Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Life's A Beach - Building A Brewery In Bali
455 Plays1 month ago
"I'm still passionate about what I do, I still love what I do, and I still think I'm one of the luckiest people in the world. I get to make beer for a living and, especially taking the step coming here to Bali, I get to mentor people that might not have necessarily ever had an opportunity like this before, so I feel really lucky that I have the power to be able to do that and pay it forward."
Given her fondness for travel, adventure and life on the ocean, perhaps it was destiny that Sam Füss would end up brewing in Bali. Certainly, more than two years after moving to the island's northwest – the "real Bali" as she puts it – she's embracing every opportunity that has come her way.
Sam was enticed to move there with her partner Dani by the founders of Beaches Brewing Co back in 2022, and in recent weeks oversaw the release of their first two beers, Pale and Cerveza. The switch of scenery gave her the chance to help build another brewery after being involved in the early stages of a number in Australia, including Little Creatures in Freo and Philter in Marrickville.
She joined us from her beautiful home – ocean views on one side, volcano on the other, a pool a few metres behind her, the call to prayer carried on the wind outside – to take us inside the experience of getting Beaches off the ground, training up locals with no prior experience, educating people who've never encountered craft beer before, and working in a beer culture that, in its own way, is like the Australian scene when she moved from the bar at Little Creatures to the brewery around a quarter-century ago.
We also trace her career from those early days through building a race track inside Matilda Bay's former brewery in Dandenong to True South, Young Henrys, and the trophy-laden days at Philter prior to the big move. Sam reflects on lessons learned and wisdom gained, on the characters who mentored her, and on the rewards she now finds in mentoring others.
And, as anyone who knows Sam would expect, we have a good laugh along the way, with the main interview kicking off at 11:47.
Prior to that, we discuss the week's news, including the sale of Westside Ale Works to new owners who plan to keep things as Casey Wagner had them, the impending launch of Vegan a la Beer, a guide to pairing beer with plant-based food, Seasonal and Whitelakes' success in the WA Beer of the Year awards, Burleigh Brewing's 18th birthday re-brews, the epic lineup for High Country Hop 2025, our upcoming event at Molly Rose, and GABS nominations.
Relevant links from this week's show:
Westside's sale:https://craftypint.com/news/3636/westside-ale-works-sells-but-the-future-still-looks-hoppy
Vegan a la Beer: The Appetiser: https://craftypint.com/news/3631/vegan-a-la-beer-the-appetiser
WA Beer of the Year 2025: https://craftypint.com/news/3629/seasonal-win-wa-beer-of-the-year-with-black-oat-cream-ipa-mudi
Burleigh Brewing's 18th birthday beers: https://craftypint.com/beer/11067/burleigh-brewing-18th-birthday-re-brews
The High Country Hop 2025: https://craftypint.com/event/13525/the-high-country-hop-2025
Crafty Cabal giveaways: https://craftycabal.com/giveaways-and-merch
The Molly Rose Story – Distilled: https://craftypint.com/event/13532/the-molly-rose-story--distilled
Nominate your beers for the GABS H100 of 2024: https://craftypint.com/news/3630/gabs-hottest-100-craft-beer-nominations-now-open
Sam Sets Sail For Bali: https://craftypint.com/news/2922/sam-sets-sails-for-bali
Beaches Brewery Bali: https://beachesbrewingco.com/
Thanks to Beer30, sponsors of this week's show.
To support the show, contact [email protected].
Recommended
Transcript
Ownership Change at Westside Aleworks
00:00:05
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Crafty Pine Podcast. I'm Will. I'm James. How you been, Will? I'm great. It's been quite a nice week of news so far this week, James. So far. I like that. Yes. yes Second week running in which we've had, I guess what you'd call like a nice normal week of news, ah you know, breweries doing good things, interesting stories that we're telling about stuff going around the beer industry rather than sort of going, oh dear, you know, not again.
00:00:31
Speaker
Yeah well first up I mean in sort of breaking news as we record this Westside Aleworks has sold. ah So South Melbournebury that's been around since 2016. Casey Wagner's been steering the ship on his own for a long time. It's it's been up for sale for a little bit. He's passed on to a new owner, Jonathan, who is going to continue it basically as it is.
00:00:51
Speaker
Yeah, and it's been I guess it's almost like the classic um old school brew pub model as well. He started in one warehouse in South Melbourne, focusing on the sort of the um West Coast style hobby beers that he grew up with um in in the States. i When he looked to expand, he moved around about 60 meters down the road to a slightly bigger space. It's, you know, pizza oven in there, it's trestle tables, it's a real community sort of venue. And they do like regular beer and painting events. He's been making his own spirits uh cider seltzer and he said wine which i didn't know at one point he was yeah made some wine early in the year as well and yeah uh case he's an american expat he's been traveling back and forth joined a lot his family's still over there so i know he's been looking to sort of move on from the business for a long time so it's good to see it be able to continue in some way and it still is an independent brewery and as a sort of local business owner we'll have more to say about jonathan chelor
00:01:46
Speaker
I'm sure. boy Yeah, yeah we're we're pretty confident we've both met him based on the photos, but we haven't spoken to him yet. but Yes, we've definitely conversed at some point in the past. um Yeah, and then I guess a bit of a different one.
Vegan Food and Beer Pairing Book Launch
00:01:57
Speaker
ah Someone who had many people from I guess, mainly the Melbourne and Perth beer scenes will know very well. Graeme Wiesel, he's probably been around the craft beer scene as long if he's been longer than Crafty Pine has. Yeah, he's certainly been writing about beer for longer than I have.
00:02:11
Speaker
Yeah, yes he he's written for us over the years. um He is also say and vegan and um sort of he had an epiphany moment five years ago where he had an amazing smoked burger and smoked beer at Beer Mash in Collingwood um and then I guess sparked an idea thinking thinking he hadn't really seen much information around pairing vegan beer with food. um And within the coming weeks, he will launch vegan a la beer, which is his beer and um vegan food or plant based food and matching book. So we published a story in that he has a bit of a sneak peek into what to expect from the book. um And that's a really awesome response online as well. I guess he's very well known in the in the craft beer community. So
00:02:55
Speaker
there's bound to be a bit of a sort of you know put positive vibes around it, but I guess, you know, it is filling that niche as well. yeah Yeah. So that's pretty cool to see. It's nice to say not too many sort of old vegan jokes about vegans or anything like that. Like it's good to see that people look at something like that and go, that is a great niche. Like I know someone in my life who that book's for, that kind of thing.
00:03:14
Speaker
The second comment on Facebook was a plant based burger is a salad sandwich. But so aside from that, people I think have actually gone, yeah, this is a cool thing to do. And i think it's nice to see that. i think it's been ah um ah yeah It's been a long time coming for Graham. So and a real passion project for him. So that's pretty exciting.
