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Capital Gains
2 Playsin 9 hours
“You can be more sustainable and make more money at the same time.”
Capital Brewing are well established alongside BentSpoke as part of the ACT beer scene’s big two. Despite retaining a tight sales focus on just the Canberra region and New South Wales, they’ve grown to a current capacity of two million litres per year while operating one of the largest hospitality venues – 1,000 people inside and out – of any brewery in Australia.
They’ve gained public recognition by landing multiple beers in numerous GABS Hottest 100 polls – “Our goal was always to have the best album rather than the best smash hit.” – and produce a consistent, approachable core range on the one hand while indulging the brew team’s flights of fancy – imperial stout using apple juice instead of water, anyone? – via their pilot brewery and taproom.
Central to their story, however, is their focus on operating as upstanding global citizens. Influenced by co-founder Laurence Kain and Tom Hertel’s joint love of the outdoors – surfing, long-distance running – they operate one of the leanest, greenest machines in beer and not just because they believe it’s the right thing to do; as they explain in our chat, operating more sustainably can be good for your bottom line too.
We joined Laurence and the head brewer they enticed from San Diego, Wade Hurley, to discuss all that and more, including Captain Podium, supporting local music, and strong signs that the market is taking a turn for the better.
We kick off the show with James joining Will from Purnululu to discuss the latest in MicroStar / Kegstar’s proposed acquisition of Konvoy, the Brisbane German Club’s joy ahead of their 2025 Oktoberfest, our step Behind Bars with Canberra beer bar To All My Friends, Bowden Brewing’s expansion in Adelaide, plus our upcoming Froth Town Crafty Crawl and event with Evil Mega Corp in Freo in September. We also announce a very worthy winner in our Have You Done A Rallings? celebration of the country’s good beer citizens.
Start of segments:
- 17:50 – Capital Brewing Part 1
- 46:26 – Have You Done A Rallings?
- 49:18 – Capital Brewing 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 Setting
00:00:05
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Crafty Pint Podcast. I'm Will. I'm James. How are you, Will? I'm great. Where are you coming to us from, James? oh yeah I'm coming from the the edge of Pernalulu National Park, which is where the Bungle Bungle ranges are. I have to say, of all the places I've visited in my life, this would have to be one of the most majestic and magical.
00:00:24
Speaker
We actually left there yesterday, though, so I'm just here in the caravan storage part. of the caravan park with someone about to pull their car around off over there. So it might have probably looks a little bit like the field in Horsham, like as you described King's Canyon a few weeks ago, but about 50 odd Ks over there is some of the most wonderful natural landscapes you could could ever wish to see.
00:00:43
Speaker
um so that's been been been quite a lovely, lovely few days. Hopefully no helicopters take off overhead while we're chatting as well. Excellent. Beautiful landscape. It's just all out of view. That's what we want to hear.
00:00:54
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just sort of idiot not not even out of view that way. In fact, if you look, if you look really, believe you it's there though, but if if you are watching on YouTube behind, you might be able to see there's a bit of, um, smoke behind. So the the first campground we went to in the Gibb river road is now closed. They evacuated it yesterday because they've been doing some burn offs, but some of them got out of control. So there's some fires burning through the region.
00:01:13
Speaker
um And we're hopeful that we can make it to broom in time for me to make my flight to Froth Town. But there are some closures on the Great Northern Highway. So a little bit on edge as to what might lie
ACCC Concerns on Kegstar Acquisition
00:01:24
Speaker
ahead.
00:01:24
Speaker
Yes, definitely. and um Well, in news though, we've got a a bit statement from the ACCC released late last week. Yes. Yeah, to do with the MicroStar slash Kegstar's proposed acquisition of and Convoy, which went into um administration liquidation earlier in the year.
00:01:43
Speaker
um is i guess it's been sort of um going on for some time. It was, you know, it's a number of months ago now that but that that occurred. um I guess, you know, Kegstar, when they came along doing what they were doing was the first business really offering ah this sort of keg leasing keg rental um offering on it on a major scale um some people who were at kegstar then went and launched convoy so you did have two businesses operating in the same space and i guess the concern that the triple a triple c has raised now and a number of people in the industry have raised is if kegstar microstar acquires convoy you're back to one party um operating at that entire sort of industry in australia and new zealand
00:02:19
Speaker
Yeah. So what the ACCC, I guess where they're at is they've released a statement and of, um i'll I'll get the term right because it's not a common term, a statement of issues rather. um yeah they They don't really like speaking normal language, the ACCC, but I guess that's understandable. So that they've outlined that they do have preliminary concerns. They're still looking into it, but they're calling for more submissions.
00:02:44
Speaker
um Importantly, they'll they'll sort of they're planning on releasing, I guess, their full findings in october on October 9. That could change though, they've said that, but theyre they're open to submissions until the end of this month, so August 28. They've sort of pointed out what they think the kind of main areas are, that there could be issues around pricing and service and that ah breweries going out and buying their keg fleets probably isn't a realistic option to sort of give them an alternative.
00:03:09
Speaker
but um Yeah, that they've sort of said, this is where we think the issues might be. um If people want to submit more, let us know about it. That would be good. ah Kegstar have released a statement as well, which says,
00:03:23
Speaker
You know, they acknowledge it and um they they can they respect the ACCC's process and they'll continue to work with them
Comparative Analysis of ACCC's Approach
00:03:30
Speaker
and provide information. So I think obviously, I mean, taking all that, there's still a long way to go here.
00:03:35
Speaker
i was thinking of um last year there was a major merger with Chemist Warehouse and SACC. They're called like Sigma Health or Sigma. Sorry, I'm getting the term right. But they own Amcal basically. So, you know, you're talking about two pharmacy giants coming together and they also supply wholesale medication to other pharmacies.
00:03:54
Speaker
The ACCC did the same thing. They said they were concerned about it or at a preliminary level. And then basically the merged entity made a number of concessions and said, look, well, here's what we're going to do to make sure that's not an issue. So that's possibly a way this could go. It's possible. Of course, the ACCC could just say we're not happy with how any of this will look.
00:04:16
Speaker
But um yeah, I think it's one of those things that's still up in the air and we'll have to see yeah how it plays out. yeah Yeah, it and is certainly raised some you know discussion and online and from people in different parts of the industry, both sides of the ditch as well. I've seen some comments on ah sort of social posts around it.
00:04:31
Speaker
um I thought you know one, I guess, quips saying, I wish they took the same approach to tap contracts, but maybe they view... two people operating that way is different to one person dominating the market. But yeah, it's certainly be interesting to see and what happens and maybe it doesn't hurt sort of the beer industry to have the ACCC focusing intently on one part of the industry when there's that you know there's a large number of people in the industry
Brisbane German Club's Oktoberfest Challenges
00:04:53
Speaker
that would like them to be looking elsewhere as well. So we'll see um yeah what how how that pans out and whether it does have any flow on effect.
00:05:00
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, they definitely they seem to be listening to the industry and and taking those concerns on on board. So, ah yeah, that's an important first step. Yeah, and I guess on ah on a rather lighter note, um I know you're you're always a huge fan when Oktoberfest comes around. You're a bit of a German Lager and Pilsner fan. You've done a few stories for us over the years on Oktoberfest and Austoberfest.
00:05:20
Speaker
um So you were very excited to, I guess, hear about what the Brisbane German Club were up to this year. Yeah, well, the Brisbane German Club is a place I've never been, but would love to go Obviously, ah it's very popular amongst people I know in the in the South East Queensland beer industry. They love it because of what it does. And it's great place to hang out. um You know, I love those kind of clubs that are sort of members first and those sort of things. I'm a I'm a member of my local ah RSL, the Coburg RSL, which is probably one of the oldest in Victoria and then one of the few that's pokies free and and also fortunately he serves craft beer. So i love I've got those kind of environments as well. And um yeah, they've always held a very traditional Oktoberfest.
00:06:02
Speaker
They think they've probably held the longest running one in Australia, having run it since 1975. I think there was one going on in the 70s that claimed to have been going around for some time, but it's a bit hard to know if they were actually running it before 75 is kind of the issue there. It's hard to get...
00:06:18
Speaker
points on this but i don't i don't think we're going to be done for libel um for printing those those claims i i'm just scared of the uh the sydney german club uh the few remaining members or something coming for me yeah so they've managed to get ah beers from all six of the german breweries and um that they've wanted to do that for a long time it's i know those the six breweries that pour at the that have their own tent at the original octoberfest yes Yeah, sorry, the six official Munich breweries. um yeah Yeah, you have to be brewing beer within the boundaries of Munich, using Munich water and all that kind of thing.
00:06:52
Speaker
The real struggle is getting kegs in ah bottles. We do see a lot more of in Australia, but, you know, those German breweries don't really have a need or desire or want to send kegs across.
