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Everything Indie, All The Time.
601 Plays1 month ago
Terms like “legend”, “iconic” and “trailblazer” get bandied around a lot, probably rather more than they should. Yet we doubt there would be anyone in the Australian beer industry who would quibble if we applied any – or all – of them to Jade Flavell and The Wheaty, the Thebarton pub she’s been running for more than two decades.
We sat down with Jade to reflect on her time in hospitality, and her passion for good beer (and whisky), “thinking drinking”, and celebrating independence.
That we joined her in the band room at the rear of the pub was highly appropriate too: the discussion of independence covered more than beer and hospo and took in the huge challenges facing independent music venues in the face of their own version of the multinational brewing and booze retail behemoths.
The conversation stretches back to Jade’s early days in Adelaide pubs, alongside the two mates with whom she’d take over Wheatsheaf Hotel – Trotty and Liz, and examines how drinking culture has come a fair way in the decades since yet still has distance left to run. Jade takes us through the transition from rundown, rotting pub to groundbreaking beer venue then award-winning brewpub, and to becoming The Wheaty’s “benevolent dictator” following Trotty’s passing and Liz’s decision to leave the business.
And she tells us about her intention, as guardian of the pub, to find a way to ensure it remains a home for great drinks and live music when the time comes to pass the baton.
Prior to the chat with Jade, and rather contrary to those discussions of independence, we kick off the show talking about the recent departure from Balter of Scotty Hargrave, head brewer and a founding member, five years after the sale to CUB, as well as the new brewery for students at Bendigo TAFE.
This week also sees us announce the first winners in our “Have You Done A Rallings?” campaign to highlight good beer citizens across Australia, and launch another campaign celebrating the country’s brewers. Brewery of the Month is presented by Bluestone Yeast, and you can find out more – and nominate your favourite breweries – via the link below.
Start of segments:
- 8:58 – Jade Flavell Part 1
- 35:29 – Have You Done A Rallings?
- 40:21 – Jade Flavell Part 2
Relevant links:
- The Wheaty
- Crafty's Advent Calendar – Wheaty Jade
- Keeping Live Music Alive
- Scotty Leaves Balter
- Bendigo's New Brewery
- Bluestone Yeast Brewery of the Month
- Have You Done A Rallings?
To find out more about supporting the show or otherwise partnering with The Crafty Pint, contact craig@craftypint.com.
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Transcript
Welcome and Introduction
00:00:05
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Crafty Pint podcast. I'm Will. I'm James and yeah, welcome back to show number 32. We're racking them up Will. Yes. And back on the road this week for one of the interviews you recorded late last year in South Australia.
Scotty Hargrave's Journey and Boulter's Changes
00:00:21
Speaker
um Before we get to that though, um look back at i guess the more recent news we've covered, including a big interview that you put together last week.
00:00:28
Speaker
Yeah, so Scotty Hargrave leaving Boulter. Always a pleasure to chat with Scotty about anything. Could chat to him about music for hours. but yeah he's um So it's been five years a little over five years since the sale to CUB slash ABI, which then but the owner became Asahi. Sorry that gets a bit complicated but um so a number of staff have stepped away, a number of founders as well are less active in it because of the terms of the five-year contract and Scotty decided it was also time for him to move on. And drink margaritas in his pool. He did mention that several times at the conversation but yeah it was a really good chance to kind of reflect on the experience for him at at the 10 years sort of experience of what he enjoyed about it. As anyone who sort of followed Bolter closely over the last year or two will know that Scotty's been on the road a lot, making very delicious beers with some of the best brewers in the world who he's fortunate enough to count as his good mates. So yeah, I thought it was a really great chance and conversation to have with him. Yeah, yeah for sure. The the concrete has done good. yeah Yeah, it's amazing. We didn't even get into that. I was like, let's just stick with the Bolter story.
00:01:41
Speaker
We'll have to get him on the podcast at some point, maybe once he's revealed what he's going to do next, which I do genuinely believe won't be much for a while. It sounds like he's pretty keen on oh chilling out for a long time. And he's always said and he said in that interview as well that he is a bit of a control freak and sort of.
00:01:56
Speaker
has to always sort of do things to the absolute, you know, the way he wants doing it. So I'd imagine it's been a fairly intense, well, pretty much 10 years at Boulter and, you know, let alone the the five years of, you know, I guess, adjusting the business to work within the framework of a
Brewing Education at Bendigo TAFE
00:02:11
Speaker
multinational. But, um you know, it's it's a good read. um I was very happy with that one, Will, when it landed in my inbox for for proofing. um And I guess looking to the next generation of brewers, another piece around this week, which I guess we've been sort of doing some, um I guess, some support for Bendigo Tafekanga Institute about driving people to their courses for a while. But something has changed a little bit this year. Yeah, so they've installed a brewery so students can now use it. ah it's It's sort of set up like any professional brewery would be, tiny system, 200 litre, but they've even got a canning line in there so they can
00:02:47
Speaker
ah package the beers, test it after packaging, all that kind of stuff. So it's um really about opening up the flexibility. It's not the first of its kind in the country. BrewLab in Queensland has been doing it for a number of years and the universities have their brew kits as well, but I thought it was a good chance to talk about how they sort of are running the course so that It fits around people's busy lives and schedules obviously brewing something a lot of people come too late so it's it's good to be able to train while also keeping your career before you change your career potentially. yeah And with them Shiv, yes there's a pathologist leading the way so.
Celebrating Breweries and Personal Picks
00:03:21
Speaker
that's pretty cool um and i guess you know maintaining the brewer brewer brewery theme um this week we're launching ah another new campaign i guess celebrating the best of the beer world so it's the bluestone yeast brewery of the month um which people will be able to make their nominations i guess for any brewery Could be their local, could be one they love visiting, could be big, could be small. Australian, obviously. And so just jump on the website craftypint.com slash bluestone, B-L-U-E-S-T-O-N-E, and there'll be a short nomination form there. um Yeah, just wanna, once a month, if you wanna shout out, I guess, you know, brewers doing great things around the country, so it might be someone who works with brewery nominating, you know, the favourite brewery someone's industry, or it could just be a beer lover who just wants to give a shout out to their favourite local.
00:04:08
Speaker
Yeah, and to get people thinking about it, I've come in with a brewery of the month of my own. I've been to this brewery many times this month, Bridge Road in Brunswick East, their their Melbourne venue.
00:04:19
Speaker
Except for the airport, of course, which I've been recently. um I've been seeing a lot of movies recently and they're right near the new cinema near me as well. So it's got a really good cinema FOMO free shout out there. So they've been, um I've been calling in a lot and really enjoying everything they do really, but particularly there's a pizza there that I love. ah a broccoli pizza called Broccolo Picante. I think I'm saying that right. So that's why they're my brewery of the month. It's, it's for me, I had that pizza. I was like, that is so good. They do food there really well. A lot of breweries obviously do pizza, but they've got a different spin on it, particularly in their Brontogies venue. And they've got a lot of other food as well. So yeah, maybe when you're thinking about your own brewery of the month, you could think about some of the, how they do food or anything like that, then and how that makes you really want to go there.
Interview with Jade from the Wheatie
00:05:07
Speaker
um Well, I guess that's you a nice segue into our main guest this week as well, because the Wheatie, obviously now a brewery, the Wheatie Brewing Corps makes great beers, award-winning beers. um They've expanded over the years. They have an Oakfurter, which Bridge Road have up in Beechwood. And they love using it together as well. Whenever Ben from Bridge Road goes to bre The weighty, that's often the focus. yeah But I think also that venue before and after it's been a brewery has also celebrated live music, independence, whisky, great wine, good hospitality. you know So you know there's many different elements, you might want to nominate that.
00:05:46
Speaker
I'm very full and we had to catch up with jade one of the founders who's now i guess the. I'm benevolent. So for a number of years i'm gonna catch up with her for christmas i again is a bit like um i guess the chat with my son we put a good sat down there and go okay jade.
00:06:03
Speaker
Off yeah just then i just say you See you later. But it was great. And it wasn't just a chat about the history of... It even went back, I guess, before yeah the time of the wheaty. Her first jobs in in beer, in in pubs, sort reflecting on how that's really changed over the time of Adelaide. I guess, you know, her real fondness for good beer from the early days and them for good whisky and for independence. like I guess independence is probably the main Thread throughout throughout every chat about we talk a lot about live music and how live music venues are Independent live music venues are even more under threat potentially than small breweries and the same issues with beer It's you know, it's the duopolies Pushing everyone else and getting vertical integration, but also, you know just talks about you know a lot about the collaboration She's done with with brewers the world over her thoughts on you know, the the future and what needs to happen for beer Yes, um, yeah, it's pretty great
00:06:54
Speaker
Yeah, it's a great chat. It's definitely one of the longer episodes. Well, it would be the longest we've done. Back to back. So don't expect we haven't changed the runtime of the show. we We do expect them to maybe be a bit shorter. But when you have guests like Jade and Mazadon, you really um you really do want to get everything you can from them. So yes, that's up after the break. A bit of a shout out for our beer club, the Crafty Cabal as well. We've got another great new deal and going up in but in bri Brisbane. We've had a listing to the website recently, as we mentioned last week, for my beer deal, like the new, effectively the new sort of brewski venue in Fort Jude Valley, albert Alfred Street, Bar and Bodolo.
