what the majority of what we ate from when it came to veggies and greens. This is me growing up in the 90s in America where packet food is still king. So we grew up, mom cooked everything from scratch. Like I never saw a cake packet, bread was being made at home. Not necessarily sourdough, but like I don't want to over romanticize the childhood. But there were six kids and she was doing this.
00:45:23
Speaker
She was a food um scientist um and focused on dairy you know before she started having kids. And she was the one in the 90s pulling a back ah ah ah packet of food and looking at the ingredient list going, too many ingredients, putting me back. Like she wouldn't even read them or whatever, just getting that too much.
00:45:39
Speaker
She's like, you shop on the outside of supermarkets, not the inside. The inside is where boxes are shopped are are stocked. On the outside is where all the fresh food is. you know That's just how supermarkets are designed. um So somewhere within me was a desire and a desire it to eat well, like I've always loved food.
00:45:57
Speaker
um But
Environmental Impact of the Brewing Industry
00:45:58
Speaker
then I think meeting Chris, And this is all particularly at a time where we've started to truly understand, i mean, not that the president of the country that I come from admits it or not, but um truly understand the impacts that we humans have had on on the earth.
00:46:14
Speaker
And this is our industry. This is what we do. And I want, I had kids and want to be able to look at them in the eye in 20 years when they're facing new challenges based on the climate.
00:46:27
Speaker
And them to say to me, well, what what were you doing? Because you were there during that time where we could have changed things. And what we're doing is very small. I suppose, you know, it's a tiny section of a tiny market in ah in a, you know, a country that is um not a huge market, but a bit of big grand growing country.
00:46:48
Speaker
um So you know our impact is tiny, tiny. But I think that's what you know social change needs is people just doing what they can within their environment. And ah you know for was I aware of all these things Yes, at one sense, but then they gained more meaning as we kept doing it. Because, yeah, and my daughter Florence, who's eight, I mean, or my my son Walter, like I'm sure at some stage they'll look at me be like, you you guys really fucked us. Like, you really didn't leave us with the- Personally, didn't hear. Well, but, but we, i mean, I take planes, like, I'm not going to feel bad about any of my own carbon footprint or whatever, but
00:47:24
Speaker
we still do within our world. I think it is our responsibility to be considerate of, okay, how could we how could we change our own behavior and maybe bring that one circle further?
00:47:36
Speaker
And that's enough. if Everyone just goes one more circle further other than, turning off just their own, bringing their key cups and turning off their lights, which are all great things when you leave your house, going be wrong. But if you can just have one more circle of influence outside of in your workplace or whatever, that's all it takes is these. But it might not be the easy solution either. And that's,
00:47:55
Speaker
I look at the number of people that are trying to go carbon neutral in a business and the easy way to do that is to pay for carbon offset whereas we're pushing down the path to say hang on we can actually farm in a better way and we can store that like we we need that carbon in our soils.
00:48:11
Speaker
the A good paddock has high carbon soils we're trying our best to keep it on the farm and sink it into our soil through the grazing through the mixed carbon cropping and and our cropping program.
00:48:24
Speaker
So we want to push it in there. We know we can do it. We know we can get this grain to a brewery in a carbon negative state. And if that's 30 to 60% of the brewery's carbon footprint, that's got to be a better way than paying for a carbon offset that Is it actually happening? is it no i could take you Who's measuring that?
00:48:45
Speaker
Well, there's some country locked up in Western New South Wales. It's an absolute disaster. They've been paid not to farm it, but they're not doing anything to control the the vermin and the wildlife that's running on there. And these properties are a mess.
00:48:59
Speaker
it's not it It all looks good from Sydney, um but it's not necessarily the right thing in the in the in the country. So we've got to look pretty hard at how we're how we're doing it. and know what's best in the long term that's got to be sinking the carbon back into the soil whilst we grow food we're still we still need food yeah but let's do it in a way that it you know it's it's achievable and chris you're you're meeting brewers now and stuff aren't you like you you know stew always make sure you're but when brewcon happens you're the stand and things like that are you finding that that's hitting cutting through to people
00:49:33
Speaker
very much. Obviously, Topher's pretty evangelical about it, but a lot of people, it's new to them or they wouldn't understand it. Even um ones that you know cover their roofs in solar or something like that. Yeah, i think I think when they look at it and you say, okay, we're going to get it.
00:49:46
Speaker
but They come to us and they talk about it. Well, we changed, we went away from plastic straws and we saw but we and we put solar panels on the roof the brewery and we reduced our footprint by 1%. 1%. and and they're nice And then they look at they look at the molt and they go, ah hang on, this is huge.