Innovative Beer Styles Win Awards
00:03:29
Speaker
um Also in WA where Graham spent February bit of the last few years, they had their WA Good Food Guide WA Beer of the Year, the fifth one of those was announced last week. ah Seasonal Brewing Co, which is a little brew pub operation in Maylands, the suburb of Perth, they took the title this year and with i said you know that these are pretty rare i can't think of many other if any black oat cream ipas or black hazel have someone goes it's just a dry hot oatmeal stand um but i remember when it came out and guy uh one of our writers in wa was really raving about the beer and what um
00:04:07
Speaker
the head brewer as bit has been doing there. um And that that seems to have got a real, is people sort of reading that and going, that's great to see people yeah still playing around with different styles. And you know it's not just kind of going, oh, that's something different, let's go and try it. That's been put through a panel of five experts who've judged that to be a great beer.
00:04:26
Speaker
um And I thought it was interesting as well. Someone picked up on it in the comments online and was ah White Lakes Brewing. um based Probably not brewing a cream IPA or anything like that. I don't think that's in Sean Simon's wheelhouse to be honest, but they make generally very sessionable, very tight, very on point beers, generally sort of four or five percent. And their dark lager finished in second place and it's as someone says, it's the sort of beer that is always scoring really well. And it's sort of always, sorry, always rating very well in competitions. And I think it's in keeping with that, maybe as sort of returning the beer industry a little bit to more approachable, sessionable, normal beers, despite the fact there's a black oak cream IPA finishing in first place.
Craft Beer Nostalgia and Celebrations
00:05:06
Speaker
When I was in WA last year, Guy gave me a full pack of that beer and was like, you got to take this home with you. Oh, the seasonal beer. Yeah. No, no, no. Sorry. The white late sourdough lager.
00:05:15
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So I know good, great stuff happening in WA. And I guess also in key with that sort of more traditional beer styles, we um ran so Burley Brewing celebrated 18 a few weeks ago. As part of their celebrations, they re-brewed five of their earliest beers, so their original and Duke Premium Pilsner, my wife's bit at ESB.
00:05:37
Speaker
but gira Big Jam and the Heph and Mick are bright up in Brisbane. He sort of did his own trip down memory lane the first time he remembered trying those beers or having a photo of one of those beers or whatever. But that's had a really big uptake on on the the social post as well. And I think it just shows it.
00:05:54
Speaker
maybe feeds a little bit into that sort of nostalgia for the early days of craft beer. um Having said that, and we've we've seen that sort of nostalgia thing being pushed by the bigger brands as well with rashes and powers and stuff like that over the last couple of years as well. But certainly, there does seem to be a bit of sort of fond looking back at sort of the the building blocks that have brought us where we are today. So It was definitely a different time. like I remember seeing those in the Dan Murphys in ah in Melbourne when there wasn't very much craft beer as well. like you know those Those were times when sort of breweries did have much more of a national presence as well. So probably those beers that could have been the first experience. So many people not just on the Gold Coast or in Queensland.
00:06:35
Speaker
had of that beer too. And what was interesting actually was that Brendan Fielding, the co-founder of Burley Brewing with his wife Peter, he actually gets a mention in today today's main interview as well, um which I guess I guess wouldn't have known about at the time. So a nice little tie in
High Country Hop Festival Highlights
00:06:51
Speaker
there. um Looking further ahead, we're both pretty excited about an event and that we've been involved with for a few years um in March next year. Do you want to tell us about that?
00:07:00
Speaker
Yeah, High Country Hop. I think the Crafty Pine has probably been there in that festival one way or another. It's history, those early days in the cow park next to the brewery. It's back on March 22. They've got an incredible lineup, both of beer and music. and In terms of beer, mountain culture, wildflower range.
00:07:18
Speaker
Kaiju, Love Shack, a really great collection of breweries. Plus all the high country breweries. Yeah, yeah, on top of that is every year. And then in terms of music, they they always have a really interesting eclectic lineup of bands, but they've managed to get some heavy hitters including the 5678s from Japan. Yeah, so who I actually reviewed for the Nottingham Evening Post about 20 years ago. So that'd be kind of fun to see who the the founder has ah around her now. yeah it is But it's yes it's a really it's a very eclectic and different line of what you normally find at beer festivals. theyve They've been doing that over the last few years anyway. um it It almost looks like a miniature version of like, you know, your Golden Plains or Meredith. It's a proper, celebrating, indie, interesting, diverse music and then getting some really great
00:08:02
Speaker
indie brewers on as well, and obviously celebrating the high country harvest, um, hop harvest. And as we've seen in previous years, you know, they tend to have the best, you know, most interesting, you know, cheese and and meat juices and stuff from the high country as well. Um, and then the tech symposium on the day before, day before is something they're looking to build into one of the country's sort of biggest, I guess, gatherings of ah breweries and beer experts as well. So, um, yeah, they're about to put some hotels in beach for some indicator for it. Yeah, but if if you're anywhere in the country and you've ever thought about going down bike, I would say don't miss next year's would be my advice. Yeah, yeah, for sure. um Excellent. And then I guess aside from that, we should mention as well, if you're a member of our beer club, the Crafty Cabal, we've got some double passes for that festival um on offer as well. If you're not a member, it's a good reason to sign up. um And also on a Crafty Cabal note, we've got another event um in Melbourne for the years out, we're going to join
00:09:01
Speaker
Nick Sander in the team from Molly Rose um on December the 11th at their brew pub in Collingwood. um Have a bit of a chat about the Molly Rose story to date and sampling five of his favourite beers from this year plus two spirits he's made. I don't know if you've seen the weird contraption he's got in next to the pilot brewery in the venue now, but he started making really small batch spirits. I tried his pastis on a camping trip recently and it's beautiful. um So yeah, jump on craftybaal.com ah for details of that, um and should be suitably delicious. Yeah, and one final bit of news before we get into this week's guest.
Hottest 100 Beers Competition Preparations
00:09:37
Speaker
Hottest 100 nominations are open, so you're if if you're a brewer, now's the time to make sure your beer's on there and and get it in.
00:09:44
Speaker
as every year it's it's the you know biggest craft beer democracy in the world i think so no in fact you check me on that but i don't know how they could possibly be a bigger one it's a huge day of beer in january next year so yeah yeah i guess now's the time to start thinking about it i'm sure some berries like Bridge Road and Mountain Culture have been thinking about it since... They've been storyboarding since, you know, January the 28th last year, I'd imagine. Yeah, um be you can jump on the Gabs website to make your nominations.
Interview with Sam Fus, Brewer Extraordinaire
00:10:13
Speaker
And I guess on to this week's guest, which couldn't be further away from, I guess, the high country or indeed Gabs's 100 nominations. We headed overseas for a second time.
00:10:22
Speaker
Yeah, and to Bali and we got Sam Fus on who we add another one of those guests. We can't keep saying this, but when we started the podcast and sort of storyboarded who we wanted on and and who we wanted to go, Sam was well on top of the list. it was Obviously, she's been brewing in Australia for a very long time.