00:07:32
Speaker
members can go in there and get two for one and schooners every week which is pretty cool um and also we've got a big giveaway going for other Brisbane Brewery, Revel Brewing, you can win some cases of their beer at the minute so jump on craftycabal.com or the Crafty pint app to check that out.
00:07:47
Speaker
um And then I guess the only other thing we've got in today's show, the main thing would be we've got the first winners in our have you done a rallies campaign to promote good beer citizens from around Australia. Yes. um So that'll come up in the middle in the sort of in the break between the main interview with Jade. Yeah. And you'll be chatting with Craig in that one. I will be chatting with Craig in that one as well. Just so people remember who's who. Great. Well, um let's get into the episode. We'll keep this brief because it's a long chat, but really enjoy it. And if you do, make sure you like and subscribe. Cheers.
00:08:17
Speaker
Cheers.
00:08:24
Speaker
Calling all brewers, entries are now open for the 2025 Melbourne Royal Australian International Beer Awards. This is your opportunity to showcase your craft, compete on an international stage and receive invaluable feedback from an esteemed panel of Australian and international beer judges at the world's largest annual beer competition.
00:08:45
Speaker
To find out more and submit your entries head to Melbourneroyal.com.au Don't miss out, entries close Friday 7th of March.
00:09:00
Speaker
Jade, welcome to the podcast. Thank you very much. Lovely to be here. So um we're we're going to cover a lot of ground for with this. we We can tell you've obviously had a very long career in the beer industry, but we wanted to start with going back to the early days of the weedy and and when you took it over and and kind of what you but you saw in the place.
00:09:18
Speaker
sure So yeah it's almost almost 22 years to the day, actually, that we got the keys to the Weedy. So it was ah January 2003 that we picked up the keys. And at that point, probably best described as, you know, affectionately regarded shambles. So it was very rundown. Non-Pokey Pub, which in Adelaide at the time was rare, sadly still is quite rare. um So Non-Pokey Pub was a live music venue, but had it was kind of existed in a parallel universe, was not subject to any kind of regulation inspection or, you know, and many punters coming through the doors either. um So it was yeah very run down. The only phone on the premises was a blue phone. So it was literally a pay phone. And the public and at the time our predecessor ah conducted all his business such as it was through that pay phone. It was ah bolted fairly securely onto the wall. I think it was the most securely fastened thing in our premises because it was ripped off the wall about once or twice a week and someone would hot foot it up Albert Street with the
00:10:13
Speaker
30 cents that was in there from the pay phone. So very, very rundown. ah First day went down into the cellar. um It was a fairly mild day like today, sort of, you know, low 20s thinking, oh, we'll just see what, you know, what we've got here. There were two taps ah pouring West End Draft and Cooper's Pail. And you could pick the locals because they'd never, they'd never drank anything off tap because it was literally un-poorable. You'd pour three or four jugs to get a schooner. There was a glass-runted fridge with stubbies.
00:10:41
Speaker
And, you know, regulars would always would always ah yeah often help themselves to those because the public couldn't necessarily be found. ah So they'd help themselves to ah a stubby, have a couple, leave the money on the bar and walk out without seeing him. um As I said, quite a character. Went down the cellar first day and mild day and it was 45 degrees down there. So there was a great big compressor driving refrigeration. um they Our predecessor had thought about putting a ah you refrigerated cold room downstairs, so he actually put the refrigeration panels up and then ah lost interest and that was it. So it was actually worse than not having the insulation panels up because it retained its heat. So it was basically sitting there, you know, the beer was broiling in the lines. It was pretty much unborrable. So one of the first things obviously we had to do before we opened, you know, and we closed for, um you know, three and a half months just to to renovate. So myself, Trotty and Liz, three of us who'd met working at the Exeter Hotel in Rondel Street, which is another non-pokey pub owned by pokey pub people, but a non-pokey pub. We cut our, cut our hospital teeth there, pub teeth there, um and
00:11:45
Speaker
you know, worked there during the 90s when it was, you know, pretty rough and ready and, you know, good live music scene. It's quite a famous pub. It is, yeah. I mean, it's it's it's a classic pub. it's a Again, kind of, you know, it's one of those pubs that, you know, I don't want to call it indie washing, but it's kind of pokey, you know, no pokey washing in a sense. So a lot of, not a lot, but there are several, you know, non-pokey pubs that are owned by pokey groups, which, you know, for me kind of cancels out, which is a bit of a shame.
00:12:11
Speaker
um And ah you know the the public and I worked under the bins. He owned another pub with his brother with pokies. um Now it's part of a group with pokie pubs, which of which is sad, because as a pub, it's it's you know it's a great pub. It's close close to the uni, behind the hospital, et cetera, et cetera. And East Endoram Street you know has has had a lot of stuff happen to it the last lost couple of decades, three decades that I've sort of been involved, but um yeah, still a classic pub. um But, you know, not, and it was Coopers, you know, basically that was was only Coopers on top of the time. I think they've got a few other things now. Always a very good wine list. So, you know, we're spoilt for choice when it comes to wineries and essay.
00:12:50
Speaker
Always a very good wine list there. um I taught myself how to, you know, appreciate or at least, you know, enjoy malt whisky, working at at the X. I like the idea of a malt whisky, but I didn't like it. And then it's like, no, a knockoff. And I trained. It was training. Like it was a conscious thing. It was like, right.
00:13:06
Speaker
I'm going to get a Taliska. Taliska 10 was a very, very, very straightforward, like four malts, all very good ones. Taliska 10, every night knockoff, have it with a dash of dry. It was like then less dry, then soda, then less soda, then Nate, and then got to the point where I could only drink at Nate. It was like, good, I've developed an addiction. But we met there and then Nick was selling. I wasn't going to work for anyone else. Was that your first role in hospital as well? Second pub, first pub was the director's hotel in Gouda Street. That was kind of like everyone's first hospital job. It was pretty dodge.
00:13:44
Speaker
and ah you know i it was I actually ended up Ended up going there after um I was actually training next door, just doing some Wing Chun, and there was a pub next door, we'd go to knockoffs, and it's like, actually, yeah i could i you know I was 18, so about to 19, I need a job, I can pour some beers, and it was a good bar bartender there, the bar manager there, um was great. ah He was about the only great thing about that place, the the odor was was super Dodge.
00:14:13
Speaker
Um, still chasing super from that one. He, uh, you know, we, we get, we get, um, we get reports, you know, it was like, yeah, this, you know, it was taken out it and it was just, it disappeared. He was an ex Olympian, ex, uh, uh, uh, water polo player, which is fairly obscure. Um, haven't made millions off it. I'd imagine.
00:14:30
Speaker
Uh, no, but you know, there's something about sports people who just automatically think they can run a pub, you know, and, and, and, you know, he was one of, he was very much one of those. I had a handful of pokies, um, which I, you know, I, I mean, I never liked them. And after that, I just like, that can't be near these things but that would have helped color ever again. you wanted from you Yeah, I pretty much knew. I mean, you know this fellow, was you know is it as I said, you know did did pretty much nothing by the book. And it was the day that he asked me to ah to to work upstairs. and I said, what do you mean by that? He said, oh, we've got some some japanese you know some Japanese businessmen who are, I'm not cool. Well, I can work the bar up there. He's like, no, no, no, I just want you to talk to them. I said, no, no, I can work the bar, but I'm not talking to anyone. What are you talking about? And he wouldn't say it. And I'm like, no, you can't say it it's not going to happen. you know
00:15:17
Speaker
See you later. So, you know, we we it didn't last. um And it was in anyone everyone's interest, I think, that they didn't go upstairs because it not not have ended well for them. um So I left there, went to the ex um and was there for most of the 90s and then met Liz and Trotty. And then we're like, we the non-pokey thing is essential for us. um Live music menu was also essential, original live music.
00:15:38
Speaker
um and beer was was my thing so you know I was at uni enjoying the home brew club um you know grew up drinking sort of Cooper's stout and you know grandpa's West End draft and Sullick bitter. So there had been there right from the start like you were instantly drawn to beer. Whatever beer you could get that wasn't What everyone else is drinking. Yeah. I mean, you know, you know, grandpa's, you know, something better always, you know, really kind of intrigued me, you know, it was a bit bit bit too much at the time. But then I thought, no, this is something in this, you know, I'm going to persevere. And my folks love South. So they were they were, you know, stout, stout drinkers. They weren't big beer drinkers, but they loved stout.
00:16:16
Speaker
And well, isn't Trotty into beer as much as you were or were you the one driving that side of things? Not as much. Liz, definitely more wine. I mean, Trotty come from wine family. And so she very much grew up with wine. Trotty drank widely. So, you know, there wasn't too much quality booze that she didn't like. And a crisp lager was Trotty's, you know, beer choice. But the key word there is quality. At least it was quality booze. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, only one way to find out. But no, very, very much. Yeah, crisp, crisp lager and beer was, you know, beer was my thing.
00:16:45
Speaker
Homebrew club at you know Flinders Uni um Ended up spending a lot more time as many people do in the tavern Flinders Tavern and and home brewing then you know my law degree um And then worked at the exit of pay my way through Uni and then ended up you know enjoying hospital a lot more than ah my law degree and so law school dropout, um but when ah ah Nick was selling the exits like well, we didn't want to work for anyone else there because we were pretty much running it at the time anyway um and then Basically made a pitch for the Exeter which we were thankfully unsuccessful for I mean we were pretty young in the whole other thing so
00:17:25
Speaker
Pretty ambitious. I mean, I was just 29 years old, or I reckon. Yeah. And it was very busy. it I mean, we could have run it without doubt. yeah um But it was pretty serious um risk and, you know, financial risk. And we were seen as a financial risk because we we're, you know, effectively green around the ears.