00:50:02
Speaker
And they come and meet us and they come. the The biggest one we see is when they come to the farm. yeah They come to the farm, they see the dirt. we We walk across the road into a neighbor's paddock, smell the soil, walk back into ours and have a look.
00:50:14
Speaker
And they buy the grain. They say, we want we've got to try this. This bloke's got, he's keen, he's as dedicated as we are. um We've got to give this a go. um yeah and And that's how it starts, with a couple of bags of malt
Embracing Diversity in Organic Grains
00:50:29
Speaker
and then... couple beers too. couple of beers. It's all right. You know, there's beers. But yeah, just I think you've got to you've got to come out and get the sense of it.
00:50:38
Speaker
You can't just put two bags of malt in front of a brewery and say, this one's better. Yeah. you've got to actually come out and see it and understand yeah what what we're trying to achieve and why we're doing it.
00:50:50
Speaker
And I knew nothing about brewing until we we we went to Wildflower and spent a day and brewed some beer and drank some beer and yeah that's where I learned. Not the most typical experience of brewing beer, I have to say. Super normal.
00:51:05
Speaker
but Well, it was a long way from home brewing at uni. I'll tell you that right now. so like ah Two things on that. One is if if if your brewer just does get two bags of malt showing up, it's so funny to see what a brewer does. that look the the grab a They'll just look and assess the grain itself.
00:51:22
Speaker
Oh, what's that grain in there? What's this one in there? you know There's a bit of you know material that didn't get grated out or whatever, or this one's smaller than that. And then look at our wheat, the wheat that we use is straight off the header.
00:51:33
Speaker
So we use a bunch of raw wheat. So it's, it hasn't been cleaned. There's, uh, there's oats in there. they shoot it there's There's black, is that the millet? What's the black one? The little black seeds or something. yeah Black oats and vetch. Yeah. Yeah. There's all kinds of stuff in there.
00:51:47
Speaker
And I've had brewers come to me, they're doing collaboration brewers look at it and they're like, what the fuck is this? and What are you using? I'm like, oh, it's all, it's like, it's just all part of the grist. Like, you know, using your phrase, but genuinely like, and, you know, the little bits of straw that just become part of the settling, you know, whatever. And I did this in the UK as well, where I was at a brewery.
00:52:05
Speaker
you know in, in Sussex and I had found a ah grower who was growing this like really interesting population wheat. And so he sent a bulk of bag to the, the brewery, um, the burning sky, ah close to Longman actually. Yeah. Super close. Um, and I remember it being brew day and they were like, is Are you sure we got the right stuff? And I was like, yep, that's it. And they're like, what are you doing?
00:52:26
Speaker
But then when you go to the farm, so if you're just assessing it with what's in the bag, it looks silly. um But when you go to the farm and you look at the difference of you know a completely conventional um ah paddock that's had everything killed, so it's just a singular grain or whatever, versus um one that's organically farmed or one that's been allowed to have different things and you understand what's happening in the soil by having that.
00:52:48
Speaker
difference in there or or not. I mean, ah you do a great job. Your grain is beautiful and clean. I like to get everybody, but but just the that one step makes you go, oh okay. Like I can deal with it. This is like ah like a chef asking their um cheese producer to produce the exact same wheel of cheese every single year based on all of the harvest conditions that create different milk.
00:53:10
Speaker
And then no good chef would would would be calling them up going, hey, this taste is slightly different than like you know than than than last month's cheese and I'm going to reject it. like But that's what we that's we require from our grain. That's brewers tend to require from grain farm. that's what you've become accustomed to is that this is how it's supposed to look when it turns up in the bag. Exactly. And we've forgotten that it's an agricultural commodity and yeah your conventional grain could be coming from from southern Queensland through to southern Victoria, there's always going to be somewhere on the eastern seaboard of Australia that produces malt barley to the right to the specs that the malters expect.
00:53:46
Speaker
But if you're if you want grain from the same place, it's going to be different every year. Like it's quite wet now in Queensland and we've had almost drier conditions this year at Collie Ambley than we did in the in the drought.
00:53:58
Speaker
But we're incredibly dry for this year. So our grain quality will be different because of the dry conditions. and people have forgotten they don't see that until they're getting a single source and through the few wet years we had a couple of years ago we had a lot of harvest damaged grain so it had rain on it at harvest so the grain had a dark color about it had a dark tip on the end of the grain and stew said it's fine we'll malt it it'll be no worries it hit the brewers they're all ringing what's this it's black it doesn't look right
00:54:31
Speaker
We're sending it back. Stu said, just keep it, brew with it. Tova's brewing with it. We're like, ring Tova, have a chat with him. It actually still brewed, still did everything it should have. It just looked shit. yeah um But once it was in in the beer, there was no difference. But it's a mindset.
