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From Teaching History To Brewing It
516 Plays2 months ago
There are few brewers anywhere in Australia with a pedigree to match that of Shawn Sherlock. For the past decade, he's been at the helm of FogHorn Brewery in Newcastle; prior to that he was at Murray's Brewing, helping the business grow from its roots in the Pub With No Beer in Taylors Arm (population: 133) to one of the country's envelope-pushing craft beer pioneers selling 1.5m litres per year at the time he moved on.
Even before that – when he was lecturing courses in Australian history in his hometown of Newcastle – he was an avid homebrewer; indeed, we can probably thank the Howard administration's swingeing cuts to Arts funding for kickstarting one of the finest brewing careers of the modern era.
As we were preparing to launch The Crafty Pint Podcast, Shawn was taking full control of FogHorn from Mighty Craft, the "craft beer accelerator" no longer involved in craft beer, which had bought into the business when his original partner was moving on. It meant we were keen to bring him onto the show to chat about his experiences working within different brewery ownership models – which he does.
That he is on the show this week is also in part due to his role in the creation of Brewcastle, an ale trail guide to Newcastle's best beer (and spirits) spots; FogHorn was the first new brewery to open in the city a decade ago and has since been joined by many others.
Over the course of the episode, we trace his career from its very start through the creation of many beers that were ahead of their time to his position today as a much-respected figure in the local beer community. He offers thoughts on the sort of business models that can succeed, what matters if you want to survive in brewing, and even gives some insight into creating great stouts, something he knows plenty about – he's got a few trophies as proof.
14:05 Start of the conversation with Shawn.
In the intro, we discuss a number of this week's stories and new beer releases; below are all relevant links:
Range open Rays in Camp Hill: https://craftypint.com/news/3596/range-open-a-second-suburban-bar-rays-in-camp-hill
Slipstream Social House opens on the Sunshine Coast: https://craftypint.com/event/13484/slipstream-social-house-opening-party
Doglands to open in Melbourne's Docklands: https://craftypint.com/news/3597/moon-dog-to-open-doglands-next-to-marvel-stadium-in-coming-days
Copper & Oak win WA Liquor Retailer of the Year: https://www.facebook.com/copperandoak/posts/pfbid02JDqmLAJn1Zs1CNoj3SqfsZjqE9Zuy6tVz9WjgavvrWkAiWZQkkkLRepq9R4hCeUNl
Black Arts to close: https://craftypint.com/news/3598/black-arts-brewers-and-blenders-to-close
Brew & A: Ted Carey: https://craftypint.com/news/3594/brew-and-a-ted-carey
Aussie Exports: Emma Elmslie: https://craftypint.com/news/3600/aussie-exports-emma-elmslie-shining-peak-nz
Green Gully Brett There Be Rock: https://craftypint.com/beer/10999/green-gully-island-beer-teri-grisette-24-and-brett-there-be-rock
Newcastle Becomes Brewcastle: https://craftypint.com/news/3599/newcastle-becomes-brewcastle-with-launch-of-new-ale-trail
Shawn takes full control of FogHorn: https://craftypint.com/news/3472/foghorn-founder-takes-full-control-of-brewery-as-mighty-craft-exit-craft
The creation of the Auld Bulgin' Boysterous Bicep: https://craftypint.com/news/423/never-mind-the-molluscs
To register for a WSET course with a 10% discount: https://craftypint.com/wset-beer-qualifications--australia
To find out more about supporting the show or otherwise partnering with The Crafty Pint, contact [email protected].
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Transcript
00:00:05
Speaker
Hello and
Introduction and Overview
00:00:06
Speaker
welcome back to the Crafty Pint podcast. I'm Will. I'm James. How are you Will? Good. Great. Excellent. As ever. As ever. Yeah. Episode number 13. I'm lucky for some, but not anyone that's listening to it because we've got a cracker of a show coming up. Yes. Try to find myself for that level. and better um Yeah.
Upbeat News in Beer Industry
00:00:25
Speaker
And another busy week of news as well. There's been some pretty upbeat news from the world of beer as well. We've had a few openings we've reported on around the country.
00:00:33
Speaker
Yeah, that um multi-venue strategy we sort of written about over quite a few years now, really. I'm trying to think the first time I wrote about it. It's probably... maybe 2018 or something like that about breweries having multiple tap rooms and things like that.