00:17:41
Speaker
um And there we're obviously no match for poke money. So um and ah again, I think we dodged a bullet. We would have retired by now, you know, the places is a goldmine, but there were already there were forces down that street that wasn't really that interested. And so when I started there, you know, we'd have security Friday, Saturday sunday nights and occasionally have something to do. By the time I finished, you know, sort of nine years later, we had security every night. They were busy every night, just the yeah A lot more agro, a lot more violence, um a lot more, ah sent you know, just meaningless violence like there would, a lot of people would come to the city to the east end to, you know, cause a bit of trouble and ah early days it was, you know, a couple of man babies, a bit of bifo, but there was some kind of honor in it.
00:18:22
Speaker
um And then towards the end, it was like two or three people onto one, and then it was two or three people onto one and actually hurting them, not just, you know, it was like stomping and knives. And I'm like, did you talk for this shit? You know, I i don't want this. and you And you could resist that to a degree, but there were, you know, it was just, I didn't want to be in the city anymore. So, it was so so much for the city of churches, honestly. well yeah I think very perfectly the same churches, do you know, that' that's what it's about, isn't it? um So ah it's it's just it's just all under the surface. um But so that that was an ah element to it, you know, and it's like, no, actually, we want something that we can um we can mould a lot more, you know, so better to have an affectionately regarded shambles. um
00:19:04
Speaker
than something that already had a quite a, you know, personality, and you know, we could have guided it, but there's only so much we could have done. yeah um And certainly, you know, could have introduced, um you know, some good beer and something other than Koopas into that environment. And I note that they kind of have now a bit, um but it different different kind of, you know, different kind of setup, different kind of vibe. And it would only ever have been a leasehold, for example. So, yeah um and Yeah, a tricky landlord by all accounts. So we affectionately regarded shambles, but suited us perfectly in that regard. When it came to talking to banks about borrowing money to buy the leasehold, it was regarded as having negative goodwill. It was worse than a startup. It was like, no, no, no, you're actually worse than zero. Negative good will. No one's ever going to go inside there. Correct. It's driving people. It's actively driving people away. And so we couldn't get money. The conventional wisdom was very much at the time, so this is early 2000s, that Adelaide can't support another non-pokey park. It already had half a dozen. That's all it can support.
00:20:12
Speaker
um We knew that wasn't the case, but i obviously couldn't convince a bank of that. So negative goodwill, we had to effectively pretend, you know, we were going on holidays and buying cars and take out personal loans to buy the leasehold for a pub. Because it would lend us, you know, lend us money to go gone on holiday, not to buy the leasehold of a pub. and So I did that, i got the keys, beginning of 2003, closed for months, three, four months.
00:20:36
Speaker
and just re renovated. It was old school kind of working parties and, you know, every every day, 16. And aside from the state to the seller, like, what was the recipe like? and um I guess what was Debaton like? Was it ready for what you had in mind? Well, you know, it was it was going to have to be, I suppose, you know, it was kind of, you know, very much a builder and and they will come. I mean, to be fair, the weedy was always always had a good heart. Like it was always a community pub. And it would have been the easiest thing in the world. Our predecessor, Brownie, because he was in financial strife, to just put pokies in. you know Rip out the banner and put pokies in, and he would have been sorted, particularly because Theberton was was a lot more a lot more working class than, quite frankly, light industrial. We're zoned light industrial, so a lot of light lot of light industry. There needs to be a lot of heavy industry here, smelters and so on.
00:21:23
Speaker
We can't grow, we can't eat veggies we grow in our own in our own garden, for example, like it's it's contaminated soil. So they had to replace the soil in our neighbours, you know, three or four times over. So yeah, pretty pretty rough and ready sort of, you know, industrial slash working class neighbourhood.
00:21:39
Speaker
Um, and a lot of post-war migrants here. So re up like fantastic. I love that. It was a great place to live, but a bit, you know, a bit rough around the edges, certainly, you know, 20 years ago. Um, and, uh, but it would have been the easiest thing for Brownie to put poker machines in and he didn't cause he hated them and he saw them as antisocial. Um, and you know, the opposite of what a pub should be about, which is, is exactly what I think about them. Um, and, uh, it would have been the easiest thing for his parents who owned the freehold.
00:22:06
Speaker
to have just sold it to the site to developers, because it was worth nothing as a pub, or less than nothing as a pub. They'd pay you to take it. But they loved the place and wanted it to make to remain a pub. So it was very much, it was known as a country pub in the city, and it was, you know we bought it on a handshake, which was you know not advisable at all, and not didn you know not something I'd recommend, but but it was literally, you know Brownies Financials were on the back of a napkin, literally.
00:22:33
Speaker
oh I think it was about this and I think it was about that and I gave that to our accountant so like that's that doesn't really meet the minimum criteria I'm like that's all we're gonna get you know it's all we're gonna get um and same with with you know Bob and Joy it was very much a handshake and like um which was which was a amazing you know so they they trusted us we moved in and then spent three four months you know ripping the place apart and kind of putting it back together as as as best we could um effectively on a handshake and then you know it's obviously a lifetime's worth of work and there's another 20, 30, 40 years to go. But it always i had you know good heart and good good bones. But out in the back here, for example, in the band room ah was absolute shambles. It was covered in brush fencing. So homemade brush fencing on the walls and the ceiling. There was home there were homemade bar heaters on the ceiling.
00:23:21
Speaker
When we pulled it down, there were desiccated rats and and birds in there, like so much dust. It was about to go up any second. It's amazing that it hadn't. There was a bar, like you could see the outline of the bar here. It was a just a little dry bar set up and it was you know one of my jobs for for one of the days.
00:23:44
Speaker
that were here was to dismantle the bar and I just hammer one, two, kicked it, and then I fell apart. And they were using that up until they closed. And just fell into dust as well. You switched it away. yeah that That's it. But underneath that yeah was some original stained glass. So they knocked out, um you know, the 80s had a lot to answer for in terms of, you know, picking up a beautiful old pub. And so a lot of the original stained glass was ripped out and they put those ah ineffective extraction fans.
00:24:10
Speaker
in the stained glass and we found two piles of of of stained glass had been taken out and the bar and the lounge windows in the front bar effectively those put back together so that you know some pretty amazing finds like that you know a bit of treasure which was which was magic. How many skips?
00:24:28
Speaker
Oh, I lost count. How many skips, how many trips to Bunnings? Luckily, there's one just around the corner because it was like three or four times a day. um The beautiful old fridge behind the bar, so it's Tassie Oakes, South Australian made. We used to make fridges just around the corner um in SA. And I've always been obsessed with those beautiful old wooden bar fridges. And there was what we got here it was just glass and stainless. And it's like, no, we need ah an old fridge. So I bought that at auction um and brought it I'd measured it up. It's like, yeah, it's going to fit there. No worries. We we bought it in. It's about 400 kilos.
00:25:01
Speaker
ah tried to get it through, the door wouldn't fit, it took the door surround off, wouldn't fit. We're only like 10 mil out, like so small. It's like, I'm sure we can make it fit. Like we just couldn't get it through that door. So like, okay, we'll just move it into the front bar and we'll wait till we run, it you know, pull the rest of it apart and then we'll move it in. And as we're moving it through the front door,
00:25:20
Speaker
ah next to the pool table the whole thing nearly went straight into the cellar because it turns out there was lino and pig bristle squares all over the floor um that that was the only thing holding the floor up in the front bar over the highest traffic area and we could literally see the cellar you know underneath so thankfully it didn't fall down there and we wheeled it into the corner of the pub it sat there for three months and then we were a few white white weeks away from opening and all that how Are we going to get this in? So I just take the end of the bar off and then move it over the floorboards, which I had flipped and stripped by hand and put back. Hope they held. And then old school, we just got a couple of metal pipes, put it, cause we got the cellar trap door behind the bar as well. So it could have, you know, various opportunities to fall into the cellar.
00:26:02
Speaker
um and then put the, you know, metal pipes, rolled it over and it fit within 20 mils. Like it is never leaving. It is never leaving. um And in fact, this morning we had an old fella come and replace all the seals on it. So it's now part of our refrigeration system. We've done quite a bit of work on it. It's the most expensive old bar fridge in the world. um But a fellow who came to work on it, he's close to retirement, he used to build them ah for his apprenticeship.
00:26:28
Speaker
So it's it's kind of cool. like And that's a dying skill in the dying art. And he loves those things as well. So yes, very run down, um sort of parallel universe that it that that it existed in. um And, you know, I kind of, we we liked that, you know, black slate. So the first thing we did was, you know, obviously replace all of the beer dispensing equipment, put a refrigerated cold room downstairs. I think we, so we ended up um when we opened running with maybe six taps, I think. So we went from two to six. What was the opening day tap lineup? Yeah.
00:26:57
Speaker
without stretching the memory, but there definitely would have been a bit of Cooper's on tap. So it would have been, I think, Cooper's sparkling stout and pale and draft. We got James Squire Porter. That was my mission to get that beer. It was a lovely beer and I think it was one of the more interesting darks. So James Squire Porter and I reckon we may have had the amber as well. And then followed shortly by Little Creatures. So again, we're one of the first fennies outside Fremantle to have little creatures on tap. And when we were cranking for quite a few years with creatures, we'd have the pale rogers and Little Creatures peels and it was our house.