00:10:38
Speaker
um i I get ripped into a little bit for saying long for saying just how long so sorry about that Sam but um she's been living in Bali for two years now or a little longer than two years the breweries beaches we should say beaches brewing is finally up and running making beer so yeah it's a really great chat you didn't go and visit while you were over there so we should get ripped for as well yeah yeah it's not really a great episode for me I have an awesome chat. She had been involved from the early days of Little Creatures, worked for Matilda Bay, Young Henry's, True South, a whole bunch of breweries. And obviously Phil would have been there. The most recent one where she designed the the All Concrete XPA. And yeah, it was one of the most enjoyable chats we've had to record to date. um So yeah, um enjoy that. And also, i Will, what must we not forget?
00:11:26
Speaker
ah you must like and subscribe to the podcast if you're enjoying it and leave a review as well. That would be delightful. Excellent. um Well, we will see you next week, potentially from South Australia, depending on when we actually record this intro. But for now, enjoy the show. Cheers. Cheers.
00:11:47
Speaker
Hey, Sammy. Welcome to the podcast. How are you going? Yeah, good, boys. How are you? Great, great, great to have you on. You're our second international guest. We've done New Zealand and now you. So we're sort of circling out from Australia. and New Zealand doesn't really count. no That's true. Like another state on the side of ah over the ditch. Does Bali count though? I suppose where you are, you were saying you're in the real Bali. So do you want to give us a bit of a brief intro to exactly where we're chatting to you from?
00:12:19
Speaker
Yeah, ah everyone everyone seems to think that Bali is just Changu, Seminyak, Ulawatu, but that's South Bali. So where I'm situated up is North West Bali. um So about four and a half hours, about four, four and a half hours, depending on ceremony if that's on, um maybe five, um up North West. So we're in a beautiful um diving mecca up here, have a lot of reef and um gorgeous water. So the waves down South,
00:12:47
Speaker
all the yeah the diving and everything up north and over to the east. So you like the Paris end of Bali. yeah Yeah. Well, no, no, no, no. with What I call the real Bali. So still villages intact, you know, everything's kind of, there's a lot more, a lot more rules up here in regards to, to overbuilding and, um, you know, they just like to keep it kind of real. You can't, you can't build higher than the the roof of the temple, you know, things, things like that, but it's still pretty untouched up here, which is beautiful. Really, really lovely.
00:13:19
Speaker
and And it's been well over two years since we first did a story about you moving to Bali. um you The brewery you joined Beaches has finally got some beers out in the market. Do you want to tell us about how it's taken ah i guess a couple of years from you arriving to actually get beers out into into people's hands?
00:13:38
Speaker
Yeah, it's been probably a lot longer than we had hoped. um But we, in the end, we decided to go for a license that allowed us to do a lot more than just producing beer. So it's very different to Australia where you have a license to brew beer um and you can kind of make seltzers off. Well, not necessarily seltzers, but you can do a lot of other products on the tail of that.
00:14:03
Speaker
Whereas here if you want to do a cider, if you want to do spirits, if you want to do seltzes, if you want to do mixed drinks, everything, it all has to be a separate license. And recently after COVID, Indonesia has started to transport a lot of their government officers to to operate online. So that's taken a bit of time too.
00:14:25
Speaker
um for our licensing, but also the brewery was just kind of placed where it was. um So we've been commissioning the brewery, adding on some big bits of equipment like centrifuge. um We've just put in a ah full Cody canning line with a depal.
00:14:40
Speaker
um Getting our water, um which is super important over here, getting our water right, um our water chemistry, but also just um water hygiene, um correct. But um taking a bit of an environmental approach to it all as well. So so it's taken it's taken time to kind of um get all these processes in place. It's not like Oz where you just bring someone and they're there they within two hours, you know. I've i've but i've been waiting, I think, six weeks for a genie lift because they've got to come from Singapore.
00:15:10
Speaker
yeah So it's taught me a pretty, ah and I've learnt to slow down a little bit and just try it where it's like, come on, this is downtime, let's get going. So it's been it's been really lovely being up here, being up in the north, in the northwest. But yeah, it it it also kind of weeds out the people that really want to come and visit you.
00:15:30
Speaker
but And the ones like ah Will that just want to stay down south in Seminya. Yeah, out will be but yes sorry sorry, I didn't make the trip north, but I did get to and but enjoy your beer ah in Senua, so it was all worth it still.
00:15:45
Speaker
And so tell us how did you first get involved with and beaches? Because obviously, prior to moving out there, you were filter. You you obviously worked at a number of breweries across Australia that we'll get to later in the chat. So when you approached, did you hear about the opportunity? Like, it's a pretty big move to make after, you know, spending so long working in the Australian industry to suddenly not just go to Bali, but to go to an open brewery on you know you know the far side of the island, so to speak. Yeah, I mean, it's um It was a lot of decision making. My partner, um her her folks also live in WA, so we kind of went, well, we moved to Bali to be closer to our parents in WA. So that was one point. But no, we met we met through mutual friends. um And the Mike, who is the owner here, is an avid beer lover.
00:16:38
Speaker
um and off a whim he just ah he set up a brewery and and then kind of went well now I need a brewer and and we talked honestly we talked for maybe 12 months and I you know twice I said to him thanks for the offer you know it's great it's just not the right time not the right time and you know and he just kept coming back to me, coming back to me and and eventually um I came over here and and and had a look around and and really loved what I saw and and also loved the kind of you know
00:17:14
Speaker
the chance to kind of step back a ah little and and slow down. I mean, I ah read what you guys are writing in on Crafty Pine about burnout and about all these things of self-care and all of that and I think it was just the right time
Community Focused Brewing in Bali
00:17:29
Speaker
for me to to actually just step back from the fast-paced environment that ah that Australia has at the moment and focus a little bit more on you know mentoring and and um and trying to be yeah well no trying to see what so what Indonesia has to offer from the craft beer perspective.
00:17:48
Speaker
Yeah. And do you want to tell us about sort of your team and that mentoring thing? Like, like you've obviously, that's one of the things you would have been doing over there, building, building a production crew around you and all of that. Like how how's that felt?
00:18:02
Speaker
that um That was a huge part. That was a big part of the decision for me moving over was just to to to pay it forward. 25 years in the industry in Australia, um I um ah kind of got to a point where I realized that I could actually give more rather than just being in an operational role and rolling out beer after beer after beer after beer.
00:18:25
Speaker
um you know I wanted to be able to to mentor maybe some less fortunate people um and maybe go through the the you know go through the steps like I did as more of an apprenticeship role. so um The village that our brewery is in, it's about 20 minutes away from where I live, it's called Sangalangit.
00:18:43
Speaker
With the Aussie accent, that sounds quite hilarious. We have a bit of a giggle about that. but some The brewery is built on a rice patty, and that rice patty belongs to one of my brewer's grandfathers.
00:18:59
Speaker
Right? Not only is it his grandfather's rice paddy, but he also helped construct the building and it's a huge building. We have a 30-heck brew house and, you know, mobs of room. um So he he helped build the actual building.