00:07:03
Speaker
Well, most of them don't anyway. So it's um been a lot of work for those guys to organize it. ah Trent from the German ah from the Brisbane German Club said that, you know, he was sending emails in October last year to some of these breweries to sort of lock it in. So shows how forward thinking they are and how much planning goes into theirs.
00:07:23
Speaker
No, well I'm wondering what's going on with you as well. Well, last week you did an article on Agave and this week you had an article which had a quote from ah Trent saying that you they tried putting on some local craft beers last year and they struggled to even sell a keg across six taps. So I feel you might be trying to torpedo with the business while we're away or maybe even take down the entire industry.
00:07:43
Speaker
I'm desperate to bring a local beer down from the inside, but it's interesting. I mean, Trent says he loves craft beer, but it's a different market. It sells differently. And you know, I, I kind of, when he said that, I was thinking about how many people still are drawn to like Belgian beers and and sort of go and buy imported Belgian beer, but don't actually.
00:08:02
Speaker
pay attention to maybe Australian craft beer or things like that. there are ah We're a very siloed society now, so I don't think we're always talking to each other, and and maybe this is another example of that. Yeah. Well, I guess but flipping it on its head, and I guess an example of a success story in local craft beer.
00:08:19
Speaker
You've also been chatting to the team behind Bowden Brewing in Adelaide, i' always made fantastic beers from the off. It was amazes me the the consistent quality
Bowden Brewing's Expansion
00:08:29
Speaker
of of the beers they make in a whole number of styles that they're always presented in a very amusing way on this very tiny brewery they've been um they've been they had its set up in using the west of the inner west suburb suburbs of Adelaide but they are now um expanding. You had a chat to them it sounds like fairly significant steps as well.
00:08:48
Speaker
Yeah, Bowden, I'm glad you said it first because i've I always get nervous about whether it's Bowden or Bowden, I know. Well, you go with Bowden, I'll go with Bowden. We'll see. It'll be like the Evan cra evan Cray, Evan Craney one and see you see who who who gets the abusive text first.
00:09:02
Speaker
We'll see if we can offend all of Adelaide somehow. But yeah, um for those who haven't been, it's sort of, um they're brewing right in this new sort of development just on the doorstep of Adelaide CBD. For me, it kind of reminds me of East Brunswick Village where Bridge Road are in Melbourne, which is near me or or parts of Sydney, sort of parts of Alexandria as well, where a lot of development's gone in and they've taken the time to make sure there's interesting commercial offerings and and places people can go within these new communities.
00:09:29
Speaker
And yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, they're four years old and for quite some time they've been turning a lot of people away at the door when it comes to weekends and things like that. So they knew they needed to to expand their hospitality footprint massively. So they've added a whole second kitchen, taken over the whole sort of site they're on. So they' yeah i'm quite ah they've they've gone from it's sort of 100 to 150 people to the more 400, 500 mark. So it's a significant hospitality um expansion for them. And, you know, it's interesting to talk to them about it as well in terms of
00:10:03
Speaker
where they see the market because not everyone wants to grow at the moment, even if it is just hospitality, but they've had a really strong winter. ah Josh also said that he's ah he spoke to some older publicans in ah Adelaide. He said that last time the Adelaide Crows won a grand final, there was ah which was in the 90s. There was like a 12-month economic boost in Barb's afterwards. So yeah.
00:10:25
Speaker
there's ah There's a lot of people hoping the Crows might win the flag. So, yeah, but he said that it feels like that it's just a lot of optimism out there and people are going out and spending money and and they don't want to be turning people away when they don't need to.
00:10:40
Speaker
Well, it's interesting because that's reflected in one of the comments from our main guests later, which we'll get to. But certainly, you know, when we're chatting to Capital, they said they were seeing some really strong signs out there in the market. So fingers crossed that that is a wider theme.
00:10:54
Speaker
wider theme Before we get to that, another Canberra-focused story running this week. um When we were in Canberra a couple of months ago, i popped into um to all my friends i'm in the suburb of Cook.
00:11:07
Speaker
i'm Great little am beer bar there, um great pizza. Had a catch catch with Paul Doherty, who's been running the venue since roundabout their first birthday. Very, very knowledgeable guy, long career in and out out of and booze, hospitality.
00:11:21
Speaker
um Also did a degree in musical anthropology. So if you ever want to sort of have a sing along to some traditional Cornish folk songs, he's your man. um But yeah, I think trying to think about what this role to all my friends fits. It's very much like a suburban sort of restaurant and bar, but it's probably the serves a purpose in terms of, you know, bars for Canberra, almost like what what Cohen Sellers would do or, you know, Dutch Trading Co used to do back in Perth in terms of being the one.
00:11:48
Speaker
If you really want the knowledgeable events and that kind of that they really sort of focus there, even though it's not, you know, it's not a bottle shop. It's not that sort of venue. ah So we had a chat with Paul for our behind bars. You know, what what he thinks is taking off a minute, where where things are going, you know, how they're going about engaging their their consumers or what have you.
00:12:05
Speaker
um So, yes, that would be willing to that in the show notes as well. Yeah, they're definitely definitely on the pointy end of sort of the beer scale in Canberra. And um James, you'll be in Perth soon to talk to some of the pointiest of the edge breweries, won't you?
00:12:21
Speaker
That's right. Yeah. So um I'll be leaving the family in Cable Beach in a couple of days time. Well, on the day this podcast goes out actually flying down to Perth. um We've got our event that you hosted last year at Fat Brew Club, the City Slickers versus Southwesters on the night before Froth Town.
00:12:37
Speaker
When I spoke to Trav at Fat Brew Club last week, they'd already sold more tickets than they did less last year. So you must have great job, Will. hosting there what the word has spread to get people back in so there could be as many as 100 people there for the sort of face-off dinner uh recording a couple of podcasts on the friday morning and then obviously froth town again that was the first place we ran our festival crafty crawls last year so we're back with that again we've hooked up with another well actually seven breweries this year but seven uh six stands so if you are heading to froth down look out for the posters with the qr codes um If you visit all six of the breweries that we're working with, brewery stands that we're working with, collect the um collect the stamps of each of them, then you go into a draw to win um beers from every single brewery we're working with, plus a year's membership to our Crafty Kebab Beer Club. um And on that topic, we've just locked in details of um an event today
00:13:27
Speaker
when I'll be back in Perth in about a month's time with Rhys Lopez, the man behind Evil Megacorp. I think the event title we're going with is How I Became Evil. um He's a real fascinating guy. um It'll be a chance to go through, i guess, his whole beer journey from first getting into craft beer through his time as the head brewer at Other Side through to his one-man operation now, Evil Megacorp.
00:13:49
Speaker
um So that's taking place September the 20th, I think, but tickets will be on sale by the time this podcast goes out for our beer club members. Fantastic. And, you know, Evil Megacourt would be one of those breweries that some people might like to nominate and talk about in terms of their favorite brewery in the world. I know Rhys is a very popular fellow in ah Western Australia. And you if you'd like to nominate, maybe maybe that's why you might want to nominate someone. You just might love the person. and um But you could nominate them for our Bluestone Yeast Brewery of the Month.
00:14:22
Speaker
Yep, that's at craftypint.com slash bluestone. And later in the show, we'll also have the latest winner in our Have You Done a Rallings celebration of Good Beer, citizens supported by the legends at Rallings Print and Labels.
00:14:34
Speaker
um Anyway, on to our main interview this week is Capitol, another one out of the breweries and that we called into on our sort of podcast road trip back in it late June or mid June. I lose track of when we did these things now.
00:14:46
Speaker
would have been 100 years ago. yeah um but We sat down with one of the founders, Lawrence Kane, and his head brewer, Wade Hurley, um who moved up to Canberra from ah San Diego to join the brewery at the start.
00:15:00
Speaker
um I love listening back to when we were editing it and how how I think one of Lawrence's highlights in in in the in the chat is when Wade starts talking about Canberrans as we and how yeah this guy from San Diego has now been sort of fully adopted or has adopted Canberra as his home city.