00:27:35
Speaker
lager. And that was pretty controversial. You know, Preacher's Pail was pretty controversial. ah But we were app palate a week a pallet of kegs a week across the Nullarborn. And that was the, Rogers was the, you know, the midi house lager and then the pail. I think the pail by far was the most controversial being South Australian. So it was kind of seen as un-South Australian to drink anything other than Cooper's Pail. And, you know, people would come in and say, you know, what'd you like? I'd like a pail. I was like, well, which one?
00:28:01
Speaker
There is only one. you know That one was always Cooper's. It was like, well, no, actually there's this. And then, you know, ah quite a few people would be like, no, no, no, no. But, you know, I i want to drink local. I want to drink local. And at that point there weren't any yeah really local crop breweries. So it's like, all right, you got us on that one for the time being. Like you'll keep, you know, we'll get you later. And then other people obviously will try it. And we knew if the beer was good enough, we just you know coax people to try it. And then if they were genuinely interested in flavor and and and and character, then they'd they you know they'd they'd fall in love with beer as well. So it was matching people, even though they didn't necessarily know what they wanted, we'd match them with flavors and and so on. And we could see that, you know see the light bulb moments, all these customers coming through. And often we were the only place to get a lot of these beers. Mo Brew was another one that we got really early days. yeah Um, I, you know, just pursued move as a little, we want your beer on tap. You want your beer on tap. gear And they're like, you know, we're in South Australia, you know, where's that, you know, Adelaide, where's that Thaberton? Um, and I, you know, I, I say, you know, I was feeling insistent. I think OJ says I was sort of stalking him. hat He's like, just tell us, sell us a pallet of beer. Let's just see how it goes. Exactly right. And if it goes well, then keep selling us a beer. If it doesn't, then that's cool too. But I knew, you know, it was really, obviously really, really good beer. And our punters, you know, by and large were were up for it. There was a bit of dragging people kicking and screaming into, you know, fla flavorful beer for a while. And it took a little bit longer than I thought. It was probably two or three years, really, before the momentum started to build, um before customers started bringing their friends in saying, hey, look, this is this is what they do. This is what they've got.
00:29:34
Speaker
We had a fairly extensive bottle beer list as well, mostly imports, but other interstate crafties. Mountain goat was another beer that we had on really early. And that was, you know, you could see people just going, blam, blam, blam. Wow, there's this all this amazing beer world out there. um And we were, you know.
00:29:50
Speaker
Getting some some imported stuff on tap. So with you know some amazing Kiwis as they became available, you know, you know eight wide and you know the garage project and then we know the American breweries road was exciting at the time um and a lot of stuff one one off tap so local stuff and then in interstate year and then just getting more and more of the imports we'd have showcases and often we'd have the only kegs of that beer in the country and it more and more of a following and then people, it just sort of picked up a life of its own um and then people, other people started, you know, catching on that this this whole craft beer thing might have something in it. um But yeah, the pail was interesting, you know, that was probably the hardest fight here. People, a double-edged sword you know in South Australia with coopers, because on the one hand people are used to drinking beer you can't see through,
00:30:36
Speaker
they used to drinking ale and they used to drinking, you know, dark ale, south sparkling, unlike the, you know, the Eastern states where it's lager land. um However, there is so much debotion to Coopers that it's kind of seen that the decision is made, you know, that's it, we're done. um So to, to can you know, coax people into drinking other ales, other darks, other souths, other pales, that was, you know, it was a lot harder than I thought it would be.
00:31:01
Speaker
um Then when other local breweries started to come online, so a lot of the beer house, you know, brew boys and so on, and we could pour their hoppy beers ah and their pails and we could say actually, you know, there is another local pail. So, you know, just saying, I want to drink something South Australian, not good enough. You know, we just kind of force people to try these things. you um And obviously not everyone likes them, but the people who did really did, and then they sort of started their beer journey. and we started It took took a while to get local brewers to to to really jump into the hoppy beers and brew some big IPAs. I think there was a reluctance there. is
00:31:36
Speaker
didn't think there was demand. Yeah, so more sort of Euro-style, British-style, things like that. Exactly. Potters and Oatmeal Souths and English-style pails and a few pails, but trying to get like just a ah good west coast, for example, was was difficult. yeah It's like, really, there's demand for it. And then we'd get, um you know, Michaela or 8-wide, even when we started releasing these beautifully hopped beers. And they'd sell out in the night. Like we'd have lineups out the door. Like there was there was huge demand for these beers, but it took a while to convince local brewers to kind of really jump in. ah But when they did, they were really well received. um And then, you know, the plan was always to build our own brewery. And that took a bit longer than we we'd thought as well. But, you know, we kind of, we got there. Yeah, just as a step back from that, independence has obviously been important from day one in terms of, you know, Koopas, little creatures, Moo Brew, like chasing these people to get their beers when they might have won't send them here.
00:32:31
Speaker
You would have formed some pretty good friendships with independent brewers who are no longer independent. Yes. And then it it would have been a case of, that's it, you're done. Have you managed to maintain, you know, had you maintained relationships, friendships, you know, with those people who I guess form such an important part of the early days of the wheaty?
00:32:49
Speaker
Yeah. was an Interesting one. You know, it was always, you know, always a bit saddened, like, you know, certainly professionally. It's like, oh, damn, you know, there goes another one. But also personally as well, you know, you just kind of, you know, there, there, there is another model, you know, and I think that the, in the, in the US, there are examples of this and in Australia for a long time. And then I think Stone and Buddha, the obvious example is they were kind of too independent to sell, you know, too independent to fail. Like that surely not then the poster boys, the independence.
00:33:18
Speaker
um And it's kind of the narrative that you get to a certain point where you don't have any option. like you You need to sell if you want to get to a certain size, if you need to keep your you know shareholders happy, if you over capitalise, yada, yada, yada. But it's seen as almost inevitable that that happens here. And that's false, it's it's not the case. like you You can grow ah sustainably, you can decide to not grow as much as you know as as you might need to if you then need to sell. like It's not an inevitability, it's a choice. I think a lot of people are making choices that and if that's the choice you make and you own it, that's what it is. you know i was like kind of Fair enough. It's not my way of doing things and I i disagree with that as ah as a model, but I get it. It's when there's you know you pretend to be you know one thing or have principles um about why you're not doing something in a certain way and you know you're not going to sell out, your independence is important, this is why it's important.
00:34:12
Speaker
And you bring people along with you and then you get offered enough money, tap on the shoulder and all of a sudden your principals go out the window and it's like, actually, no, don't worry about that. you know where you know we We can be bought. That's what I take issue with. And and every time it happens, it does devalue um the industry. And I think it just chips away.
00:34:29
Speaker
at that trust. you know and And ultimately, a lot of you know what what we do in hospitality, but in beer as well, is like people trust you in showing them different flavours and that you've made something to the best of your ability. And you're you know you're doing it because you you're interested in it and you believe in it. And there's a different way of doing things. And then if it turns out there's not actually a different way of doing things and we're going to sell it, it's like, oh, really? that's ah That's a bit of a shame. you know Does it always all just come down to money? you know and i yeah so um you know and i And I get, and obviously, in one in the one sense, it's all the same decision, and the result is the same. In another sense, obviously, there are individual circumstances, and there are things that will never know what the influence people's decisions to do these things. And yeah, I mean, so i mean I still have a beer with all these people, yeah but I bloody will tell them what I think. Talking and making things the best of your ability, we'll take a break now and come back to talk about that and the growth of a wheatie brewing call.
00:35:31
Speaker
Hey guys, it's Craig and James here and we are talking Rallings nominations. Have you done a Rallings? It's our campaign where we're celebrating good beer citizens across the country. James, we've been running this. We've had it open for a few weeks now. How many nominations have we got coming in? Is it taking off?
00:35:47
Speaker
ah Yeah, know we've we've we've had a couple of dozen nominations in already from all over the country, ah brewers brewers, sales reps, just beer lovers nominating people, and I guess going above and beyond you know to the local beer community or to celebrate local beer. um But yeah I think you've picked out a few highlights, haven't you, for our our first first full section.
00:36:09
Speaker
I do. So it's it's been hard, James. There's been so many great nominations that have come in, but I've picked a few out and we're going to choose a winner. So the first one is ah nominated from josh tompkins Joshua Tompkins, who's nominated Will Horan and his team at Duquesne Brewing in Launceston, Tasmania. now you You know these guys, James.
00:36:30
Speaker
Yeah, yes. So we'll actually he's a good friend of someone who yeah yeah and wrote to the article school it was for us a few years ago. oh He started off and just sort of, I guess, contract brewing, got a really good reputation, especially for his pills, and then opened a brew pub with ah Sam Willie Smith's Cider Sam in Launceston a few years ago. And it's just gone off like they they've just had a really great start to life in in Launceston. So, um yeah, never hear anything but good stuff about them. And well he as we have done again here.
00:36:59
Speaker
Here's some more good stuff than James. though So Will, ah Josh decided to become a brewer at the age of 41 and Will, instead of um talking him out of it, i really helped him out. So supporting him um while he was doing his certifications and so on, offer offering him the opportunity to come in and shadow him through brew days to get experience working on the kit and actually building up his practical skill set there. So It's really helped him hone his brewing skills and he wants to give Will a shout out, so nice one, Will. My second one is from a beer lover, Lance Hayden from the Blue Mountains. He's nominating Murray's Porter's Liquor in Glenbrook, New South Wales, so led by the legend Murray Croft.