00:19:16
Speaker
um And it's not like Australia where you have schematics of where your plumbing has gone and where your electrical is. So he's like my my human schematic. I'm like, do you remember where those drains run out to and all of that? And he just, he really showed um how diligent and how how um it was a really clever guy. um No, no huge formal education, just a really smart switched on guy um the that, you know,
00:19:44
Speaker
lives 50 meters up the road. We literally built on his grandfather's paddy and um and literally last week, which is fantastic, he did his first brew on the 30-heck brew house. So um I'm super, super proud of him. um And he you know we're now training up another guy that just lives around the corner that's Fantastic. His name's Alex. And then the two other guys that are in administration, one helps out with warehousing. He lives next door to G'day. It's his cousin. is some His grandfather had eight wives. So pretty much the whole village is full of cousins yeah and uncles and aunties. so Who's your brewer that you mentioned? Did you say G'day? Yeah, G'day Attic.
00:20:27
Speaker
I think yes. He's been an absolute champion and I'm so proud of where he is ah today, just coming from from literally ah no no formal formal skills, no formal education in anything that he even remotely um you know joined to to brewing. so So it's been really nice to kind of um mentor um mentor and educate and help out These guys, I mean, he's just, he's come from a potential of, of, you know, working in construction around his village to now being able to travel the world and brew beer.
00:21:07
Speaker
yeah or Potentially, hopefully he'll never leave. but and in In terms of the beer scene, when you described some basic elements of your brewery and clearly you know you're putting a centrifuge in, it's a pretty sizeable kit, you've got your Cody Canning line.
Bali's Emerging Craft Beer Scene
00:21:23
Speaker
you know It wouldn't have been too many years ago that the beer scene in Bali was pretty rudimentary in terms of craft beer.
00:21:29
Speaker
ah Clearly it's moved on pretty quick as it is happening in you know other parts of South East Asia as well. um Is that something that you've noticed even in the two plus years that you've been there that actually we need to sort of be at this standard or was your intention with beaches kind of like we're going to make sure we are you know helping take Bali's beer scene to this sort of level?
00:21:50
Speaker
I mean, yeah, I think we've known each other long enough for you to know that some yeah everything for me has to be at an absolute high standard. So um the intention was always to come in at the top of the market. um Hopefully I've done that. The thing I found with Indonesia is it was actually the last frontier. So Southeast Asia is going off. I'm doing some judging through Southeast Asia and um spending a lot of time going at the conferences and everything like that. And it is going off at the moment.
00:22:20
Speaker
um you know Vietnam, Thailand, um we were in Singapore for judging recently as well as the conference. There's there's beers I'm seeing there from Australia, there's beers from all around the world um and I didn't realize how how big it actually was and then you come down to to Indonesia which is kind of this long archipelago and it's almost like this it's been this kind of stagnant barrier for so long where there there people have just not really cottoned on to what was happening which I find really surprising because the island of Bali is such a multinational island you know you've got expats living here from everywhere over the world um and and really the craft beer scene here has only really taken off probably in the last five years and and when I say taken off we've maybe got like
00:23:13
Speaker
five craft breweries here. Two quite larger ones, um which is from a volume perspective, which is where we'll sit. But when I say large, there's still only 20, 30 heck brew houses. It's still probably generally under a million liters a year. kind of that We're not talking butre not talking big monopoly players here. So there's there's room for everyone at the moment. But what I'm finding is the education.
00:23:41
Speaker
So the education behind beer for locals. um So we're we're we're we're focusing a lot on on helping the punters to understand what it is we're doing and the the the health bonuses from ah drinking craft as opposed to, you know, um sticking with the other big name breweries that we all know across across Indonesia and and just yeah educating people on what it was, which is exactly kind of where I was 25 years ago when little creatures dropped. I still remember kegs under the bar and um you know being kept kept warm and it's it's exactly the same here. So we're on the frontier, frontier lines there.
00:24:31
Speaker
And how are you doing that education? Because you obviously haven't got a venue for the brewery yet, even though there are hopes and plans for a couple down the line. Is that through events in other venues? Or like how do you go about it? Is it through you know the local press or whatever? How are you going about sort of explaining yeah what you do and why people should give your beers a go? um Through our marketing.
00:24:54
Speaker
um Marketing through education from from ah from us, like i've I've been spending quite a bit of time down south, um approaching venues that already have a grasp on craft beer. So here you've got to think because of that lack um that lack of experience with craft beer, majority of your venues are canned venues.
00:25:16
Speaker
ah Whereas in Australia, we've we've had pubs. you As soon as you go into hospitality at the age of whatever, 16 for me, you learn how to pour a beer. you know Whereas here, these guys might have been in hospitality and i never touched a tap system before. So it's about educating them on on how to pour the beers, why we pour the beers the way we do, um keeping the kegs cold. And it's it's all it's all gone back to 20 years ago for us and I was exactly the same reasons. But you've also got to remember, um we've got Bali, which is a bit different. So Bali is Hindu.
00:25:51
Speaker
OK, we've got a lot of expats living here, a lot of tourists coming here. um And then you go to Java, which is where we're selling our beer to. That's majority Muslim. So um that that also has taken probably one of the reasons why ah alcohol as a whole has taken its time to kind of infiltrate these areas. um But yeah, you you go to Java now and there's all these all these ah young young crew that that are making a lot of money through um probably more modern terms, um whether it's, a you know,
00:26:28
Speaker
um into the internet. Is is that the bottom term Sammy? but yeah they're not They're not wanting to get married like their their parents did at 25 and have kids so they got they're all full cashed up and you know um working hard playing hard um so that that's the kind of what we're seeing in Java and the difference of what we're seeing in Bali as well. So so it's been really interesting, although it's the same country, following the different areas too. And seeing what beers, we've got two beers out, our Pale Ale and Sevesa, designed by Jess. Bali's Craft Instinct.
00:27:14
Speaker
Aircraft in sync help design by Jess And we've found in finding in areas of services going off and then other areas. No one wants to touch it They're all about the pale ale and the So it's been really and we've only had beer on the market for about eight weeks So for trying to follow those trends at the moment are all over the shop trying to connect the dots and and Figure out our forecasting and all of that is kind of all over the shop, but it's it's really lovely It's kind of that that unknown that is that mystery that kind of keeps you energized as well yeah And know um where do you think you're most likely to end up? ah Obviously, you're talking about some venues down the line. Is the plan to you know start brewing with, say, local flavours, sort of assess where the market is and maybe try and you know create some you know Indonesian-style beers? like would Do you have an idea of once you've got a foothold in the market where you would go?
Local Ingredients and Cultural Integration
00:28:05
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, the idea for me has always... um i guesss It's always been... i
00:28:12
Speaker
I guess I learnt my applied my trade in Australia. So you've got to have your cash cows to allow you to do the other fun stuff. um So call range is really important and that that teaches people what we're about, what we can do and the diversity between that call range. So we've got the two out at the moment and then we're going to come out so in January. So this is, we got to come out in April after Ramadan.