00:15:17
Speaker
Yeah, it was a great chat. I remember meeting Wade before they even had the brewery and, you know, just moved over from ah America. I kind of felt like I got the sense that maybe this might be a thing you'll do for a couple of years and then move to another country to brew. But obviously Canberra's pulled him in. So, yeah, they really cover what they love about their city, which I really enjoyed listening to as well as, you know, people who know kept ah capital will know what else they're passionate about, which is sustainability and and how that's really... um really drawn both of them in and and how much energy they sort of pull from what they do and how they've set up the brewery and how they've changed it and all those kind of things and using regenerative grain. It's it's really interesting. I think it cuts to how sustainability can drive people and give them passion and make them want to go to work every day. I i think also of the key things I took from it is like, you know,
00:16:09
Speaker
Being a a more sustainable business can make you more profitable. about That was one of the things that Lawrence was keen keen to get across. it It's not a case of like, this is going to cost you money to be a better operator. If you actually do it the right way, you'll make money. Like it's not a case of going, oh, things are tight right now. We can't do things that are better for the environment or better for our business. Actually, if you do the right things, it can be better. So there's some real good insight there for people thinking,
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00:16:33
Speaker
oh, I want to be a better corporate citizen but i can't because i haven't got the money at the minute so oh no maybe you can you know so i think that's a um yeah and it's it was a real fun chat we really enjoyed our time there so that's coming up after the break um before then however will well if you enjoy the chat make sure you like subscribe and uh leave us a review cheers cheers
00:16:54
Speaker
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Speaker
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Capital Brewery's Taproom and Origins
00:17:52
Speaker
Wade and Lawrence, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having us. So we're recording this from your Fish Week taproom. I think it's one of the sort of grandest and most special taprooms in the country to start off with a bit of high praise. Like, can you tell us a little bit about your home here?
00:18:07
Speaker
yeah um well thank you for the high praise firstly yeah so um we built the brewery here in 2016 and then opened it in 2017 and wade came over from san diego yeah was brewing at a couple breweries um grifter and hairy man up in sydney yeah And, um, yeah, we opened the taproom in September, 2017. It's licensed for about a thousand people.
00:18:32
Speaker
Um, and yeah, it's a pretty busy venue. That's a lot of people, a thousand people, because you've got heaps of space outside, right? So it was always part of the vision to have a very, I guess, it's kind of a destination isn't it? It was a weird location, right? And real quite risky opening up a tap room out here.
00:18:48
Speaker
We didn't anticipate the tap room would be as busy as it was. We thought you still thought you'd own for a thousand. passenger yeah anyway Well, yeah, I mean, we built quite a lot of venues and and we sort of know the tricks within the ACT licensing regulations on how to maximize capacity. yeah And a lot of it sits in toilets and fire escapes. So we had an empty warehouse and so we built really big toilets.
00:19:11
Speaker
thinking, oh, we can then put on bigger events. Not thinking that we'd be maxing those toilets out every Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Yeah. and We've got 23 beers on tap. We've got two bars that are exactly the same as each other. so You can have the same experience outside as you have inside.
00:19:26
Speaker
um And all of our sort of higher volume core beers are coming fresh out of serving tanks straight over into those bars. and So it's a really cool experience. Wade's got a pilot system. he's brewing heaps of like stuff that only you can find in the taproom, which is cool. Yeah. And there's Brod Burger here from the start as well. that's i know I was chatting to some woman running a coffee cart at the Caravan Park in Tumit of all places. Mentioned when we were heading over here. She goes, oh, there's some great brewers in Canberra.
00:19:52
Speaker
which Which is the one with the burger place. and it's Her daughter's over here or something like that. Must have been here. if She remembered the burger place inside the venue. So was that part of the appeal from the start? So, yeah, it was. you Broadburger came we were, like, to be totally honest, we'd completely run out of money. Yeah. We were going to do Jaffels out of the glass wash area. We like, no, that's not going to work. We need a proper kitchen. But we had put all of our cash into brewing equipment and whatever else.
00:20:23
Speaker
so We got connected with Broadburger through an old friend from nightclubs called Captain Podium. And because he'd be like shirt off. Yeah, the guy's name was Captain Podium. At Mach 33. And so he connected us with Brodberger. Brodberger isn't his new business. yeah He hasn't so much sweating on his speaker stack for this. He was friends with Sasha and Joel.
00:20:46
Speaker
Tom and I were friends with him. and um and he connected us and and broberger came and looked at the site when it was like a dusty building site and they're like yeah yeah we'll give it a and so they literally pulled their original caravan out of a food park village in braddon at two o'clock in the morning with a crane shut down the main street of braddon with grain pulled it out of there and then brought it in here at four zero in the morning i think you were here that morning that's crazy you and i met them here at 4am and helped get the band in dancing in the corner going yeah yeah this happened yeah i should probably say as we're talking about the tap room like my long time business partner and i tom tom hotel um him and i both started working in hospitality um when we were like 16 years old and in canberra here in canberra yeah in different venues and then we started tom and i started working together when
00:21:37
Speaker
we were in our late teens early 20s while we're both studying and we're working in cocktail bars together and that's really where we fell in love with beer and what made us fall in love with beer was actually going to young henry's um which grifter was brewing out of at time and young henry's was filling up I don't know if i should say this, but they they were what they called borrowing from Uncle Toohey's.
00:22:03
Speaker
and They'd fill up Toohey's kegs with Young Henry's beer and then they'd stencil the Young Henry's logo on mean, this was a long time ago. um And we we would go with a ute and we'd bring like 21 kegs of beer back at a time to sell in out one of our venues that Tom and I had opened.
00:22:19
Speaker
And we'd store it in Tom's parents garage and we'd have a mix of Young Henry's and Grifter. And from talking with Oscar and Dan and um Matt at Grifter, we were like, and drinking all their beers. We kind of sort fell in love with the industry and the people and the vibe of it. And that's our background in hospitality is what kind of got us into capital and especially into the taproom.
00:22:42
Speaker
Surely there's lot of convoy kegs just crying out to be repurposed now as well. Yeah, true. Anyway, we didn't want to say that. But in terms you, one of the first business to move into this area here, and we drive in now, there's distilleries, there's martial arts stuff. I'm not sure what's going on with the It was a very colorful setup out the back there. It was almost like some sort of circus setup or something in the car park.
00:23:04
Speaker
Like, there's a lot is ah more business has flown is more coming? Has it become like a real entertainment sort of production hub? Yeah, for sure. It's grown heaps over the time.
00:23:16
Speaker
um There's like theaters here now. There's a really awesome Japanese ramen restaurant. Table tennis across the way. Across the way. oh So that' like that that's an extended capital sort of games room. Okay. I thought that was just for all the workers play table tennis. Yeah, it's our break room actually.
00:23:33
Speaker
and That's crazy to see everything that's kind of blown up around here. um Like you said, when we first came here, we were the only ones. um Now there's a really good cafe next to us, Coffee Roaster. And they've been there for a while. They've actually opened up their front of house called Barrio.
00:23:47
Speaker
um Yeah, it's kind of exploded with Coffee Roasters, distillers, venues, as well as, you know, sports things. We've got a jujitsu place, the table tennis place. It's really cool to see the the growth of this whole area.
00:24:01
Speaker
Did you suspect that was going to happen, I guess, as a Canberra local? Did you kind of, you know, this area was ripe for development? like Yeah. was it It was an old factory, I'm assuming, with the names and s stuff. Yeah. Derry Road? Yeah, this was an old factory, and this was actually all government.
00:24:16
Speaker
um Where we are, where our brewery is, was... all of the cars that drive the politicians to and from parliament um and then to the brothels and then back to the hotels um they all got serviced in this warehouse and um you can see the line markings on the floor still and the bolts from where the car hoists were bolted but when we came to inspect this premises like over 10 years ago it was a dirty greasy empty warehouse full of pigeons and um and old car hoists they got rid yeah and you know there was nothing here when we came out the front where all the gardens are now you know we're licensed like right up through those gardens up to the fountain um that was all just bitumen car park and so it's changed tremendously and the malongo group are really amazing developers and you know they developed the new acting precinct and then
00:25:07
Speaker
they were um they're developing here and tom and i at the time were looking for sites and we like you know do we like set something up actually in milton or down the coast somewhere oh do we do it in canberra and we were looking at sites you know, a few different places. That's fairly spread, isn't it? you know, a fairly large area to be considering not just two or three suburbs, but, you know, three or four hours away on the coast.
00:25:31
Speaker
Yeah, well, we've got a strong connection to the coast. Like we've grown up, um every most people in Canberra grow up holidaying down there in summer particularly. And we both have um family houses Raleigh. Yeah. um And so We grew up going to those places, so it doesn't feel far away. i like you know It's a cool location, and we're both really into surfing. So do we do that? or And then this came up with my only group, and we're like, oh, this looks like it's going to be good. yeah And we love Canberra as well. so it's It's nice and central here in Canberra too, you know between the north and the south. yeah You get us right in the middle, so it's kind of good to have you know that central location.