00:37:44
Speaker
um Not only are they delivering, you know, great fresh craft beer options every week to their fans, but once a year come time for Gab Sydney. Murray and his crew organize a full-on bus tour down to Sydney so that craft beer lovers in the area can attend the night session. So what ah what ah a bit of above and beyond service there, James.
00:38:06
Speaker
Yeah, you know, i've I've heard nothing but great stuff about the Murray's group. He's got three ugly bottle stores in that ah part of the Blue Mountains now. And yeah, they're just a ah really good team i said but led led by Murray, just yeah going above and beyond. I wasn't aware of the Gab's buses, but I had heard plenty of other good stuff about them and you know the lengths they'll go to to make sure their start their customers get what they want and are learning about beer along the way.
00:38:28
Speaker
Yeah, nice. um But my winner this week, James, goes to ah nominated by Alexia Smith from a small charity called Cheers to Change, and she is nominated ah Reese Palmer, Devon Island and Michelle Island from Buddy Brewing for their help.
00:38:45
Speaker
in supporting a recent mental health charity campaign that Alexei was running. Apparently when Alexei approached the team with the idea for an event, they really jumped on board um full throttle. They gave them the venue for free. They helped with marketing, social media, even getting other sponsors on board. And it took it from you know one level to an entirely new level, um raising over $15,000 for the Black Dog Institute.
00:39:12
Speaker
um There's one quote here in Alexei's nomination, which I love, which is Buddy Brewing's team exemplifies the spirit of collaboration and generosity that makes the craft beer community so unique. So they're they're my winner for this week's, have you done a railings campaign?
00:39:27
Speaker
A good choice and I think, you know, that's, I guess that's the whole idea of celebrating good beer citizens is to, you know, the spirit of collaboration generosity. That's what we're all about with this campaign. So we'd love to get some more nominations in. um All you have to do if you want to nominate is head to craftypint.com forward slash rallies. R A double L I N G S. There's a very short nomination form on there. Just say who you want to nominate, who you are and why. And we'll be reading out some more nominees and winners every couple of weeks for the time being. and also doing a brief showcase of of those that we select on the website and in the same week that we run them on the podcast as well. So um yeah, no, great stuff. It's been just great to see this then literally have come in from all corners of the country as well. So that's been really, really encouraging. Yeah, great. Well, um check it out and we'll see you next week for more. Have you done a Relling's nominees and winners?
00:40:23
Speaker
Dade, obviously we've got a brewery behind us. Do you want to talk us through a bit about how you went from being the Wheatie to also Wheatie Brewing Corps? Yeah, sure. So it was yeah it was always the plan um to build our own brewery. So, you know, loved sourcing beer from other breweries around the world, around the country, ah around the state. But it was always the plan to kind of build our own brewery, make our own beer and walk the talk effectively because you had the opportunity to try literally thousands of beers, various showcases and so on. I thought this is this is brew with some of the best breweries around the brewers around the world.
00:40:54
Speaker
on a 50 litre home brew kit as well. Indeed. That was kind of cool. That is, you know, even if most of them had anchovies. spirit alpa you know del borga you know these amazing brewers Yeah. And that was, I mean, the great advantage of having been sort of, you know, be a specialist pub for a decade previous is just had all these amazing amazing friendships with brewers from around, you know, around the world. um And I'd always pick their brains whenever they were here. You know, what do you think about this? How do you do that? You know, what's this about?
00:41:20
Speaker
um and And the beer industry still is, I think, very generous. Most people are very generous with their time and their knowledge. you know And any kind of issues, you know questions you've had, you just hit someone up and they're like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, this is what we you know did or do and try this and you know call this person. So um ah lots of beer questions. I had plenty of dubious you know beer theories that I wanted to test out on a kit. um And having you know ah a pretty you know potted homebrew history.
00:41:49
Speaker
myself, I just thought, no, what could possibly go wrong? you know we need We need to build our own brewery. And after I'd spent about a year in the States in between leaving the Exeter and and finding the weedy ah working at the Grace and then finding the Weedy, the venues that that most sort of you know resonated with me were ones that that would brew their own beer, one beer, two beers, a handful of beers,
00:42:13
Speaker
ah Just, you know, sharp, tight, technical, loved what they did, served it on, you know, on site. And I, you know, always thought that, you know, beer is best and enjoyed in the shadow of the brewery in which it's it's brewed. Like that's, it's going to be best at its source.
00:42:30
Speaker
like so many people have been to Uflaku in Prague, and I was 19, so that just, you know, that experience blew my mind. So a couple of, you know, beer experiences like that. Berlinovice in Berlin, Urus, which almost got me into a fight, because, you know, you're meant to have it, Micius, but you just thought, you know, so many people had those beer experiences. Alaskan spoke to Porter in the US. It's like, this is what I want to do. This is what I want to do with my life.
00:42:55
Speaker
um So then ah came, that was after the X of the Soul, year plus overseas, came back here, it was like, this is what we want to do, source other people's beers, um but still wanted to scratch that itch, essentially. ah It took a lot longer than we planned. So it got to the point where, yeah, either put in a kitchen or a brewery, and I was more committed, more organized ah than than Liz and Trudy were. So the the brewery was the one that got the jump. um and Initially, again, you know we were quite modest. There was a little little area just behind me this side, like 36 square meters. There was an old shed there. We're like, we'll just put it in a little pilot kit. We had a 50-litre pilot that we'd done some good beer, weedy brews on. Let's just you know effectively go a slightly larger version of that in an existing woodshed, you know fine, and then we're like, nah.
00:43:40
Speaker
Are we going to do it? let's Let's do it properly. Over-engineer it. So um actually made a time-lapse film of it, which is which is a lot of fun. um And a little GoPro on the on the ceiling knocked knock down um the woodshed and built a very small, like literally only 36 square meters. That's all council would allow us.
00:43:58
Speaker
um to to do initially we couldn't go out we could go up so it's you know it's a giraffe of a building which makes it seem a lot bigger than it is and it's quite a pleasant place to be in very small so we go to a Premier stainless 600 litre kit three single batch fermenters um and a separate little mill room So, tiny little set up keg washes. It was self-sufficient. I spoke to a lot of local brewers about brewery design and interstate brewers as well. and And again, a lot of people are very you know generous with their time and um and and ideas. and
00:44:32
Speaker
ah And we poured our first beers in 2014. So that was, you know again, just wanted to want to walk the walk. Plenty of dubious beer theories that I wanted to test out. um A lot of ah friends in breweries around the country and around the world. um And again, after having collaborated on the 50-liter kit, perfect example. you know We get a guest brewer coming over. Not too many brewers um will say no to a collaboration, particularly 10 years ago. And they're brewing at much bigger breweries and often are not on the tools anymore. um And they miss it. you know i was like We brewed with Tobias Zollow from Weinstefener. It's like that's just insane. that we and he He had a bowl. I was terrified. And and he had a bowl because he just doesn't get to do that anymore. And to get you know do it on someone else's kit ah where you can you know blame them for anything, it doesn't go right. It's a win-win situation. And did you go straight in and with taking over all the taps or at the start was it like we'll have a bank of wheat tea and we'll still keep you know supporting our friends in the beer industry elsewhere?
00:45:34
Speaker
ah We were so small like with the three single batch inventors and 600 litres that you know even if we wanted to supply all our taps we couldn't. So initially it was only like three or four taps I think and then eventually a font after about a year or two we we had a font um and then it wasn't until we expanded. So we you know pushed into the car park fermentation alley where we more than doubled capacity and um and floor space that we could sustain all of our taps. So the the first ever brews on our original brewery um were for good be a weedy. Again, like you know everyone's experienced, there were council holdups, there were SA Power Networks holdups. So everything happened a lot later than it should have. So instead of having a couple of months to get to learn the kit, learn you know what the buttons do, essentially, the very first day we brewed, it was a collaboration with Easty Boys, Easty Boys Stew.
00:46:23
Speaker
Spooning. Spooning, yes. so It was a collaboration at that point. Following years it was spooning, but yes, essentially spooning. um And ah leah Leo DiVincenzo from Biro d'Orbogo and Magic Rock Stew. So it was kind of like a rock star collaboration. We'd never brewed on the kit ah beyond the first commissioning brew, which was a bit of a disaster. ah We didn't have an excise license.
00:46:47
Speaker
So we're still, you know, going back and forth and literally got to the end of the first day and I'm checking emails and I called the ATO obviously saying, listen, this is what we're going to do. Am I safe to do it? And they're like, yeah, just don't pitch yes until you get your license. I'm like, just make words. Okay, so excellent. So we've got these, you know, these international brewers we're collaborating with, but that's fine. Like, we'll just go through the motions.
00:47:09
Speaker
um And it literally came through an hour and a half before we pitched the yeast, so I didn't have to make that decision, thankfully. I know what I would have done, but I didn't have to make that decision. So um so it was right down you know right down to the wire. And then once we expanded fermentation alley, we could then sustain all of our all of our own taps. so And we still pour other breweries beers, but as a showcase. And how have you managed and that? I guess from a brewery and also conceiv consumer perspective, the Wheatie was had this reputation as you could go there any time of the year and it would have the most fantastic, well curated diverse lineup of beers from breweries all over the place. And then
00:47:46
Speaker
at some point it was like just your beers which are great obviously you've got the trophies to prove it but you know that would have been a bit of a change of experience for both brewers who you were long standing friends with but also I guess for consumers as well going well this is the place we go to in Adelaide with you know the biggest diversity of beers was that Did that matter to people, or was it something you had to work for? Oh, it definitely mattered, yeah. And it was certainly a risk, because we were a very, very successful venue, pouring other people's beers. I knew other people would catch on, eventually. It took a lot longer than I thought it would. And it was a good decade, really, before other venues in Adelaide started taking Kraft seriously.