00:54:50
Speaker
um Once Tova talks about the rubbish in the grain, it's a beautiful mixture. I reckon the tagline should be organic, the Grimwood, the shit everywhere. Yeah. yeah that We grow vetch in the other years to put nitrogen back into the soil.
00:55:07
Speaker
it's It's a hard seed. It comes back in the crop. We can't take it out in the organic situation. Very easy to with chemical, but we can't do that the organic. So it ends up in the grain.
00:55:18
Speaker
Stu and Brad do their absolute damnedest to take it out. Like it's a very similar size to barley. It's a big job to clean. have a very good cleaner here. They actually, yeah, they actually clean it, molt it. And in the molding process, the vetch splits and then they can actually, so they clean it again after they've molded it to get it out.
00:55:37
Speaker
But at first it was in there cause it was, but it was just going to, to wildflower and batch. We then had the batch boys all at the farm and we're talking about this little black seed and I said it's vetch and this is what it is and Stu says, oh, it's a bloody night, but we've had to clean it all out and and those boys said, oh, that's how we know it's your grain because it's got little black seeds in it. And they said, we actually noticed that, yeah, you have taken a lot of it out and we've lost a nutty flavour in some of the beer. yeah
00:56:09
Speaker
Can you put it back in? And Stu's like ripping his hair out. I thought Stu was going to just lie down and cry. But it's something that, you know, who puts vetch in a beer will actually give you a flavour. Yeah. So it's got a space. It was definitely there 200 years ago for something. Yeah. So it's, yeah, to think that you could take something that doesn't look right but will give you good flavour and still does what it needs to do. wine industry does it really well.
00:56:40
Speaker
The wine's got a smoky flavour whether you like it or not. Oh, it was the bushfires, it was hot, it was the season. They do such a good job of telling that. The brewing industry, and and unless you're Topher and you can actually have two beers there that were 12 months apart or five years apart, to say these seasonal conditions gave it these flavours.
00:56:59
Speaker
you You talk about more brewers getting on board. flip side, are there more farmers looking at what you're doing and go, we'll give this a go? Change their practices? the The farming jobs got tighter and tighter. So the profit margins in conventional farming are very tight now.
00:57:14
Speaker
um They are looking, they're all looking for ways, you know, all of our neighbours came a couple years ago when fertiliser was really expensive and said, can we buy some vetch seed? We need to bring some sheep back. We need to do our bit to put our own bit of cheap nitrogen back in.
00:57:28
Speaker
um and they're yeah they're looking why doesn't our crop get the diseases that their crops getting through the fence you know what what are we doing different like we're all business people and you know we we do the same thing we're here to make money we're not here to you know i'd love to do it just for the love of it but yeah we're gonna have to have to um make some money along the way so yeah they're looking at it just like we are you know but the market is quite small and yeah We're certainly, they're looking at it, but yeah, there's gotta be some more people take it up.
Profitability of Regenerative Farming
00:58:02
Speaker
And yeah, we're not our whole farms certified organic, part of it's just we're farming regeneratively and know we know we can do that a bit cheaper. So I think there's there's there's steps to come through to where we are.
00:58:15
Speaker
But if we just focus on, is this good in the long term? I think it'll pay dividends for everybody because these fellas just pouring chemical and fertilizer on it, that way of farming will have an end date. Those farms will won't grow anything know in in years to come.
00:58:32
Speaker
and And what about telling the story of it, you know, and and sort of cutting through to people about it the buying malt from you, the grain, it it does pull carbon out of the air and that kind of thing. Do you think people are doing enough to sort of tell that story or ways to go about sort of selling the message better? Because, you know, a huge amount of consumers be doing, because they do care about this kind of stuff, whether or not it cuts through, it's always a real challenge, I think. I think...
00:58:58
Speaker
We've been a bit slack on our side. Stu and I are very concerned about putting the numbers out there that we've got at the moment. We've used some government calculators to calculate the carbon footprint of the grain and we've sent that away to be backed up.
00:59:14
Speaker
um the nu We've been told we're way too conservative on of our numbers. um So when we're not putting out there what we think it is because we want it to be right.
00:59:25
Speaker
i'd I'd rather... won't want to believe you going, this can't be true. Well, look, up the one of my lecturers is the fellow that has built this government calculator and I've sent him numerous emails poking holes in it. I don't like the calculator to start with, um but that's the benchmark that everyone's using in Australia. So I've got to roll with it.