00:26:09
Speaker
Yeah, I was trying to get a handle it. We sort of drove in from the north to go and visit Cypher first yeah and then was out to but i was catch up with Paula to all my friends yesterday. And it is it's like a bunch of little sort of satellite sections to camera. It seems, you know, definite we felt like we drove through three years yeah like every race 15 minutes away but but this one is quite central though even though it's not the CBD like this is still pretty central for everything so what you're describing is actually a burley Griffin plan which is you know it's a very planned city it didn't kind of evolve organically in that group center thing where you've got you know Dixon got I think Gungahlin was part of the burley Griffin plan I think that's come later but you know you've got Woden and Dixon and
00:26:51
Speaker
um Kingston and um this the CBD obviously you've got those kind of centers central locations that things are clustered around and yeah it's a really well-designed city we like we love Canberra we love living here um and we're really glad that we've kind of put down roots and yeah established here it's cool and Wade I mean yeah good point to introduce how you came to be here because you were brewing in California, right? I mean, not did had you heard of Canberra? No. I had to Google it before I before i actually moved here.
00:27:21
Speaker
It's such a random story, actually, how i ended up coming to Canberra and finding the capital guys. um Tom and Lawrence were you know they had this idea to start a brewery and they were didn't really know any brewers to start it so I think you guys were looking for someone from the States or just anyone in particular to kind of head up the operation well we won't look for anyone in particular dude really feel like ah someone from like one of the best breweries in in the epicenter craft beer globally in San Diego yeah um yeah and when When none of them were available. yeah
00:27:55
Speaker
But they had reached out to this guy, Bo, who owned a a craft beer bar in San Diego that guy only carried San Diego breweries. That's how big the craft beer scene was and yeah is in San Diego. I think he had like 60 taps or something from all the different breweries in San Diego.
00:28:10
Speaker
So Tom and Lawrence reached out to this guy and said, hey, we're looking for a brewer from San Diego. did you know anyone that would be interested and I was working for Coronado Brewing at the time and Beau forwarded that email into my brewery that I was working in at the time and um the the ah director of brewing operations the Dubbo got it and he came with to me one day while was brewing there i was like hey I just got this random email from an Australian guy you know looking for a head brewer is this something that you'd be interested in and I was just like yeah you know whatever just forward me the email and I'll respond to it. So I said, yeah. And Tom was coming out that I was interested in meeting him. but He was coming out for a wedding or something like that in l L.A. So one day Tom showed up at the brewery I was working on. I showed him around. We had a few beers and I took him to a couple of different breweries, a couple different bars in San Diego, you know, getting hammered and crashed at my house, like on the couch. And the next day I woke up and he was gone.
00:29:04
Speaker
back up to LA for this wedding. and I was like, you that was random. He's cool Australian dude. Like I'm sure I'll never hear from them again. Like whatever. um And yeah, after that, like Tom and Lauren sent me an email asking if I'd be interested in coming out and checking out this site before, you know, anything was happening here while i was still a garage basically.
00:29:21
Speaker
um And yeah, they said, hey, we'll fly out to Australia. was 26 at the time. I was like, hell yeah, I'm coming out here. Nothing holding me back. So came out and yeah, one thing led to another. Like we they were planning on, you know, having me really move out until the brewery was, you know, close to being up and running. But I think on that trip, we we all connected and got along really well and started floating this idea of, you know, contract brewing before that we started producing beer out of this site so it all kind of happened really quickly and i wasn't ever expecting it it was all very random but
00:29:56
Speaker
And I was like, got to go with the flow. Like this felt like it was meant to be. So I said, yes. and How far and wide did you send your sort of phishing emails? Was it purely to brewery regions in the States or contacts you had? or Tom's got a lot of friends and family in the States. So he actually connected with Bo.
00:30:14
Speaker
I can't remember the name of craft beer bar in San Diego. He connected with Bo. We had done some research trips for the brewery and we kind of, decided that san diego was like the epicenter of craft beer and we really liked the styles that were coming out of there and a lot of the breweries and and beau kind of hustled that um i'm not sure how far and beyond it went i think once we met wade like you know he's he felt like the right fit and um you know this the whole thing is um
00:30:46
Speaker
you know weights driven the styles and flavors and recipe development from the very beginning Tom and I are like more hospitality hospitality background like we love beer but we're not professional brewers and you know hospitality is our background and being our passion yes did you have like any thoughts for what the beers of capital should be or should look like or was it a case of going hey wait Here's the Australian market. What do you think should be released? here because it Wasn't your first beer Red Rye IPA or something?
00:31:16
Speaker
Well, we had Evil Eye, which was a red IPA that was part of our regional core range. yeah um But i remember as early as Coast was early as well. I remember sitting down with like the original investors and and everyone from from Capital and I brought a bunch of beers from the brewery I was working at as well as other beers that I was inspired by and beers I really enjoyed.
00:31:35
Speaker
And we kind of sat down and talked about what beers we wanted to make at Capital. And one of those beers was a California common style, which was kind of what inspired Coast Ale.
00:31:48
Speaker
um And on top of that, Sierra Nevada, which is beer that inspired Trail Pale Ale. and a bunch other different beers from you know big breweries that I love as well as Coronado Brewing at the time.
00:31:58
Speaker
So yeah, I think we kind of sat down and and all tasted them together. And I had to learn very quickly what the Australian beer market was like, because it is quite different than the American beer market. um And yeah, we we all kind of talked about it. and and Bounced ideas off each other like what we wanted to brew and they gave me the ideas that they wanted to see and you know, you know, the recipes kind of came from from that sit down. They've evolved a lot since then.
00:32:22
Speaker
But that was the original discussion i was just sitting down and drinking a bunch of different beers and talking about what we liked and didn't like and what we wanted to see. From memory that wasn't particularly prescriptive. It was, you know, you had the license to.
00:32:34
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. hold and Yeah. Had sort of tasting panels to get weighed across like. what were the big movies in Australia and then it was kind of his vibe to definitely to interpret. It was kind of nice not having these guys having a brewing background because i could kind of say and do and bullshit yeah they're just like, wow, sounds great. so yeah Well, yeah, with I mean, first of all, I can't believe that brewing director didn't just delete those emails because it's like in San Diego, you probably don't want to lose the brew. I got really lucky. Yeah. yeah did but um In terms of building the brewery as well, ah beyond living in another country, which I'm sure was great, but having that ability to sort of come in on the ground floor and design it the way you wanted to, yeah having worked at Coronado that already existed, like yeah what was that like?
Wade's Brewing Journey
00:33:16
Speaker
is it That was amazing. Like that was kind of the coolest part about coming here. Like I always wanted to be, you know, a head brewer for brewery. And at that time i was working as a production brewer at Coronado. So I kind of had this license to come up with beers that were my own style, stuff that I liked.
00:33:33
Speaker
um and yeah that was it was really cool to have that freedom um to come up with all these different beers and have that be the core range there's lot of pressure too like i didn't really know exactly what i was doing um so it was it was really cool experience to come up with that core range at the beginning yeah yeah and has it sort of changed over time obviously you sort of honed down on to fairly tight core range now there's the the one swap out last year with the Hazel Aces coming in for the hangers switch switched there. But essentially you've had a fairly consistent and
00:34:09
Speaker
line up for a while now it seems to go there's a few the originals in there yeah yeah Covesdale Trail yeah we we moved down rock opera evil eye out and just started doing it seasonally I make it sense just make sure everything's moving in a reasonable rate and because what's what's your ah production capacity you're pretty sizable operation these have been for a while over 2 million yes it's um like and we make decisions A lot of it comes down to, like, A, efficiency and B, freshness. Because if we've got a product that's, like, not moving, particularly in summer, sometimes a year, then it starts getting a bit, like, you know, you're not getting optimum product to to the drinker. yeah
00:34:49
Speaker
So that's kind of the decision-making with Evil Eye. My dad was super pissed. Came out of the core range because it's his favorite beer. Red IPAs are such a dad. But, beard cropped usually yeah,
00:35:01
Speaker
but yeah it's um yeah core range is goes really well but we are always like we introduced uh low carb lager good drop and that's done quite well um and we did that um in sort of collab with um some of our customers and then we're sort of collabing a bit more with customers like the uh independent bottle stores um we've released a couple of beers with them now the italian pilsner with specific like And retailers always like their independent chains or yeah independent groups like out You know, we sort of put a net out to say hey who's interested in getting together to design a beer?
00:35:39
Speaker
People that are really engaged in it. They'll come to the brewery will talk through styles do tastings They come and do the brew day and they've just been selling phenomenally well here in in those outlets that both of those two that we've done so far it's been amazing and um But yeah, like our you know obviously our focus is always making sure our core range is super consistent, super high quality, and then just doing really interesting stuff around that. and you you grew fairly fast as well once the brewery was up and running, even though i think the focus has been pretty tightly ACT and sort of New South Wales. We didn't see too much of your stuff down in Melbourne at all, or yeah I think it wasn't.