00:48:24
Speaker
and having a decent range. And even in, I mean, we predate most, if not all of the Melbourne venues as well in terms of being craft beer specialist bars. I think we even, and even pip the Royston by a few months. So it was ah definitely a risk, you know, we could have just continued doing what we're doing and it would have, it would have been fine. It would have been early days, the challenge was sort of dragging people kicking and screaming to beer with flavor.
00:48:48
Speaker
But increasingly that it was competition so they're instead of us, you know getting the only keg of a candy on, you know, we couldn't sell candy on to begin with no one wanted to, you know, there were candy tanties because people thought we we're trying to sell them beer that was off. And we drink it and we'd have one or two customers who loved it and that was it. And then, you know, over it took a while again, but then in a few years, you know we couldn't get it, you know, we just couldn't couldn't source it because it was in demand so much. So the the everything was changing. um And again, for us, the the whole point of the, act so we were pouring other people's beers, they were brewing it at their breweries. We wanted to brew beer at our own brewery. um Definitely a risk. We definitely, um ah yeah, some punters didn't like it. Like they wanted to still come here and drink other beers. And and you know I get that in some cases,
00:49:34
Speaker
there There was also, you know, people wanting to drink beers from from overseas, regardless of freshness. yeah And there was the perception that, you know, well, it's from us and it's an ipa from the US it's an IPA, so it is deaf if by definition better than anything that's going to be here. So, they you know, some of it was fair enough. Some of it, I think, was based on misconception.
00:49:52
Speaker
um And also I think some of it is ah it it is the notion of diversity is interesting too. So, you know, I had had a punter the other day to say, like you know, you used to have such a such diversity on tap. And I looked at the tap list and I said, find me another venue.
00:50:07
Speaker
at this point in time, anywhere in the country that is covering that diversity of styles. So it's not just hazy's, it's not just IPAs and Pales and not just lagers and you're getting you're getting oak fermented stuff and you're getting co-fermented stuff and you're getting hand pulled traditional ale and you've got a Luca side pour.
00:50:24
Speaker
it's it range what What do you mean by range? you If you mean you know IPAs from six different breweries? No, you're right. We don't have that. If you mean a diversity of styles, then yeah we yeah, we do. And you know if we do it, we'll do it as well as we can. So we will you know we're using we've used 50, 60, 70 different yeasts or more. you know we we We experiment, we play a lot. There's a lot of work and in the little little brewery. We do a lot of things.
00:50:49
Speaker
And surely, again, I go back to this thing, you know, of beer is best drunk in the shadow of the brewery in which it's brewed. I don't want to go to Sydney or Melbourne and drink my beer. I want to drink what's made there. Unless it's a pint of origin, obviously. Unless it's a pint of origin, obviously. Of course, but I wouldn't drink my beer. No way, I wouldn't. But I want to drink what's made locally. So yeah, definitely, there was a bit of pushback. And obviously, you know, to begin with, we had, you know, we had to learn the ropes in terms of the brewery and um You know, we didn't release anything we didn't think stood up, but we definitely learned a lot in in time as well and, you know, become, you know, better, better brewers, better at the whole the whole process. So but I think overall was an enormous amount of support. And I think overall people got it. And it's like, yeah, this is of course, this is the natural conclusion, you know, because a lot of what we have always done ticketed, ticketed tastings and and and encourage kind of, you know, thinking drinking. we We want people to know as much as possible about what they're drinking.
00:51:47
Speaker
um whether it's whisky, wine, beer, and we have visiting brewers and distillers and winemakers. um and you know we we We go deep with this kind of stuff. and A lot of our punters, they really enjoy that. and you know and and At the time, you know certainly 20 years ago, we believe we had some of the first ever whisky tastings of their kind anywhere in the world. like We were looking at whisky folds.
00:52:09
Speaker
People were paying good money to drink shit whisky and pull it apart. We put whiskies through spectrometers to analyze different peat phenolics and stuff like that. there wasn't There was almost none of that happening 20 years ago. um There's not that much happening now. It's more common now, you know but that that whole culture of thinking, drinking.
00:52:29
Speaker
um and And involving anyone, we're a pub, so that you one of the things I love about pubs is democratic. The pub is a good leveller. We're not a specialist bar that sort of caters to you know people who have one kind of interest. um We're generalists in that respect. you know It's like anyone can, anyone does walk through the door. And one of my favourite things still is kind of ambushing people with good beer. They might come to see a band, ah they're here for the music, we ambush them with good beer. They might come for a whiskey, we ambush them with good beer. They might come for you know a a beer and we ambush them with good wine you know because we're serious about our wine list as well. So it's just you know it's it's democratic, it's accessible.
00:53:07
Speaker
um you know we've we've We basically pitch it anyone who's genuinely interested in flavor and character, like we'll find something for you, you know, rather than, you know, just pitching it out, you know, at, at, at hazy boys or just pitching it. you That doesn't interest me. And that's not what a pub is or what a pub should do. A pub is community, you know, warts and all. And it's much broader and it's, it's more democratic.
00:53:33
Speaker
Talking about community from a retail perspective, you know, we talked about, um, beer, whiskey, you know, but you've also been great supporter of the arts of live music. Um, beyond that as well. Do you want to talk a little bit about that? I think especially, but I guess, indie music and indie beer are often facing the same challenges with either venues being closed down or regulation changing against them. Um, is that something that and also some very big operators yes is holding them back as well?
00:54:00
Speaker
ah Yeah, we're very fond of monopolies and duopolies in this country, so yeah a lot of similarities between music industry and beer industry. um Increasingly, ah you know, the Elephant in the Room is those foreign-based publicly listed multinationals that own more and more of the Australian live music industry. There was an article in Sydney Morning Herald a couple of years ago, Michael Sainsbury, I think, was the the the journal.
00:54:22
Speaker
And he was interviewing various players in the Australian live music industry and they posited that up to 85% of Australian live music industry was owned by Live Nation AG and TEG, the big three. And they're, you know, they're genius. They're vertically integrated. um They own the entire supply chain, so they own venues, they own festivals, they own ticketing companies, which is where they make most of their money.
00:54:42
Speaker
they own merch, they take merch cuts, you know, promotion companies, agency, etc, etc. And increasingly the kind of deaths are multinationals, they kind of draw you in with a tractor beam. And if you don't, um if you don't play with them, you don't have a career as a musician potentially.
00:54:58
Speaker
you know And as an independent venue, trying to you know operate alongside them is is is pretty tricky stuff. You basically chose all the areas that are really hard to succeed in and like try to make things as hard for yourself as as often as you can. Pretty much. You don't need to hold the bank. No, no, no. We want to be an original live music venue. They weren't sure. How much money do you want? you know Yeah, I mean, we we think the beer industry is in trouble. I think, you know, ah grassroots live music is in deep trouble. And there are, you know, it depends on the the metric, but ah anywhere upwards of 30% of independent live music venues are closed yeah um during and since COVID. And there's no sign of that letting up really. So yeah, it's catastrophic. Well, you do have literally the top end of town making record profits and you've got grassroots venues on their knees and closing like the the system is broken, you know, and and where you get, for example, you know, the top end of town not only being enabled by governments, federal and state, but being subsidised directly. Often, you know, Harvest Rock Festival got state government money. um That's a Live Nation event um or indirectly because they're not paying like any self-respecting multinational, they're not paying as as much
00:56:06
Speaker
tax as they should be, shall we say. um And that's the problem, you know, and we're going to get to the point where we where we don't have any any original live music anymore. Well, what I found is interesting is that we are obviously it's been happening at the wheaty all the time. But and I guess it's on a small scale, but a number of breweries offering or adding some sort of music offering. So just recently, Three Ravens turned their storage warehouse into a ah venue for, you know, for and labels to come in and and do showcase nights or to do DJ nights or whatever. and yeah there's the seeker there's it There are places around the country getting behind music, often that but there might be you know musicians behind the brewery. yeah um you know is is Is there feasibly some way of you know independent beer and independent music coming together to to have a greater voice, do you think? Or are they both so caught up in fighting their own battles?
00:56:58
Speaker
A bit of both. So I mean, yeah, definitely. and She's just sort of fighting for survival. And, you know, in with venues, and and there already is, I think it already so that just as there are, you know, a breweries who are supporting live music, um there are live music venues that are supporting independent breweries as well. So, you know, just thinking of a handful of of of our live music venues here, and they will pour either predominantly or exclusively local craft breweries and they had partnerships with those breweries, which is which is excellent. you know and I think one of the best ways, you know we just need to support each other in that sense. Buy local. you know Keep local or alive, I think, is is still very much the case. you know Even and you know ridiculous things like Postmix. Go local. Go local softies. so like Support local business. and
00:57:47
Speaker
Thing with that, I mean, it's important, but it's also a slower ban, you know, and I think ah with live music, it's crisis for a lot of venues. And, you know, it's got to the point that they're literally weeks away, you know, and you've got shows that, you know, even here, um that would, you know, pre COVID would fill the room and now getting 50 60%. And that's kind of par.