00:28:39
Speaker
because um even though Muslims, some of them might be drinking, they also adhere to Ramadan and everything shuts down as well. Ports, shipping ports, everything. so So a lot of your activities are based around religious ceremonies and and and things. So the core range for sure, a really good solid, solid core range. um And we've got a 300 litre pilot kit as well. So we've been playing around on that.
00:29:05
Speaker
um you know some really cool local local fruits in some sours um dragon fruit uh passion fruit i've also been playing around with fermenting cacao as in the actual cacao pod, making it open, traditionally fermenting it, drying it out and making chocolate from scratch. um The sea salt up here is beautiful. so And it's all still done in a really lovely traditional way. um There's just so much to use up here and it's so exciting.
00:29:36
Speaker
um to to kind of plan out different brews and and what we do. I've got a, I've got a whiteboard with a list of of things on what we want to do. So, um, so yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. There's, there's some fantastic ingredients here, which I've never seen or heard of before, which, you know, the boys bring me, cause it's growing out of the, out of the back here on their tree or something like that. And they're like, Sam, try this. And I'm just like, wow, you know, it's like a,
00:30:03
Speaker
It's like a toffee apple with a little bit of a citrus twist to it. and and you know So it's been really, really ah awesome kind of discovering my own new backyard. um But also I'm growing mango, I'm growing some cacao, I've got some, this is on the at the brewery, I've got some pineapple growing. um All these things will probably be on tap in what we hope to be a group of um ah Tap rooms, I guess. um Trying to get a license for each tap room to put a brewery in is probably
00:30:38
Speaker
you know, a little too much at this stage. um So we'll utilize the the equipment we've got up here and just set up tap rooms that really fit into the culture of where we're going to place them. So, you know, maybe some beach bars or or maybe some cool, um you know, some cool places in around the the rice paddies in Pererenan, which is it's everything's just exploding down south at the moment. So tap rooms are the way forward.
00:31:04
Speaker
um And also that gives you a way to get a lot of the local businesses that are selling our beer into the venue, get to you know see who we are, what we're about, our our kind of um mantra and what we do, and then bringing them up to the brewery and everyone staying here and having big parties.
00:31:24
Speaker
Sounds like an awful and sort of form of planning to be doing. Where should we open the tap room next? What fruit can we put in our beer, you know? Or all or whilst you know dipping into the pool, but about 10 metres behind where you're sat now, so.
Lifestyle and Environmental Engagement in Bali
00:31:42
Speaker
sorry sam um On that, ah just like can you let us know what else you've been doing other than brewing? you know what like I know you love diving when you moved over there, but like is there anything else that sort of stands out or have you just basically been spending all your days in the coral reefs?
00:31:58
Speaker
yeah and it's um okay so they It's been a bit of a, and it's been really nice too. It's been ah it's been a great time to be able to bond with the team. um So like I said, there's amazing diving up here. Like it's it's just, it's beautiful. It's some of the best diving um that I've kind of been involved with. um So i'm I'm doing a lot of free diving. um Unfortunately, my ear is, I've got a problem with my ear, so I can't get down too low, but free diving,
00:32:31
Speaker
and rather as opposed to diving with tanks and stuff like that but yeah getting down training training kind of my body um to take depths different depths i'm getting down about 20 25 meters that's when you get right down to some beautiful coral and be able to sit there and check some stuff out heaps of turtles up here we're doing ah um working with uh a lot of non-for-profit um foundations up here so whether it's a reef restoration um plastic free permutra and organizing beach cleanups on a regular basis but you know um raising money to be able to pay the locals to do it as a job.
00:33:07
Speaker
um rescuing animals, that seems to be something that we're quite good at. At the moment, we've got some three cats and three dogs and rescued native birds. And then we're feeding another couple of dogs that come down and we sterilize the dogs down on the beach. And yeah, most of my salary gets spent on the animals around the area, but it's great. It's fantastic. Fishing. I went out fishing the other weekend, caught my first Mahi Mahi.
00:33:36
Speaker
um And then caught another seven seven or so on top of that, which I shared with the village um and my village up in Sangalangit. But also a whale shark came past to just cruise past us. There's three of us on the boat and just cruised past and I hung around for about 20 minutes. And then on the way back in, we hooked onto a marlin. So it's just, it's really hard up here. You're right little Dr. Doolittle with your mansion on the hill, heading into the village with arms full of fresh fish.
00:34:05
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. but Make sure you buy a beer. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, it's great. A lot of just ah immersing in in a lot of the culture too, which is has is really rewarding. I actually, you know, whilst I don't have to follow a certain religion, the Hindu religion is just such a beautiful, peaceful religion that you go to ceremony and it's it's all about um it's all about and obviously paying respects to all the gods and every morning we have a little offering that goes out it's ah it's quite a beautiful um beautiful religion um and then you know obviously if somebody dies it's a it's a celebration which is something we find really kind of hard to to fathom you know that they cremate and then they have a big party and that's to send send the spirit off to wherever their incarnation or next incarnation is it's just um
00:34:59
Speaker
Yeah, it's really interesting. And then everyone does karaoke and drinks our duck until they get really festive. And that goes for three days. Wow. There you go. I'm sure you'd fit in well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. um We'll take a short break now and then come back and have a chat about your career in beer to date. um And yeah, maybe a reflection on how you think things are going in the wider beer world. So see you in a minute. Excellent.
00:35:30
Speaker
If you're looking for a better way to manage every element of your beer production, cost of goods and distribution, then you need to talk to the team at Beer30 by the fifth ingredient. Beer30 is an all-in-one brewery management software that tracks real-time data on everything from recipe ideation, through production and packaging, all the way through to sales and distribution. With Beer30 you can optimise the brewing process and improve beer consistency, recording yeast genealogy, daily gravity, daily pH, temperature, vdk and more. Beer30's best-in-class cost of goods tracking allows you to maximise profitability, taking into account labour costs, utilities, raw materials, packaging and even factoring in price changes due to split batches or ingredient substitutions.
00:36:18
Speaker
Even better, Beer30 integrates fully with both Xero and QuickBooks online, offering you a one-stop-shop for operations and sales on one seamless platform. So what are you waiting for? Breweries that use Beer30 save up to 20 hours a week on labour, boost profitability with accurate cogs tracking, improve their beer's consistency with full brew process traceability, and increase brewing capacities with tank monitoring and inventory management.
00:36:45
Speaker
And right now, Beer30 is offering 50% off your first three-month subscription if you get on board before 31st of December. Schedule a free demo today at the5thingredient.com. That's T-H-E, the number five, T-H-ingredient.com. And now, back to the podcast.