00:36:15
Speaker
mean, how did you manage that growth? I mean, I guess the time up prior to Ben's, but you know, If you came to Canberra, you could find some beer, but there was no real awareness of any Canberra brewing of any significance back then. And then sort Ben spoke and you guys came on pretty quickly and you yeah you got out there pretty quickly as well.
00:36:32
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Our strategy has always you know been to just focus in ACT and and New South Wales. And our kind of feeling is there, like New South Wales is the biggest population centre in the country.
00:36:44
Speaker
And we're sort part of it We sit inside it. And if you're not selling as much beer as you possibly could in New South Wales, yeah why are you shipping it to Queensland and Victoria? like there other breweries down there. We sell a little bit of beer in Victoria.
00:36:57
Speaker
you know this We get interest from down there, but it's mainly from pool rather than bush. yeah um And you know both from an environmental point of view and just from like, ah think that society is going to start to switch more towards localisation.
00:37:11
Speaker
And I think AI is actually potentially going to speed that up as we search for more kind of community and more into human connection as everything starts to become weirder than it already is um so yeah that's like being a really cool way to grow the business and we're going to continue focus on on doing that like we've never tried to or wanted to have a national ranging and we've never had one product like you know stonewood has Pacific Ample and um Bolta has XBA we've with if you look at our pie chart of sales it's pretty even we split you know Coastal is probably the biggest but everything else is pretty evenly split so it makes it really challenging to have to push for a nationally range product not that we really wanted to our goal was always to have
00:37:58
Speaker
um The best album rather than the best smash hit. Yeah, nice. And in terms of life, there is more of a sort of move towards you know local.
00:38:10
Speaker
Do you think you can maintain being local across New South Wales as well as your you your home base in Canberra? Is that something you think is manageable? Or do you think you've just got deep enough roots to...
00:38:22
Speaker
in a wide enough part of you know new South Wales that youre you're okay as long as you keep making good beer and you keep servicing the market. Yeah, think I think so. like I think that we've put enough energy into you know Sydney and and the coast and the snow. like We're seeing really great results, particularly in the snow coming out this year with quite a lot of venues on.
00:38:43
Speaker
and ah you know those people then go back and primarily they're from sydney and you know we're seeing good good results coming out coming sydney i mean one of the challenges that we face as an industry and it's not you know it's not just isolated to us that everyone is experiencing it the moment is the major retailers reducing their shelf doors down from maybe five doors to two doors um and we're all probably copying a bit of that heat at the moment and you know where we will cop that the most is probably in New South Wales um but we've got a lot of great independent retailers in New South Wales and we still will have ranging in
00:39:18
Speaker
you know in the in major retail but i think all craft brewers are going to be experiencing less ranging yeah which is annoying yeah yeah yeah absolutely and you know from the outside like camera both you and ben spoke really smash it with the hottest 100 and have in the past like What is it about Canberra? Is it just like the local residents just love you guys so much? like it's It's still a small city, really.
00:39:40
Speaker
Yeah. What did you have real cunning minutes? Forcing people to vote. You're not getting out of the toilet until you've hit the five buttons. It's the cots. Yeah. yeah um No, it's just the water, man.
00:39:53
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. um You know, Ben Speck's always had, they've done really well in Gabs because, you know, they've got Crankshaft, which is like their number one big seller. yeah um And we've done really well in terms of the number of beers that we get in the Hottest 100, but we've never like hit the podium.
00:40:09
Speaker
And that's because the votes don't concentrate to any one of our products. And um that's just the nature of the way we're sort of... with structure but i think that um people just getting behind two great local brands can brands definitely have always backed you know canberra brands and and companies and i think it's because so many people outside of canra shit on canberra on camera because of the political side of canberra so people that live here kind of really support you know businesses and and breweries because of that kind of like we we feel like outsiders in a way. Yeah. um So they back it. And I think it also is just a testament to the great things that Richard's done at Benspoke. Like he makes amazing hop driven beer and we kind of got started. You started a little bit before us, but like kind of, you know, following what they did in a certain way and like also brewing really good beers.
00:40:59
Speaker
I think it's become a kind of a special Canberra breweries. like There's two really awesome breweries here and and people get behind them. So I think that's part of the reason why as well. One thing that just gave me a little buzz in Wade's response was that when he was talking about Canberra people, he then used the phrase weed. Yeah. I've been here for nine years, man. I have kids here. yeah He's not going anywhere. You got me. he think He's a Count Baron. He might have to go find me on a Trump's wars day. so Yeah, true, true.
00:41:27
Speaker
I'll get my citizenship soon here in Australia. It'll be right. I should have my citizenship as well. I've been 17 years after all. 17. And just sort of coming back to, which is really disorganized, my wife and I. But I guess coming back to locals as well, so um but back to the venue, like you said you were surprised to how many people came early on and filled the venue um do you any any ideas of why that wasn't and how you've maintained that because like it can tell it's easy to be flavor of the month when you're new yeah and you know the shiny new thing but here you are you know eight nine years on from opening the venue and still but's and still getting people coming through is there
00:42:03
Speaker
Have you had to evolve what you're offering or is it just, I don't know, maintained? Yeah, so no, it's been a lot of focus in terms of continual improvement, focused on delivering really good service to guests and focused on being really inclusive.
00:42:17
Speaker
So you can come out with your with your dog, with your boyfriend or girlfriend or your family or whoever you're with in whatever you want to be wearing and and you can bring your dog inside. And you know it's very welcoming and open in that way, but we've also constantly improved our you know tables, our heating, our lighting.
00:42:41
Speaker
and you know AV systems, event delivery, um and the big thing is his customer service over the bar. We've constantly been like in monitoring and improving that and really fostering that team of people.
00:42:54
Speaker
But the biggest thing is is' obviously the beer, and the exception will be the brew team create. and Back a number of years ago, I think 2020, when we We did a survey of our of our database of customers that come to the venue and the biggest thing they said was they come back for a variety of of products and we really listened to that and we had 12 taps and we put in another 12 taps and bought the pilot system um and and so that Wade and his team
00:43:25
Speaker
can be working with the front of house team getting immediate feedback from guests that are coming in and brewing the styles that you know our customers are wanting to to see or try or you know experiment with and so offering that variety has been like i think a really key part in people coming back we We try and make sure there's something on tap for everyone. you know If you come in here and don't like beer, you still have multiple options to try you know and and different things to drink. I think Lawrence and Tom's background in running hospitality venues is ah is a big reason why the Taproom has been so successful as well. They put a lot of time and effort into making sure it doesn't feel like the brewery that opened 10 years ago and then nothing really changed for it.
00:44:07
Speaker
We just had an event last weekend, Midnight Mass, to celebrate the solstice. It was a dark beer festival. We brewed a bunch of cool dark beers. We had really cool bands from all over Australia playing. And it was packed out. And, you know, I'm the type of, like, I come here with my family, my kids on a Sunday morning, and it's busy.
00:44:23
Speaker
It's always amazing for me to come here, like, later at night and still see it packed out with a whole different crowd. So I think a lot of effort is going into running those events. You're missing a Cape Plod at Midnight Mass, which is my lighting design.
00:44:34
Speaker
there was a full lighting time and There was a giant upside down. I thought were going to say sleepazoid. Yeah. and as Part of my career has been in like large scale outdoor music festivals.
00:44:45
Speaker
And, um, and I got really, you know, a lot of what I was doing was production management and, um, We had this Midnight Mass thing playing and one of the guys that was ah local that does the production, i was like, dude, we've got to turn the lighting on. it And we built a six metre tall inverted crucifix out of strobe lights.
00:45:04
Speaker
and up Behind the bands and it was just like, it was pretty rad. and you do events on that scale fairly regularly yeah we do like we're set up as a live music venue yeah so we've put in permanent infrastructure like permanent rigging so we can string up a line array and ah and a lighting rig like relatively quickly and much less cost than having to put in you know portable rigging every time and we either pull a track stage up out the front or we put like the bands inside yeah um and you know that's we sort of isn you know There's a couple of good live music venues in Canberra, um but there's not heaps of them. And the more like we can support the local music industry, the better.
00:45:44
Speaker
um So we're really into that. It's not like Putting live music on from a commercial point of view is not great. like Let's be honest, like you're not making any money off it.
00:45:57
Speaker
um But it's a really cool thing to give back to our community of patrons that support the taproom. And it's just a cool thing to be doing and and and having local bands playing. And reaching your audience potentially as well. I haven't been there, but geez. It's a cool venue as well. Yeah, totally. so Yeah, we love doing that stuff. It's really, really fun.
00:46:18
Speaker
Great. Well, we might take a quick break and be right back after this. Cheers. Cheers.