00:58:07
Speaker
You know, and then every now and then you get a show that is, that is, that is the cost of living related. That's a large part of it. Yeah, definitely. And, and people who, you know, who, who tend to go out to pubs to see music are getting smashed, um whether they're renters or they've just got ah a mortgage or whatever. There's not a lot of disposable income there. um and And demand has changed as well. I think people, culturally, I think there's been change as well. People are used to staying at home. Everything is is can be delivered. Everything is streamable. there ah you know Everything's vicarious now. um So that's part of it. And it'd be really interesting to see when and if cost of living pressures ease, if people come back. And I think that's the million dollar question that we're all kind of hanging on, is if once and if there is an upturn and an uptick, will people start coming out again?
00:58:51
Speaker
um you know anecdotally A lot of our punters are like, look we'd love to come here more often, but we just we just can't afford it. We're paying another 200 bucks a week in rent or our mortgage has gone up or you know whatever. um But also, I think people are kind of used to chucking on the trackies and the uggies and ordering everything in. You just need to get them out once or twice, either just into a good pub to have a good time or to go to a gig.
00:59:13
Speaker
of whatever size it might be to go, why am I why i'm not doing this more often? This is what I work and live for, really, is to get out and have these moments, I think. I'm obviously very vested in this, but I i think that you know throughout humanity, like people have always needed this. They've always needed um you know so social interaction. They've always needed to to go out and listen to live music. There is there something completely different about seeing a band live. You feel it. like It's an emotional thing. You feel the music live. You feel the interaction of the band and the and the audience. like You can't get that any other way.
00:59:46
Speaker
And same with going out for a beer, you know, you can have catch-ups online. It's not the same thing. And people need that. And I like to think people will always need that, or we're all buggin'. Well, pubs and inns have been around a long time. A long time. But, you know, they're also closing in a raid of knots, you know, and certainly independent pubs are. And I think that, I guess that's my concern. There'll always be music, and there will always be pubs, and there will always be hospitality, and there will always be breweries, but, you know, what are they going to be like? And how many owners will there be, or how many operators in the industry? Exactly right. There'll be two. There'll be two, and subsidiaries. And a lot of our content will be AI created. And I just think it'll be shopping more central. And I think that's the concern. There will always be these things. But we're just losing the owner operators and people doing anything interesting, really. And it just becomes cookie cutter kind of stuff and lowest common denominator stuff. And that's pretty scary. Jade, we talked about sustainability and sustainable businesses before and sort of running them. Obviously you've done it the way for a long time, but originally there were three of you and now it's just you, there's, I can't think of too many sort of businesses, beer businesses that have lasted in that way and where now is a solo ownership. Like, like how have you sort of managed that or how's it felt?
01:01:03
Speaker
Yeah, it's been a wild rise. It was three of us. And then 2016, Trottie died at cancer. And that was, you know, while, you know, we'd had a couple of years to prepare ourselves for that, it still was, you know, obviously hit pretty hard. And I had a broken back at the time as well. So just- One of many ailments you've been dealing with. Yeah, that was where it all started to unravel. 2016 was a time um So yeah, that I mean, that was absolutely awful, obviously. um And, you know, Trottie was a dear friend. So that was pretty rough. And then it was Liz and myself and obviously there was like big shake ups and, um you know, how how are we going to negotiate this? and um And for a couple of years, you know, we just kind of just changed, did what we had to do to get through that period, basically.
01:01:55
Speaker
And then, as these things tend to do, you know, death teaches us how to live. um Cautionary tale and Liz decided she wanted to do other things. so It was like she didn't want to continue with the weedy and kind of lost the love. Whereas I still very much, you know, this is what I want to do. this cause are we see and it bleed Yeah, it pretty much. Yeah, I mean, you you know, 22 years, like I can't, it's difficult remembering like before the Weedy, post Weedy, you know, a few ideas of what that might look like. But it's, um ah it's a pretty daunting thought. So I was still absolutely committed to the pub. So then it was a question of, right, Liz was going to leave, then I had to, you know, but ah
01:02:31
Speaker
again, I'm a control freak. So I never liked the idea of being accountable to anyone really, other than, you know, lawyers and and bankers in in a strict sense, in terms of what we want to do. Because a lot of what we've done here doesn't make sense um financially. It just doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense in lots of ways. A lot of it has worked. Some of it hasn't. But, you know, I kind of, you know, it's my responsibility, you know, it's like I live and die by the sword. Like it's, you know, if I if i fuck up, then I fuck up. um But I don't want to have to answer to um Shareholders, for example, um that doesn't interest me at all. That's not why I got into my own business. I'm pretty much unemployable, I think. i No one would have me because I'm so used to doing things in my own way. um So that that was not an option and and and it was not an option for me to give up the weighty.
01:03:18
Speaker
um And it's very important going forward that the WEDI stays the WEDI. So it was negotiating that, and then again, more time talking talking to banks. And then we got you know got there ah ah in the end. and And again, thankfully, it was a year before COVID. So it was 2019, became um sole owner, benevolent dictator, as I like to say.
01:03:39
Speaker
um A year before COVID, um if it had been COVID had been a year earlier, then it would have been seriously seriously problematic. like I would have been in a lot of trouble because it took me a year to kind of you know turn the ship around, reorganise things. There was a lot of work to be done and I was changing because at that point I was probably 75% in the brewery, 25% bar and overall business, then I basically had to be 50-50. So a lot of stuff to turn around. If COVID was in a year earlier, I would have been in proper trouble. um So again, it's one of those, descent there's a bit of a narrative that you know is shaking down the industry and
01:04:15
Speaker
um You know, the places that needed to go are going and I think that's, you know, it's a bit like Darwin's, you know, natural selection. So much of it is just dumb luck. So much of it is dumb luck and timing. You do something in a certain time and it makes sense in that in the context of the time.
01:04:30
Speaker
global pandemic, and suddenly that that investment looks like a really silly thing. um And it's like, what the fuck was I thinking? So I pulled that together. But of course, in all of this, like, I'm not running it by myself. So my partner, Maeve, and I are effectively running it. She runs the bar side of things, wine lists, yada, yada, yada. You know, helped me together over some very, very tricky years, my own health problems.
01:04:55
Speaker
um And we have a ah ah fantastic team. So, you know, Jimmy in the brewery now, like, you know, you can't run a pub on your own. So, yeah, culturally, I think things have changed around around the industry. and And again, I really hope that comes back. And I think and I hope that as you know things pick up and people are going out more and there's there's more of the fun side of things um that people will will see this as a viable industry.
01:05:16
Speaker
um But again, it needs to be sustainable to be viable. And at the moment, no one in their right mind really um would, you know, run an original live music venue with a brewery out the back, you know. um But obviously, um you know, a lot of lot of you know lot of skin in the game.
01:05:32
Speaker
yeah yeah yeah so crafty mind what else mugger yeah Yeah, exactly. It's like this is as an unemployable and a lot of skidded the game. So i'm yeah, I'm not going anywhere. and um the the the's The thing for me is that this continues to be I'm seeing myself as a guardian, like guardian of a caretaker of the pub, essentially. And there was something about pubs, unlike any other kind of venue. And just it's that continuity. This is what they're built for. This is what they do.
01:05:57
Speaker
um you know They're a public house and i I think that's kind of special and there aren't many places like that anymore where you can just be. you know you You don't even have to spend any money. You can just be. You can sit in the paper and have a glass of water and read the paper. You can come in jeans and t-shirt. You can come in a suit. you know ah There aren't many places left where you can do that and I think it's really important. So when eventually I move on, the the goal and not quite sure how this is going to happen.
01:06:20
Speaker
um is is for the weedy to be the weedy. So whether it's, you know, kind of ah a venues trust kind of situation where effectively selling um the freehold to a, you know, a venues trust, which then rants back to operators as, you know, grassroots music venues like the NVT in the UK, which is in a fantastic model. So more and more, you know, people I'm talking to are thinking about those kinds of models, because we want this to survive beyond. all my is Yeah, yeah. Give or take. I mean, obviously people can give it their local flavor, but I want it, you know, in a hundred years, ideally, I want this to still be a pub. I want to be a community pub, no pokies, original live music and beer. You know, and I think a lot of people want that. And i quite frankly, I think there are people staying in the industry ah for that reason. You know, I think they might be ready to move on. Not not me yet, but ready to move on. ah But.
01:07:13
Speaker
they want what they've created to to remain as a thing. Because I think it's what it's worthwhile in the broader sense. you know I think we need places like this, not exactly like this, but this kind of thing. um I think for all of our you know all of our sanity and our humanity, really. You're almost uniquely positioned to sort of take an overview of the evolution of beer and hospital over the last 20, 25 years.
Evolution and Future of Craft Beer
01:07:36
Speaker
What have been some of the best or maybe even the worst sort of trends or changes you've seen over that time? um Yeah, because you really have. experienced and been a part of so much of it. The evolution of craft, I guess, and you know ah of beer and good beer. And 22 years ago, ah you know if you'd asked me, like what what do what do you think will be the beer scene in you know in twenty in a couple of decades time, would have been thrilled at how much good beer there is everywhere. And I think that was always kind of the base thing, is like we want there to be good, locally brewed beer pretty much everywhere you go. We want it to be mainstream.