00:37:08
Speaker
Welcome back, Sam. If you can remember it, should we go back to the very early days? Do you want to tell listeners that very first brewing job um at Little
Sam Fus's Brewing Journey and Mentorship
00:37:18
Speaker
Creatures? Yes, that's quite rude. If you can remember it. yeah yeah but Yeah. I'll start it again then. All right. Thanks, Will. You just reminded me of my age. I turned 50 this year. ah Congratulations.
00:37:35
Speaker
like Yeah, I kind of, yeah, I'm still dealing with that. 50's the new 30, I reckon. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I'm living in a pretty beautiful place and I had a pretty lovely life at the moment. So not much is, you know, not much to complain about. Yeah. But, um, yeah, ah well, 25 years ago, um,
00:37:56
Speaker
At Little Creatures, the third brewer ever employed at Little Creatures um in WA in Fremantle. And I had three and a half years there before I packed back up and moved back to the East Coast because I actually grew up on the East Coast and went went to the West Coast when I was 19.
00:38:19
Speaker
What did you do to and get land that first job with little creatures? Because I guess it wouldn't have been the same level as sort of training and I guess the general awareness around brewing back then. Yeah. Well, i actually, I just come back from overseas. um You know, the passage, um the passage that we all do when we're younger, go over to England. I have no idea why we go to England because we get a visa or something. But, you know,
00:38:44
Speaker
um Yeah, and I came back and I just um i needed some part-time work um or some some work just to get me going. So I started on the bar there. Um, and I'd kind of been working in hospitality for a long time previously, you know, at some, some of, uh, I guess Australia's first craft beer venues, which West Australia had, uh, had a few of, um, the Sal and Anchor, the Brass Monkey. Um, we all know those from, from early days and and having the brewery obviously at the Sal and Anchor. So I had been working with craft beer before.
00:39:19
Speaker
um and And just, yeah, frio Frio was kind of getting off the ground and everything was starting to happen there and I came back and my dad had told me about this brewery that's opening up and I happen to have worked with one of the managers previously and so I got a job on the bar at at Little Creatures and I was there about eight months and um on my spare days off and everything like that, I would actually go over into the brewery and just just muck out anything I could take gravity is going in the you know grain out um keg beer anything anything I could kind of do because I was really quite fascinated by by the whole ah process of it all. um And then
00:40:03
Speaker
Much to, um obviously Aaron Heery from Gage Roads, much to his dismay and and my luck, he burned himself quite badly um down his leg to the point where he had to get skin grafting and everything like that.
00:40:18
Speaker
um But what that did was open up a hole. And at that stage, there were only two brewers, Aaron and Rhys. But that opened up a necessity of we need someone in the brewery ASAP who can just help out doing the kind of mundane day-to-day stuff, whether it's, you know, gravityv's um ah Graining out just to supporting the brewer um Brewing doing all the all the stuff that that I kind of had been doing already Yeah, anyway, so so I just filled a gap and then when as I came back from his injury um I got offered a position the third brewing position that creatures so so yeah, I kind of came up through the ranks more of a um apprentice style as opposed to having done formal formal ah education at uni for for whatever it was but
00:41:07
Speaker
I guess hospitality for me was my my formal education into into the brewing world. So there was no home brewing, like your first brews were on the original Creatures Kit.
00:41:19
Speaker
50 hectolita creatures keep running with flowers. Yeah. There you go. Hot flowers. so Those are the days. I just remember just coming in and starting a shift and and, you know, it'd be all these beautiful hot flowers and all the resin that's just sitting on top of the hot back. And we had to go into quarantine bins and the the Port Authority had to come and pick it up. And it was just really, um it was the good old days.
00:41:48
Speaker
and imp practicalical Yeah, yeah, totally impractical. yeah and a lot and And worth ah you know a lot of money involved. And and was that your only brewing job in WA before you came over to um the East Coast? or Because I think when I first came across you, you'd you've been brewing at Middle Park, I think, but were there are other jobs in between?
00:42:10
Speaker
No, no, no. no so i um And just just back in in the in the little creatures from that perspective, I had some amazing mentors. So I mentioned before, Rogers. So that was the Rogers, Roger Bailey and Roger Bussell, who were very closely involved. So those guys took me under their wing and um and really kind of really yeah helped take me out you know take me out on field trips and to do different things um with the guys so that was that was a pretty special experience as well but from there um I guess there was a bit of a ah
00:42:47
Speaker
A friend of mine was working at the Middle Park, which was Gun Island, um and they had just lost their brewer um due to ah the brewer, Steven. He moved back to South Australia. I think he had a ah family member that wasn't well. So um that was kind of a bit abrupt. And yeah, so I spoke to, and I think that that stage, it was owned by ALH.
00:43:13
Speaker
um and they had three other breweries running. So there was um Gun Islands. There was Brennan, Brennan Fielding, who I can't remember the name of his venue. And then there was another brewery ah going there. So so there were three three actual brew houses within the group. So there was a bit of support there as well. And they also understood, um you know, about about brewing and and what what it's like to have a brew pub. So yeah, so. The different context so for listeners. So Brennan went on to fort found Burley Brewing, I guess, around about but not too long after that time at all, I guess, with with Peter.
00:43:49
Speaker
Yeah, yep, yep, absolutely. So after that, so they shut the breweries i there. um Yeah, he went on to, wow, so that makes them, we've been around it for a while.
00:44:01
Speaker
I think they just, yeah, they celebrated 18, like a month ago. So. Yeah, that'd be about right. That's fantastic. Well done. Yeah. Um, yes. So they, they, he went onto his own thing. I, uh, where'd I go? I went up to, Oh no, I, the Schwartz so along the way somewhere. No, well, I went out to Matilda Bay when they were building the garage. Yeah. Yeah. So is that Dan? You're right. Well, she can't remember. but yeah Is that the Dandenong space?
00:44:30
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that that was Daniel. Right out next, I'll never forget it, it was right out next to, um I don't know the company name, but they were they were making cowboy cocksuckers. So all I could smell all day, every day was fucking BDK. Like it was just, you couldn't even, every time they were mixing it and making you just like this waft of butterscotch would just come through and yeah.
00:44:58
Speaker
ah But that was that was fun. We built race car tracks and um and did a little bit of brewing. ah can you like Ash, can you give me a bit of an insight? Because that was the the Brad Rogers era, I guess, at the the garage and in Dandenong. It was Jane there for a little while and you hear these stories yeah know about, um you know, spending spending some of CUB's money to put in a coffee roaster for this one beer but actually putting in like a commercial grade coffee roaster that wasn't required at all and a huge electric track drilled into the ground between the tanks all this stuff none of it's apocryphal it all happened
00:45:31
Speaker
and No, no, no, it all happened. So I think I was there a few years before Jane. um But yeah, i i um i was I was one of the race car track driver builders, but also roasting coffee. um We had Barking Duck going through, we had a bunch of specialties going through, but I think at that stage also, um a lot of the main stuff that was coming out of the Matilda Bay brand was being brewed um you know, at so at the big house. So we did a lot um a lot with, yeah do you remember some of the marketing ads they did? we were I remember marching down one of the streets in Melbourne Main Streets going, protesting the bakers were using barley in bread and, and or not not barley wheat in bread and not beer. And it was all just, it was, they had, who did they have? They have Stuart McGregor.