00:46:28
Speaker
Hello, listeners. Will and James back here to do another Have You Done a Rowlings where we celebrate the good beer citizens of Australia. And, James, we have an incredible entry in front of us. I think it's probably our longest submission yet, and um it's it's a beautiful one as well. it's cracker.
00:46:45
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I think what what what's been great about that running this series is often these things that we haven't heard about, you know, they're actually great stories to tell. I think this is one that we'll be following up to to run a story on in the future um because it's it really is quite the tale.
00:46:58
Speaker
So the nomination is coming from Chris Wootten, um who says, I'm nominating my good friend and local independent craft bottle shop owner, Rebecca Reed of Lismore, owner of Curious Craft Ales. um He says, Beck is a fierce promoter of independent and small batch local, national, international craft beers, wines and spirits, ranging and celebrating the diversity of talent in the industry through her shop and her online presence.
00:47:18
Speaker
She gives her 30 denizens of the Northern Rivers the opportunity to experience the fabulous brewing distilling quality from Aussie producers not represented in the big box bottle shops, which I guess is pretty cool. Like Northern Rivers, we know if there's plenty of breweries up there. um ah You know, you've also been chatting to the guys from Beauty who are looking to launch a bit of, ah you know, their their their Aussie spirits brand there.
00:47:38
Speaker
um And this is, I guess this is probably, you know, that that's kind of the, the preamble for for why he's actually nominated her. So despite losing her business and much of her home in the horrific floods of 2022, Beck and her incredibly supportive wife, Jane, rebuilt the shop in new premises and with her plate already full, started a local brew club.
00:47:54
Speaker
which still meets sporadically and is supported by a great bunch of local passionate home brewers. um Chris says Beck is ever ready to recommend something new and exciting from her suppliers. She's a long time and a highly accomplished home brewer, also freely offers advice to anyone keen to brew or get into brewing.
00:48:09
Speaker
I could go on waxing lyrical about Beck's support of local events, trying to get more ladies involved in the craft world and fervent love of promotion, all things craft. but sums up with she is a worthy candidate for good beer citizen. And I have to to say, I wholeheartedly agree.
00:48:22
Speaker
Congratulations, Beck. Yeah, it's incredible. and Curious Craft Hours, obviously it's something I feel like every community needs, like not only the sort of a resilience, but how she brings the community together. She's a fantastic home brewer. so So it's sort of involved with all these different local groups and helping people become as passionate about good booze as she is.
00:48:43
Speaker
Yep. And so, yeah, so thanks to our mates at Rallings Labels. Both Chris and Beck will win about $100 voucher from them to spend as they see fit. um If you know anyone like Beck um who is is worthy of a shout out and potentially, you know, a story down the line, and as we intend to do on Curious kind Craft Ailes and Beck, then do shout out your Good Beer Citizen nominations at craftypint.com slash Rallings.
00:49:09
Speaker
And now back to the show. Cheers. Cheers.
00:49:18
Speaker
Welcome back. Wade, to tell us about the Pilot Brewery because it is something you're pretty focused on now as headquarter. but Yeah. Which would be lovely. The the Pilot Brewery House is great. So it's a little 300 liter kit with six different fermenters, which gives us a lot of freedom to play around with and brew really cool stuff for the taproom.
00:49:36
Speaker
um And it's also great for R&D. So whenever we're coming up with a new product, let's say Pays Oasis, for example, or even XPA, we're brewing multiple batches of that with very small tweaks each time in the recipe, whether it's a different hop, different yeast, um different malt.
00:49:53
Speaker
We're always tweaking it till we're really happy with it. Then we scale it up to go to our 25-hecliliter brew house. So it's it's really come in handy for perfecting, you know, core range recipes as well as making really wacky stuff, fun stuff for the taproom.
00:50:07
Speaker
um Just a couple weeks ago, we brewed our first tracks coffee stout. And instead of using regular strike water, we used apple juice to mash in. So we okay you know We heated up apple juice.
00:50:20
Speaker
ah We had to titrate the the juice to actually get the pH right. And then we mashed in using hot apple juice, like a regular strike water, and then brewed beer with that. and And it ended up being 9.5%. It was super boozy because of all the sugar and the juice.
00:50:34
Speaker
um I didn't even know if it was going to work. It was our packaging manager's idea. And he was talking to me about I like, this sounds so hard and ridiculous. And it'll probably taste like shit.
00:50:45
Speaker
um But that's the joy of the pilot system. I was like, fuck it, let's do it. So we ended up brewing it um and it fermented and it tastes pretty good. It's wild. It's kind of like a a coffee stout with apple juice. It's exactly what it's supposed to be. It's wild. It's not about to out in cans though. No, no. It's got this crazy kind of...
00:51:05
Speaker
sourness to Yeah, it's really weird and interesting. i'm like I don't know if anyone's really ever done that before. I was like trying to look up how to do it and there's nothing. So that's the joy of the pilot system. like I can't do 25 hectoliters of apple juice stout. you know la says with you anyway yeah yeah So like i've I've got to play around and brew a lot of really interesting stuff on there. And it's kind of nice having that freedom of being like, it's just 300 liters.
00:51:27
Speaker
You can take risks and if you dump it down the drain, that's okay. um And it gives... Me, creative freedom, and I like to give all the brewers here creative freedom. So everyone's always taking turns brewing on it.
00:51:38
Speaker
It keeps people excited. All the employees, brewers here keeps everyone excited, engaged in brewing because we're all here because we like to be creative and try and make new stuff. And we have that freedom with the pilot system.
00:51:49
Speaker
We do an Oktoberfest every year and I get everyone from every, you know, the packaging team comes in and makes a beer on it. sales come up with an idea and I help them brew it. Or they just stand around and watch me brew. Taproom, you know, everyone. So, and it's cool because, you know, I've been brewing for a long time now. It's good to get people that are excited in these fresh new ideas to come through like Apple Tracks, the the Apple Stout.
00:52:12
Speaker
Stuff I would have never thought of because when I think of it, like that's just going hard. But i'm like, how do we make this happen? and And the pilot system gives us freedom to do that. And it kind of goes back to what Lawrence was saying earlier is when people come here, there's heaps of variety, heaps of choice.
00:52:24
Speaker
You know, I'm going to say, you know, nine out of 10 people probably aren't going to be that excited about an apple strike water stout, but like it's there for them to try. And I don't know if you'd be able to try it anywhere else. There's heaps of variety and heaps of choice, but 60% of what we sell is Coastal.
00:52:40
Speaker
You don't actually put out that many limited releases in cans. It sounds like there's a ton of stuff going through the taps here. Do you put some of those kegs into other venues in Canberra or Sydney? For sure, yeah. Okay, so a bit it does go... Because in terms And what does it take for one of those beers to potentially become a limited release for you guys? Because you probably put, what, half a dozen in cans a year or something like that in terms of... Yeah, we monitor our results in the taproom really closely. So will happen is...
00:53:06
Speaker
the The structure of new product development is Wade will generate the idea and market test it in the taproom. And if he gets really strong feedback, um then we might run it into the sales team as a monthly special keg release. And every month we do a special release of kegs.
00:53:23
Speaker
um and that goes New South Wales ACT and if that gets really really strong feedback then we might go this is interesting maybe we'll look at putting this into the can or wait just comes up with a freaking crazy idea and goes this is going straight into a black can it's gonna be what it's always like one for me one for them you know so it can go either way but um you know if we We try and make sure that we're doing stuff that you know, our our drinkers want to have um The funny thing is is like, you know, you do something like blackberry hard lemonade and that came about because One of my mates that owns a pub here in Canberra also has a hobby farm and he's got a lot of blackberries and He was harvesting these blackberries and he's like would you guys be interested in it?
00:54:11
Speaker
And I was like, yeah, but i think they'll get lost in beer So and this was before hearts all over here by the way And I was like, we thought of it. I was like, let's do a, um like a hard lemonade or something like that. I was kind of inspired by Mike's hard lemonade from all that time in the States.
00:54:27
Speaker
And um we we did a black bread hard lemonade and then we're like, fuck, this is selling way too well. The taproom, like the taproom people were just crushing it in salam. I think the pilot batch that we did, 300 liters, was like gone in a week.
00:54:40
Speaker
yeah And everybody, it was weird because it's bright pink. You could see it from the brew deck. Everybody was drinking. was like, what the hell is going on? Sure.
00:54:50
Speaker
Yeah, nice. um Well, we've talked a lot about, I guess, the brewery and the liquid, but behind the scenes, there's been a lot lot of work going on from the very early days all the way through to make the brewery the most efficient and, guess, sort of green and and carbon neutral as it can be. Do you want to tell us about where that came from and, i guess this I guess, the steps you've taken over the years to get B Corp, to get, you know, carbon the carbon active, whatever it was, the accreditation?