01:08:12
Speaker
um And it is, you know, which which is fantastic. ah You can get good beer pretty much anywhere. A lot of that good beer, though, now has come to be owned by, ah you know, two or three big companies. And I think that, you know, again, it's the evolution of it. You know, initially, I think craft beer was poo-pooed by the big companies and and by Koopas. It wasn't taken seriously. And then obviously, as it became established and was you ah became something that was here to say, however big a part of the market it was, it was here to stay um and had changed beer here ah permanently. um Then obviously it was going to be pushed back then and the more successful it became, the more attractive it became. And then a lot of interest, you know, and rather than people getting involved because they loved beer, loved hospitality, wanted to see how far they could go with something.
01:09:03
Speaker
It then became something we would, um ah you know, you did the the craft bankers conference, you know, in America, for example. So, you you know, and it it suddenly becomes something supermarkets are interested in and so on and so on. So I think, you know, obviously the danger of that is um that it's ripped, you know, ripping the soul out of beer.
01:09:22
Speaker
um and I think there's a bit of ah cynicism from punters now, and largely in response to that. you know If all these breweries that swear by independence are selling out, then you know you're sort of eroding that trust. so That's like i guess one of the the downturns in it.
01:09:39
Speaker
um I think beer being more widely available um and being available to all. So I think we've shaken up beer culture now and I think it's a much more egalitarian um in industry in a lot of respects and if it's not we're aware of the fact that it isn't when we're talking about the fact that it isn't. so you know i I would like to think it's still a sexist industry, but we're calling that shit out now. you know and i think and It's a discussion that we can have. and its you know of We've always said, you know one rule at the lady, don't care who you are, what you look like, up until the point the the point which you're a dickhead, you're welcome. Everyone's welcome unless you're a dickhead. It's that simple.
01:10:17
Speaker
um And we've sort of taken a similar approach to you know ah barrel aging beers. is like you need to If you barrel age beers, wild ferments, you need to be prepared to ah throw out often, much, and we take the same approach to our punters. like you know Dickhead beers. you Yeah, yeah they they go on, they're done. you know it's like And it's not a particularly high bar, but some people guys struggled to, to to you know, to to make it there. But it's just, it's and that's it's a daily thing, you know, it's it's not just having a policy, it's not just being at a point or something, it's it's practice, and it's practice, and it's every day, it's like, nah, not okay, pull your head in, or you're out, and it's like, no, you're out, done, you know, and that that kind of stuff. But, and over that 20 years, definitely seen a change, and and overall, a change for the better. Again, there's a backlash.
01:11:05
Speaker
and the American president certainly, william you know, um um evidence of that. um And so definitely backlash, but I think i think progress has has has been made. And I think, you know, that that is a really positive thing. And beer has been seen more as it's less just blokey, and it's more something anyone and everyone can, you know, potentially should enjoy. So that's ah that's a real positive.
01:11:28
Speaker
Jade, what about the future of beer? like Like, where do you hope it goes? What are your sort of wishes for for where it's heading i as well? Spazers in your craft. Laga, laga, laga. Again, you know, it's to come full circle, you know, and as much as joked about it. I think now, again, ironically, we get to the point where laga could potentially be a, you know, a ah ah gateway beer. and which is kind of the opposite of where we were 20 years ago. So people would try craft lager and go, wow, this is amazing. Let's let's head into this. um You know, it's more like ah definitely there'll be more lager and I think cleaner flavors and and sadly, I think there's going to be more consolidation. um And I think there's going to be increasing issues with the big end of town.
01:12:12
Speaker
Um, and particularly at a time from a venue perspective where venues are struggling as well. So I think the economic pressures for them, uh, to go with what's safe and what is cheap yeah and easy. say no Exactly right. And it's harder to support.
01:12:27
Speaker
indies particularly if they're charging what they need to be charging. um When, you know, as a venue, you're under pressure yourself. So I think that's that's one of the other real shames about this is that a lot of venues that would have supported independent at the moment, they just can't. yeah um And so hopefully when and if there's an uptick that they jump back on that.
01:12:45
Speaker
um so i i mean So it's really hard time and i think I think we'll see more closures and I think we'll see more venues closing. um There'll be more consolidation and I think you know the big the big end of town, are going to you know the empire strikes back. um Some will get through, definitely. And I think you know and there will there there there will be ah continue to be independent growers. I think the beers are getting better and better. I think the standard of brewing is just getting high and high, which is amazing. I think we have amazing um suppliers now, um ah you know local yeast producers, you know local malpsters, local small indie hop growers, you know all that kind of stuff is really, really exciting. um And I think you know technically now, a much, much higher level.
01:13:33
Speaker
um So all that kind of stuff I think that the beer itself is heading in a better direction. um I think punters there is a base level now of of appreciation for good beer that is fantastic and is more than we could have hoped for 20 years ago. um And as an indication of how mainstream beer has got, um not often that a punter kind of surprises me.
01:13:51
Speaker
after 30 years in pubs, but a good guy came in the other day, and he's looking at the taps, and we still get this, you know, because we're western suburbs pubs, so you know people rock into the bar, and they're looking at the taps, and they don't recognise any of them, and he's just looking up and down, up and down, and he goes, oh, you know, I'm just sick of all this fucking craft shit, I just want a pint of hazy. um yeah That is comic genius, that is comic genius. by mar yeah And by hazy, did he mean Cooper's Pail?
01:14:18
Speaker
Yeah, no, he met he met a hazy payer or hazy IPA. and I just you just was like, wow, that is that is comic genius. ah But he meant it to the point where he you know his regular drinking beer was a hazy payer, hazy IPA, and anything that wasn't that was craft shit. It was awesome. you know So it's ah ah there's a good thing, I think, you know that we got got to that point. And and there's no going back. you know I think you know once once you get onto this stuff. So I think it's been a lot of gains.
01:14:44
Speaker
um I think independent hospitality is under pressure. you know Grassroots, live music venues are under extreme pressure. Independent breweries are under extreme pressure. But it's you know just just hold fast. you know Hold fast and stick to quality like you know as much as is possible. Just make the best possible beer you can. Stick to your guns and hope you know basically just hope that it turns around. and i Again, ah invested in this because this is this is my life, but I think people will come back to it. There is something fundamentally human, and the the human need to you know to to to catch up with people and have a drink and talk, to listen to live music, to fuel live music, you know all that kind of stuff. I think if we've moved so far away from that that we can't support the venues who provide that, then ah it's it' you know it would be a pretty sad world. I guess the hope is almost that consumers make the effort to find out
01:15:35
Speaker
who the indie brewers are, where the indie venues are or whatever, where the indie live music is, yeah and get behind it. And if they give a shit about it, tell their friends, bring them along and you know make them part of the the magic. Yeah, absolutely. And it's so you know as as ever, where you spend your money really matters. And it it still really, really, really matters. And just you know think about think about where you know where you're spending your money and little little bits you know little bits count. And you know so if you want it to be there, support it.
01:16:00
Speaker
you know, support what you love or it might not be that much longer. And, you know, it sounds very melodramatic, but the reality is we are losing as you guys have written about so many breweries, so many venues, so many live music venues are closing and they're not going to, you know, they're not coming back. You know, you can't flick a switch and bring him back, you know. There's not a lot of apartments being knocked down to build pubs in it. Yeah, no, exactly. Maybe that's something we can hope for in the future, is that these kind of pop-up dog boxes are knocked down and then we replace them with live music venues and breweries and brew pubs. That would be awesome. But on a very dry level, like some kind of protection, so I don't know if you were over it, but the Crown and Anchor, which is a famous live music pub in the city, was slated to be knocked down by developers and turned into student accommodation and a huge community pushback on that.
01:16:47
Speaker
Which is excellent and um it now looks like it's not a silver bullet, but it looks like there'll be some protection for live music venues in the CBD. Obviously we want to extend that protection beyond that and for it to be a planning overlay, essentially. I say this is a grassroots original live music venue and this is designated because it ticks these criteria, which is, you know, independent, it's original live music on a dedicated stage, dedicated PA, dedicated sound engineer engineers. um Therefore, all this stuff follows from that. So for example, we have 10 temporary change of views a year. So you can have your street festivals without having to you know bleed for council and and work for them for a week. um you know All these things to actually support these venues. you know If we value them, we need to support them.
01:17:33
Speaker
And, you know, if we don't invest, you know, certainly when it comes to live music venues, if we don't invest immediately and Top End of Town doesn't reinvest in grassroots without which they wouldn't survive, um we're just going to be left with ah a heap of highly paid administrators and and no industry to administer. and you know Nobody wants that. No. No. Well, we'll drink, as you know, drivers ought to drink, I think. And there'll be nowhere way left to drink. Exactly right. Exactly right. You know.
01:18:00
Speaker
Jade, thank you so much for, um, this has been such a thrilling conversation. Thank you. Absolute pleasure. And, uh, you know, we've got another another couple of hours. we could well know Otherwise be no live music happening behind us tonight. yes exactly all yeah yes Thank you so much. ja absolutely pleasure Thank you.
01:18:16
Speaker
curious
01:18:21
Speaker
One of the best things about this craft beer industry of ours is the way everyone shares, collaborates and lends a helping hand when needed. But as so often happens, those good deeds can sometimes go unnoticed. Well, now with the support of Rowling's labels, stickers and packaging, who are themselves known for their outstanding service and strong relationships with the industry.
01:18:39
Speaker
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01:19:15
Speaker
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01:19:29
Speaker
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