00:46:28
Speaker
um I think doing a lot of their crazy marketing stuff there. The guy went on to Liquid Ideas, wasn't it? Yeah, liquid i andal i i mean or um billisk yes so there was some crazy shit coming out of out of there, but it was really was really really cool time to um to be there because there was just this, we could kind of experiment with what we needed to and we'd all sit around. I mean, Brad had his ideas on um what beers, but we would actually kind of come in and and just really get involved in brewing these really cool, funky beers and then, you know,
00:47:03
Speaker
wax dipping 2000 champagne bottles and, you know, all of that kind of stuff. It was like, this is fucking nuts. Like, yeah. Say again, sorry. Which part? I was just saying it was a great time. But like I guess just thinking in in terms of, you know, the people that you work with and you know the mentors you had, like pretty incredible, you know, welcome into the industry. But I guess also if you were to sort of plot the number of people in the careers and the breweries that have been influenced and or have come from those days in Little Creatures or those days at the garage as well, it'd be a pretty phenomenal, you know, catalogue of people and and achievements throughout the the beer world.
00:47:45
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. ah Just being having the opportunity to to to even just listen um you know to to the philosophies and the the brewing techniques, ah the ideas, the what you can do, what you can't do kind of ideas as well between the big houses and then you've got your you know your crazy minds like Brad Rogers. and then um And then Sydney also, I had some really great mentors up and around Sydney as well. um And then, yeah, i've I've been really, really lucky. um And I think ah think a lot of it is having the patience to actually sit back and listen to these people and and absorb it and absorb the technique of telling a story through through beer as well.
00:48:33
Speaker
um So yeah, I've been pretty lucky. And you sort of moved, I guess you worked for some of the bigger operations, but also had some time with small operations like, you know, the Gun Island bit would have been, you know, pretty small group of operation that was true south of which you were a founding member. But then, you know, you early days of Young Henry's was, I guess, built to be a bigger operation, but you sort of you to have sort of flitted around Do you have a preference for the business you like to work for? Do you like just to be there in the early days in a business? you know Have you sort of found what your real you know passion is within within Broome?
00:49:06
Speaker
um Yeah I mean I guess when you say the big guys are only really little creatures and there were only three brewers there so that's not yeah it was still independently owned um not really the big guys um and I only did six months at Matilda Bay just as a um just as a short to um step because they closed the breweries down obviously and then then then most of my stuff's been craft and I mean even smaller craft and even young Henry's so I decommissioned their 12 hectoliter brew house and commissioned the the larger one and also you know took care of a lot of the the upgrade of that but upgrading of recipes, upgrading um of the forecasting and and the pathway as well as little creatures so
00:49:54
Speaker
um I think for me, I found I really, really enjoy setting up breweries. um I love setting up filter, um being able to to to kind of do it.
00:50:06
Speaker
um ah set up a brewery with the knowledge that I've learned over years of process of what what works, what doesn't work, um flow. Also, safety um has been a huge aspect of of um you know building breweries for me these days, um making sure that the automation allows the brewer to focus on the recipes as opposed to running around opening tanks and you know you know just just ah just allowing them, giving them the time to focus on what they need to focus on um and implementing things that um you know help the efficiency of a brewery as well. So I really love setting up breweries. I love um trialing and and you know getting getting the new recipes down to where they are now.
00:50:53
Speaker
going through the intricate details of, um you know, this is missing the point here. And I guess that comes into a lot of my judging as well. um I try to be, I'm pretty hard, I'm actually pretty hard on on my beers. So I try and approach beers that I'm brewing, um not only as a brewer, but as as someone from the outside stepping in. um what What could this person do better? You know, but not that I would ever offer, you know,
00:51:20
Speaker
offer that to anyone. um But some what what can I do better? Where can I make improvements in this? And sometimes you come to the point where it's like, okay, I think i' if i go any if I go too much further, then I'm i'm i'm stepping away from the um the style and the truth of the style of what I want it to be. So stop fucking around.
00:51:42
Speaker
And any favourite beers of of yours over the years? like Is there a beer you go, that's the beer? I know absolutely how to nail it. but I mean, I guess the Filter XPA was champion and pale ale within like three months of filter launching. You know, you've got a pale ale where you are now. But also you used to love brewing. There was a red ale that always used to appear wherever you you turned up ah in the early years as well. Like you read sort of the red truck bit or something like that so you know other particular beers you go that's that's a sammy beer you know that's what i love love making yeah the um so the i guess the xpa uh filter xpa um
00:52:22
Speaker
That wasn't just a, I hit the mark on the spot. I had actually been working on that style and that particular beer in my head for probably about two, three years before, um so at at least at least two years before I even got the recipe down on paper and went, this is what I want to brew for this. I was being selfish, I guess. It was it was definitely a beer that came from my heart that I wanted to to work on and give it to the right give it the right light it needed. So there was a stint where I had a little bit of jockeying around, a little bit of a walkabout brewer with old salt brewing. And I brewed a similar beer there um in different breweries. That was the old salt pale ale. And that was kind of that beer, that that actual beer was kind of the birth of of the the XPA. um And then obviously I you know um i stepped up and
00:53:23
Speaker
and actually put it down on paper what I really wanted um and the style that I really wanted um to to execute. So yeah, so that's kind of, that's a roundabout kind of answer. like and and And is your pilot beaches, is that similar to the XBA? Have you thought well that works and that'll work for it a different market as well or have you had? It's a completely different beer, James, because I couldn't do that. I wouldn't be allowed to do that.
00:53:48
Speaker
No, I would say definitely it's an XPA style. um It's different to filter XPA in many, many ways. um But what i what I've done is I've called it a pale ale because I think, do you remember when we first had XPA hit the shores of Australia? Nobody knew what it was. There was a black XPA out there. There was extra pale ale, um you know, where it ended up being a ah double dumped, triple dry hopped, high BU kind of it. No one really had nailed the style until so the guidelines kind of came out. so
00:54:32
Speaker
I didn't want to confuse the market here. um Pale ale is obviously the largest category of beer in the world. I think I'm safe to say that, um along with lagers and your pilsners.
00:54:45
Speaker
Yeah, so I just kind of i use the kiss method on that one. um So just keep it simple. um Keep it to the point. People know what a pale ale is, but they might not know what our pale ale is. So i'm I'm very much, my style of brewing is all about flavor and aroma.
00:55:03
Speaker
um So it's it sticks to that that style. It sticks to what's true to ah to to how I brew and what my my style of brewing is. Same with all my beers. I'm i'm not about big brashy, you know, IPAs, double IPAs that, you know, the BUs are up over 100 because I can kind of thing. That's just not my style. I'm more about some keeping it fluid across across the basin.