00:55:13
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, no
Sustainability and Innovation at Capital Brewery
00:55:14
Speaker
worries. Yeah, I guess it sort of stems from... Tom and I are both really keen surfers and long distance runners and, you know, into all kinds of different outdoor activities.
00:55:28
Speaker
Where from that being like, really important to us personally you can't engage in those activities when the environment is super hostile and um climate change has really taken hold and you know we both have children we're children and we're sort of handing over it potential problem to the next generation and the generation beyond that and we just feel like you can run a business for profit but not be irresponsible about it we think about it less about um
00:56:00
Speaker
sustainability and more are around responsibility um just like operating as responsibly as you possibly can um so we've got an internal process called environmental impact and controllable costs that is like a monitoring process that we engage in every single week on every single batch of beer that we produce um where we're very closely monitoring our inputs and outputs and our wastage um and we're really closely monitoring where we can eliminate wastage out of our process and that includes wastage that goes um into the sewer for example so we we through that process we we we sort of uncovered that well we've got all of this yeast all this waste hops and and true and you know last runnings off the of the brew house that was all going down
00:56:51
Speaker
the silicon that's all like super high nutrient great compost material so we did some research found an industrial compost facility organic compost facility nearby and did and they also happened to have an organic cattle farm and we said we'll give you all of this grain yeah you know we'll give you a thousand tons of grain to feed your cows if you take the compost material and don't charge us to take it and it can go on the same trucks.
00:57:19
Speaker
So we consolidate transport. So we're sending like in a busy period, like seven tons a week of compost material offsite rather than going down the sewer. And when something goes down the sewer, it's not just gone. Like all of that nutrient has to be anaerobically digested. And that is hugely...
00:57:36
Speaker
that from a greenhouse gas emissions point of view. Producing methane at that point. Yeah, it's producing bad shit. yeah Whereas compost is like a much more positive outcome for this product. So that's just one example of ah the many, many things that we do from that through using you know some basic stuff like biodegradable pallet wrapping. um But really wastage, you can be more sustainable and make more money at the same time.
00:58:01
Speaker
It's just investing in efficiency. um And that might be like, you know, we just spent a whole bunch of money putting in a heat exchanger ahead of our canning line. It doesn't make always great economic sense immediately. yeah But if you go, well, we're going to save 10 cases or six cases of beer a week from wastage because we've got more consistent temperature going into the filler.
00:58:24
Speaker
But at that point of wastage, particularly when the aluminium's wrapping around the liquid, you're at the highest um embodied energy of the product.
00:58:34
Speaker
And for that to again then get destroyed, you've produced the aluminium, you've mined the aluminium, you've produced the aluminium can, you've freighted it here, you've molted the barley, you've freighted it here, you've pet grown picked the hops and you've freighted it here.
00:58:48
Speaker
And then you've added all this value to that, which all requires utility. um And then you've gotten it right to the very end. and you've got low fills and they end up getting weird they just start on the ground yeah exactly go ahead the brews you know like ah a reasonable hot low fill you can the staff can probably drink yeah and that's great but like there's a lot of ones that aren't like that so and not all of its low fills either some of it's like process losses and if you invest in that area you're improving your environmental performance massively um you're reducing your waste to the sewer which is not having to be aerobically digested yeah
00:59:25
Speaker
and you're actually making more money because you've got more um finished goods going through that are saleable. I think the last one sort of key to get out as well. I think um there's a danger at a time like this where people are having to look more inwardly and going, okay, that money isn't flowing through the industry as much as it was.
00:59:43
Speaker
We really wanted to do that you know new addition to the brew house that was going to make us more efficient here, but you know what, we can't really afford it. But if it's done the right way, what you're saying is these things can actually be profitable, maybe not instantly, because that's my fear, is you kind of think, are people going to stop investing in these sort of projects because it's like, we've got to wait until we've got more money.
01:00:03
Speaker
Yeah, and that's that's totally reasonable. and And the thing that I would say to that is if you don't have the capital to invest in like things that are going to to improve your performance, um invest in some time in monitoring because once you're monitoring the data,
01:00:22
Speaker
and you've got all of that information on your operation, you know where to target that investment when the time comes. And a government grant might pop up out of nowhere. You've got the data to support an application, which is, you know, we've done that before as well.
01:00:35
Speaker
And you've got to understand that when you buy a piece of equipment to improve your performance or improve your environmental outcomes, so or your profitability that piece of equipment has an embodied energy cost to it as well yeah so what you're improving in your operation has to be greater than what the embodied energy is on the piece of equipment shipping into instead of it's made out of steel and whatever else so requires having a long-term view on operating a business you can't go oh i'm i'm here for as as short as possible to try and sell this thing to a multinational and then just sit on a beach it's like you know you've got to have a long-term mindset of it um or it helps too yeah but yeah it's yeah i think it's totally reasonable for
01:01:18
Speaker
people to wait and it's responsible for them to wait because your priority has to be surviving, providinging paying your staff and paying your staff entitlements on time and in full. If you're not doing that, you shouldn't be doing anything else because that's priority number one is staff and the priority number two is suppliers and then priority number three is all the stuff we're talking about. and would it Would it be fair to say that a lot of the stuff that's come your way in terms of accreditation, certification, whatever it might be, was kind of like, we're doing these things anyway, like this is what we're all about. And if this thing is out there, yes, it's something else to measure ourselves against, but essentially,
01:01:53
Speaker
this It wasn't, oh, we want to get this and put it on our yeah website. It's like, well, these are things we're doing anyway, and this is a way to get the story out bit further. Yeah, B Corp was a piss-in for us because it's like we were already doing all that stuff. We were already way beyond it. um so that was fine.
01:02:08
Speaker
We were like really enthusiastic about going carbon neutral, and we were the first brewery in Australia to to be certified carbon neutral. I sort of got really dubious about how... As I started looking into the carbon neutrality thing before more, I was like...
01:02:26
Speaker
just feels a bit weird and then four corners released the documentary on the carbon credits and the fact that they weren't actually being properly vetted and I thought I just assumed we're paying such a big fee to climate active and I thought oh they would be um vetting them and I got left feeling a bit ripped off and feeling a bit like stupid for doing that because we put a lot of energy um and money into it because we thought it was the right thing to be doing but when I dug into it deeper i was like they were still playing that game that the people who business is playing well yeah it's just to me nothing had been according to the four corners documentary which i trust like there was all of these carbon offsets that hadn't been adequately vetted to make sure that they were actually executing the projects that they said they executing so if you bought credits in a
01:03:17
Speaker
solar farm in Papua New Guinea that was going to benefit all these communities or a forestry project that was going to do x y and z that may never have actually happened and no one within was actually vetting that and I was like that's we can't be involved with that that's not right and so we pulled back from that and focused more internally on the NCC we made bunch of upgrades to the brew house and with the money that we would have used to offset our carbon emissions we moved in that direction and those upgrades that we made to the brew house and um the lab equipment that enabled us to improve our reduce our wastage and improve our efficiency i think has saved us tremendous amount for sure and and from from my side it's also put us in contact with people like stew from voyager where we got to go down and actually see his operation there and talk to the farmers that grow the grain
01:04:11
Speaker
So we met Chris, who's an organic farmer down there. Chris Granwood. Yeah, legend. Awesome guy. And it was eye-opening to go down there and stand on his farm. You could see the border of his farm and then the farm next to him. It wasn't an organically grown farm. and just see the huge differences. So for a lot of our specialty beers now that we're brewing, we use organic malt.
01:04:30
Speaker
um We use organic malt in our XPA and that's something that we didn't really need to do in before we were using organic malt, we were using malt that was imported from the UK. So we're transporting that all the way out here, which is leaving us with a huge carbon footprint.
01:04:43
Speaker
And now we have this great product that's made you know four or five hours down the road by a farmer that's really passionate about what he does. And I didn't really understand that much but until I went down there and I stood on the farm and I looked around I was like, wow, this is actually real. You know you can see yeah everything that's going around there environmentally at his organic farm and then look across the way at a farm that's not organic and it's just kind of like barren and you know sad and you know felt very like... a like I don't know, you could just tell the difference between both of them. And it was pretty impactful for me to be there on the ground floor and see it. It's kind of changed the way I've thought about what ingredients are going into beers. like
01:05:17
Speaker
yeah We have great products here that we can use, why not use them? That's a really good point that Wade makes. I think the biggest thing that we've had come out of our B Corp certification that we weren't doing was managing our supply chain more effectively.
01:05:29
Speaker
And we Dan Waters, who was with us, absolute legend, um got our B Corp certification across the line but part of that was an environmental management plan and Dan really ah went through our supply chain in great detail and with Wade and Nick Gibson our supply chain manager and one of the things that we realised was that we weren't getting our malt and to some extent our hops from the best possible sources from a carbon point of view which we hadn't even actually thought about that much.