00:59:44
Speaker
But... yeah we're asking some other people in the uk to can you have a look at this for us and they've come back and said you're way underestimating where you're at so i think we'll get some more science behind it we'll back up what we're doing and then we'll we'll push it a bit further but we know at the moment that's definitely leaving the multi-house carbon negative um and yeah we' we've probably been a little bit slack on saying this is where we're at but we want it to be right and if ah if a consumer care if a beer drinker cares about this kind of thing what what can they do to sort of help
01:00:15
Speaker
Thank I guess promote, they spread the word about what you're They have to ask their local brewery yeah to use it. um And I think that's like from our side, ah love that you're doing that. It's very, and interest well, it's difficult to know what story the customer is going to care about.
01:00:32
Speaker
you know is it the Is it the smelling of the soil, biology aspect? is you know Because are they are they choosing to eat better grown food um because that's they feel better on it? Or is it is that and a carbon footprint aspect?
01:00:47
Speaker
um you know well yeah Or is is it the eating or is it carbon credits and this is a lower carbon product? I think it's a lot to ask the customer to to be the one advocating for that. I think we as the processors, the brewers, need to be the ones to to pick up that mantle more than the customer.
01:01:04
Speaker
Because it's us, we're the ones that are leading the leading the the the the market. The the consumers um consume what we make. So by default, they are one step behind.
01:01:17
Speaker
um you know They didn't ask for Hazy Pale Ale until we started making If you don't give a choice, they can't choose. Exactly. yeah exactly And so um I think it's a huge ask to put that on the customer.
01:01:27
Speaker
And and we've we've certainly gone through our ebbs and flows of being more, you know have prophesized more about it um in some times. And then the rest of the rest of the year, we just do it all the time. And those are those people that shop differently and choose to spend their money in a different way, um always come back. You know, we have very loyal customers, but when when things are the way that they are for people right now and money's tight, sometimes you just need something to to get you through to the next day. And, you know, I can't fault anyone for for not being able to make the
01:01:58
Speaker
the most you know ethically considered choice when you've got three kids in the car and you got to go home and and make dinner you know really really quickly. So I do think that that interest has probably waned a little bit as people's financial pressures have have come a bit more to front for them.
01:02:16
Speaker
um But that's not to say that ah it won't it won't come back. And so we we you know i think it's it's it's on us at this stage to kind of Make sure we don't give up the ghost um in the meantime as well.
01:02:27
Speaker
Now, know, Will, you've got to be on stage about six minutes. So wrap up, in ah in in an ideal world, what is the end go and go and game know for you guys as brewer and farmer? What we're talking about now.
01:02:41
Speaker
Oh man, I don't know. I mean, yeah um well, I guess I'd love to see, it's really amazing for me to see how many breweries are using the product and distilleries to to using your grain and seeing qualitative differences um that they they can taste. And I just want to see more of that. Like I'd love for the breweries that are using it, you know, one bag ah for a big grist, they'd switch to it entirely.
01:03:07
Speaker
So thank you. Chris, pass the farm on. Yeah, i pass on the kids. Let them let them keep... Hopefully there's a future there. no My kids and Stu's kids are very similar age. Maybe there's a next generation of farmers and malsters coming through and brewers.
01:03:23
Speaker
And look... The future looks bright for us as far as I'm concerned. we We've got a future. We've got a farm that's going to do it. And yeah, we can just keep doing it. But it's look, for us, I think we're already at the top as far as I'm concerned. To have nice happy brewers standing in a paddock to me drinking beer, that's that's great. And our fridge has always got some pretty cool stuff. I can't really complain. yeah that's That's the way to be. So now look, i yeah we'll just keep doing what we're doing. yeah We'd love to see a bit more volume.
01:03:54
Speaker
um But. but i'd I'd love to be able to bring some other farmers in and say, hey, we we we we can't supply. You guys come in. I'll help i'll help you as learn to farm this way.
01:04:05
Speaker
um We can build a market that way. So, yeah, and look, I think when some chemicals do get knocked off the market the next few years, there's going to be some farmers really looking to change. And, know, you could well see your price of your conventional barley pushing up with the organic prices because it's got harder for them as well.
01:04:22
Speaker
So, yeah, Who knows what's to come? But yeah, at the moment, we'll just keep growing it and hopefully the boys keeps in the beard of the farm. so Great. Chris and Tova, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Cheers.
01:04:37
Speaker
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Speaker
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Speaker
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Speaker
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Speaker
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Speaker
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Speaker
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