00:55:31
Speaker
Doesn't mean I haven't done double APAs that have done really well in competition and are fantastic beers, but I like to get the flavour in there. And in terms of what's going on in Bali, keeping with that in the marketplace, like, do you see sort of echoes of those early days in Australia? You know, you went from a small team at Little Creatures, very early brewery to by the end of your time in this brewing in Australia, you're in the middle of Marrickville.
00:55:57
Speaker
there's There's a lot, probably as many breweries as there were in WA around you. um Very different scene. Do you sort of see it like, you know, maybe heading in that direction or where do you sort of, how do you sort of view Bali? Is it like early Australian crafts?
00:56:13
Speaker
um it's it's ah That's a really hard one, Will. it's um because because we have kind of Because Bali has so many expats in it, you know everything from um the US to Australia, you've got people from from over Middle East, you've got heaps of English here, you you've got all walks um of of um all walks of life here. and I don't know. Is there any one real style that's actually hitting all of those markets and all of that? so that's It's a hard one. and um ah think I think each brewery as they open it, I know that we've got about five now in Bali and I know of another two or three that are opening. I think ah the cream
00:57:02
Speaker
The cream will will rise to the top eventually as it did in the Australian market. um And you'll start to see some businesses that that might not necessarily be as successful as as others. um And that will come down to, are you brewing the right beers stylistically? um Are you brewing good beers for starters? um Because ah once once we start to get more competition here,
00:57:29
Speaker
you know it'll all work out in the wash kind of thing if if if that if you know what I mean and um the home and Australia we had that we had a big um surge of home brewers opening businesses um and some of those super successful today even um but a lot of them also kind of fell by the wayside because the the technique and the practices used in brewing commercial beer is a lot different to what you'd brew at home with your mates so I think yeah well in in answering your question I think we'll probably see something similar to
00:58:03
Speaker
to what happened in Oz um and probably what happened everywhere else. I mean, I don't know many places at the moment that countries that have really shitty breweries as opposed to really good breweries. So yeah. We'd like to end these, um most of these interviews in a similar way. So if there's one thing you wish you'd known when you started out 20 odd years ago, what would that have been? Be kind to my body.
00:58:31
Speaker
Yeah. um And I guess what I mean by that was um I was, you know, invincible in my early 20s, invincible. We had 50 kilo bags of grain rocking around back then, you know. um And because I always felt like I needed to be up, you know, I needed to be lifting the same as the fellows, be doing the same as the fellows, be working in in the same kind of um You know speed and and as as as the boys I I did that and I did that throughout my career because I've ah've never really
00:59:07
Speaker
I've never really kind of, up until probably the last 10 years, I've never really taken too much notice of my self and my actual um physicality. um But now I spend a lot of time on ah on on training right and safe ways to to go about things. So I think my motto these days is become more um work smarter, not harder. And that's that's probably what advice I would offer Um, anyone going, going forward as well. Um, and, and know you know, you're worth. Um, I think for me, it's, it's no, no, my worth have faith in my abilities and have faith in, in what I can achieve. Yeah. It used to be very much a case, I think of a work hard play harder, wasn't it? Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
01:00:00
Speaker
Too much. I've been bed by 9.30 these days. ah like And in terms of it anyone's getting into the game now, whether it's starting a brewery or becoming a junior brewer, any he sort of but nuggets of advice for them? Or would it be the same? what Definitely the same. I don't really want to offer too much information to you know people getting into the business because the climate in Australia at the moment is just I just, I feel so, ah my heart, my heart really goes out to a lot of businesses that have lost their livelihood. A lot of brewers, a lot of friends that have lost their livelihood. So I think more the the, again, the insight that I would offer to people getting into the industry.
01:00:44
Speaker
You may think it's glamorous and there are times when it is, but really it's ah it's it's hard work, it's hard yakka and you're expected to do hot, heavy, hard work. So take it in your stride, um learn from people around you, even if you, you know, even if you might not have the best relationship with them, I think everybody that you're working with has something to offer in regards to to mentoring and and how their words may be able to help you in a situation five or six years down the track kind of thing so just take it slow listen and be and be safe with your body don't break it. And do you have a big dream for beer in the future whether it is in Bali back home in Australia like like where do you sort of what's your hope for how beer looks in the future? I think the question I think the question is how beer looks in my future
01:01:43
Speaker
you know As I said, I just turned 50 and I actually thought, fuck, hello how am i how how long am I going to stay in this? What am I going to do? Is this a life for me? Am I going to be some crusty old 65, 70 year old brewer you know in ah in a backyard somewhere, um you know stirring the mash and thinking of the old and you know the old days and how good it was?
01:02:08
Speaker
um I don't know um but I know that I'm still um still passionate about what I do. I still love what I do um and I still think I'm one of the luckiest people in the world. um you know I get to make beer for a living and and especially taking this step coming here to Bali, I get to now um, be able to offer and mentor people that, that might not have necessarily ever had an opportunity like this before. So I feel really, I feel really lucky that I have the the power to be able to do that and and pay it forward. Well, I'm going to mark the diary for 15, 20 years time to come back and talk to the Krusty Sam whilst you're still stirring the mash ton about this conversation. ah I'll be by then. What I want to be is like, I just want to be an ambassador.
01:02:55
Speaker
said um Okay. what So I get stint and flown over to different places and just um wax lyrical about beers and stuff like that. Done. Okay, we'll we'll we'll check in and make sure that's happened. If not, we'll give someone a nudge to take you on in that role. Sam's looking for a job drinking and talking about beer. i still I've still got a lot left in me. Come on. No, we're talking about 15 years down the line. We know you've got plenty left in you, Sam. That's well established.
01:03:25
Speaker
Yeah, good, good, good. Excellent. Well, thank you so much for that. Always great to chat. and I look forward to booking in the the flights for Bali sometime. Obviously, when you head back, you need to head to the other side of the island.
01:03:38
Speaker
Absolutely. um Make sure you come up. I've got a huge place. um You can have the kids, you can put the kids under the pool or something, lock them in a room and and hang out. No, no, I've got a huge place. we've had we've had I've had quite a few crew come up and and stay and usually that's a good excuse for me to take the team away from the brewery and go diving for the day. so So yeah, that's what we call team bonding days. man They're from the brewing industry. Let's go diving. Yeah, yeah exactly. Sounds awesome. well well thank Thank you so much for your time. And yeah, look forward to catching up soon. Excellent. Thank you, boys. Lovely. You both look wonderful.
01:04:21
Speaker
The Crafty Pine Podcast is produced and edited by Matt Hoffman. You can get all your beer related news and reviews on the
01:04:34
Speaker
We wouldn't be able to produce the podcast or the website, events or festivals we run without the support of the beer industry. Whether that's suppliers, bars, breweries or bottle shops. If you'd like to support the show or partner with the Crafty Client in other ways, please reach out to Craig via the details in the show notes. And if you're a beer lover who'd like to support what we do, you can join our exclusive