01:05:59
Speaker
So we've set a goal in our environmental management plan under our B Corp certification to have 20% of our malt being organic and regeneratively farmed. And we've gotten that across the line. But you can imagine when you're using thousands of tonnes of malt, you know, any slight fluctuations in a cost per kilo or a cost per tonne.
01:06:17
Speaker
it amplifies pretty quickly so in terms of who it's sort of for you know talked before it's it's the right thing to do because you have you have children and everything like that but is it a message you try to get to customers as well and beer drinkers or is it more about the team you know i look at wade here being so passionate about it now and i'm not sure if you were five years ago wade like that's fair like is it more for so people you know feel invested in capital and that kind of thing or do you want canberra locals to get that buzz too hard man like some people are really into it but we're completely aware that when it comes to consumers choosing a product there's this massive intention action gap between i want to support a more environmentally friendly product but it costs a little bit more like the the research shows that a lot of times nine times out of ten consumers will go based on
01:07:06
Speaker
you know convenience or price or and you know they may have intentions to do one thing but do another so we do promote it a bit but it's not like the cornerstone of what we're about <unk> i think it's great for like our team feel really engaged and it's great for attracting and retaining really good people um and we don't that's why we do it is's it's for us and it's so that at the end of this journey when i retire um I can look back and go, oh, we did it in a more responsible way. Then, you know, maybe you could. um Yeah. So I don't know, man. I think there's probably- I think you got to do it because you care, first of all. And then if you could market that as well, great. But like you can always tell when something's like been done just to market it, you know?
01:07:52
Speaker
Like, oh, this is so sustainable. This is so green. Look at what we're doing. Yay. Like where for us, like every beer that we're brewing out of our pilot system, we're using some organic malt nine times out of 10. And that's nothing that we really you know tell people, but it's just something that we like to do because we can.
01:08:08
Speaker
And it's really good ingredients, like the products are awesome. So I think you know you do it because you care about it, and when you start talking to other people, I think everyone else cares about it, but there is also like a stigma that, okay, you know if this does say organic on it, so it costs me more,
01:08:24
Speaker
or it's like this hippie bullshit you know like so you got to kind of like toe that line you know you got to do it just because we want to do it and then the people that care yeah we're here to tell them yeah we did that and and we're gonna continue to be sustainable but like we're not gonna like just be out there shoving it down your throat We've got this interesting way now of like we've got a big Gen Z workforce in the taproom, right? And one thing that we picked up recently was that there was more tap beer wastage going on than would have been ideal. Like it wasn't drinks getting given away, that doesn't happen, but was more like a little bit of beer going down the drain that didn't necessarily have to at the start or the end of a pour.
01:09:01
Speaker
and so we measured the wastage going into the drip tray and we said guys this equates to this many kilowatt hours of electricity this much chemical this much water cleaning chemical this much water and and roughly this many tons of carbon emissions per year if we can pull that back by x amount this is what we're going to save environmentally they don't they're not motivated by the economics of, oh, we're saving this much dollars a beer a year. That's a motivation for us.
01:09:31
Speaker
The environmental side of it's a motivation for us as well. But having that information means you can engage with your team on metrics that actually matter to them and matter to everyone because, like I'm as equally impacted by climate change as 19 year old uni student that's in our tap room pouring beer. You know what i mean? I think you're going to say if you save this amount you can have that much in cans to take over at the end of the week.
01:09:53
Speaker
That would maybe appeal more to us gently when we were that age. No, what we did was we took the drip tray, waste it into a bucket and we canned up. Yeah, we canned That's great. I think every every brewer, distiller, whatever needs to go and spend some time with Stuart and then go out and have that moment where Chris Greenwood sticks his massive hands into the ground and picks up his lump of soil and tells you how many microorganisms are living in there, how how important it is. like You see the real passion, epiphany kind of stuff when you get out there and spend time with them.
01:10:25
Speaker
yeah have Yeah, we might wrap up a little soon, but I mean, what what does the future sort of look like for Capital? um The future for us, I don't know. I guess we're just doing what we're doing. Just keep killing yeah Yeah, just keep killing it, man. No, look, we're really excited. It's been a tough couple of years for the industry and we are seeing very strong signs that things are improving dramatically.
01:10:51
Speaker
um Like we've been fine. We've been pumped along well. We acquired Battle Cider last year. and That was really exciting. And we've been enjoying making that here and our sales team's been enjoying having that. um to To provide to our customers say we'll be focusing on always focusing on beer focusing on battle of cider We're feeling really optimistic that the market's improving pretty quickly particularly as interest rates are getting cut so we're just excited to be like releasing new beers and Back into growing again rather than just being protectionists. Yeah, it's really nice.
01:11:23
Speaker
Yeah I know you sort of skipped over this, but it does tie into Voyager and again with sort of the the outside of brewing. Now, I understand, assume I've approached you bit better take into the stage during Grainstock. you tell us a little bit about your other life in music? ah Yeah.
01:11:40
Speaker
Well, I was lucky. Like, I've always been a metalhead and, you know, punk, hardcore. And my dad is a really good guitar player. So he taught me how to play bass guitar at a very young age. So i think I was 16 when I started my first punk band. And by the time I was 19, I was able to tour Europe in a hardcore band. It was a straight edge hardcore band, which is very ironic now. i'm ah a functioning alcoholic um uh so yeah i got to tour around europe in the us for heaps from the ages of 19 till about you know 24 25 till when i moved out here and then i was lucky enough to play with some guys out here as well i'm not currently playing any music but i am usually blasting metal super loud in the tap room much to everyone's annoyance in the morning um
01:12:26
Speaker
But yeah, I've always loved music and I think music is part of the reason why I ended up here in Australia to begin with. It kind of ignited my passion for traveling and meeting new people and and seeing new things. And that was because I got to tour around at a young age. and Yeah, so if anyone does a good drummer here in Canberra, I got low fills and heaps of riffs ready to go. Yeah, and Lawrence promised that we'd have a metal night here eventually, so you know, it's gotta happen. Still running the sums on it. Yeah, yeah, ah yeah. Do you have any musical talent on this side or were you more behind the scenes running the festivals?
01:13:00
Speaker
Well, in the festivals, I was behind the scenes more in operations, but I come from a musical family. Yeah, my dad's a professional musician. My mum and my dad actually met because my dad was a good guitar her guitar teacher oh my in Yeah. So. Lawrence plays pretty good guitarist. I kind of can play guitar.
01:13:17
Speaker
But I'm not like, I don't play in a band. I'm not Wade's level. yeah go until I dabble. a we yeah And are you still involved in the Rap Patrol after I ask? Because you mentioned Dan before. you Were you and Dan like founding members of the, did people know what the Rap Patrol was? This sort of crazy bike. Crazy bikes running together. So yeah, look.
01:13:37
Speaker
Rap Patrol is an interesting one. Like it was mainly Dan and Nick that were the ringleaders.
Personal Stories and Lifestyle Changes
01:13:41
Speaker
And i actually met Dan and Nick because they used to bring their crazy bikes to a bar that Tom and I worked in in Dickson like over 20 years ago.
01:13:49
Speaker
And I became mates with them through that. i built a bike. I got ordained as a Rap Patrol member and named. I'm a patched member. um But honestly, I haven't been an active member of as active a member of rat patrol in the last 10 years as I've never liked Oh three say crazy bikes we're talking like two-story bikes yeah yeah it's just like running running this having kids and and also like all of the training that I'm doing for um for ultra marathoning is just takes a lot of time and so riding around and getting drunk on bikes they're kind of risky aren't they so even if you weren't getting drunk on those bikes i reckon there's a high risk of injury yeah it's pretty exactly yeah and it's just you know it's as you get older and more boring like you know you lose time for that stuff which is a shame but yeah i was an early member of rap patrol not a founding member okay yeah great well yeah thank you so much for joining us guys yeah yeah awesome cheers cheers thanks
01:14:52
Speaker
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Midland Insurance for Breweries
01:14:59
Speaker
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Speaker
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01:15:25
Speaker
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Crafty Pint Podcast and Community Engagement
01:15:37
Speaker
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01:15:37
Speaker
three zero six five seven one The Crafty Pint podcast is produced and edited by Matt Hoffman. You can get all your beer-related news and reviews on the Crafty Pint website, craftypint.com, and can stay up to date on future podcast episodes via our socials.
01:15:55
Speaker
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01:16:11
Speaker
And if you're a beer lover who'd like to support what we do, you can join our exclusive club for beer lovers, The Crafty Cabal. Visit craftycabal.com for more. And until next time, drink good beer.