Venue Openings in Brisbane and Melbourne
00:00:48
Speaker
Range, obviously they're up to their third in Brisbane. So there's the brewery, they've got patio and now they've got raise, which opens doors over the weekend. In Camp Hill, yes. So in the former home of ah Z Pickle, the burger bar there. um So yeah, right Mick did a piece for us on that. um Then we also had, also in Queensland,
00:01:09
Speaker
I think as the day that you'd be listening to this, of you if you're on the ball, yeah Social House on the Sunshine Coast, which is Slipstream's second venue is opening, although their opening party is is this weekend. and We wrote about that a few weeks ago with their plans to expand from Brisbane up onto the coast. um And the big one in probably every sense, although we won't say too much about it this week, is Doglands, which is Moondog's fourth venue, their third mega venue. Their second in six months or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. and opened um So yeah, so we broke the the news on this one August last year. So it's their venue next to Marvel Stadium in Melbourne. Most of the time it's just going to be 70 capacity sort of restaurant venue called the Jungle Room.
00:01:56
Speaker
but it will open up to 1,200 people on event days and game days. um Before the year's out, I hope and hope hope to open another one as well. um But we'll leave it at that because all being well, we will be sitting down with two of the founders of Moondog, Josh and Karl at Doglands for next week's podcast. so um moving
Awards and Closures
00:02:16
Speaker
swiftly on. I guess maintain maintaining the positive vibes though. I want to shout out to our WA writer Guy Southern um and the team that he works with at Copper and Oak. They've got a few um bottle shops in WA. They won yet another um award this week, WA Liquor Retailer of the Year. So much as um I'm not very happy with the Pastana Brothers for taking um Guy away from us, you know, in in terms of some of the hours he might have put in for us in the past, they're they're just kicking goals over there with
00:02:46
Speaker
um Yeah, just doing liquor retail really well. Yeah, I remember talking to them and they won an award like a year into opening or something like that. They were on channel seven. The news crew were in there, didn't tell them they won the award or anything. And all of a sudden they were on the nightly news in Perth and they've just continued that. They've obviously been sort of part of WA's craft beer journey, I think for a long time. And they they were super close to a lot of breweries. I mean, any any brewery. and WA will probably know the team pretty well I'd say. Yeah and yeah and you know the few beers they've made with some of the our favorite WA breweries as well so congrats to the team at Copper and Oak. um I guess some sad news uh right into a small uh Victorian based brewery Black Arts um they finally you put something out yesterday.
00:03:33
Speaker
yeah Yeah, they've closed their doors. It had been on the market for a little while yeah um and now they've decided to close up shop folk. For those that don't know, um a lot of Melbourne listeners will, but very focused on mixed culture, also made rum and vodka and things like that. Mead, cider, very niche producer, very very small tap room that was always Only open one day a week, hard to get to, but but really well-loved within yeah craft beer circles in Melbourne. Yeah, and we actually did a, I was thinking about this earlier today, we did a Cabal Beer Club member event with them a few years ago, um which was memorable for Josh's insight and the beers we tasted, but also when we got down there, our former colleague Anna reprimanded me, because I'd ordered, I think it worked out as something like 650 grams of cheese for each each guest. um We do our best. You know, Kibale members do like to tuck into cheese and pizza. But yeah, and best of luck to to Josh and Chelsea with whatever they they do next. um And thanks for all the delicious beers over the years. Now, I guess, you know, a lot of the time we
00:04:43
Speaker
ah covering the breaking news in the beer
Industry Transitions and New Roles
00:04:45
Speaker
industry. But Will, you we also like to, I guess, shine a light on some of the interesting people stories in the industry. and You've run a couple of those this week. Yeah. but Yeah. Well, Ted, who's the new head brewer at Bucketer's Brewing has been since about the middle of the year. ah Nick, who is co-founder of Bucketer's, he emailed me to let me know that I had a new head brewer and said he was from the yeah UK. It was right when James, you and I were talking a lot about English style. yeah beers. This is probably like the eighth out of our 13 podcasts and it's talked about. Maybe this is the last one, but. At least till next week. Yeah. Yeah. Very, very, you know, I thought it was a good chance to talk to someone who'd worked in a substantial castbery in the UK, made the move to Australia with his Australian board partner. What did he want to talk about? Hazy IPA. Funny, you can have these sort of pictures of people in your head and you're like, I bet this guy like,
00:05:39
Speaker
maybe he'll really hate on oat creams and things like that. And I mean, he he felt for Ralph Beale like a lot of us yeah yeah visiting America. Yeah. Well, next time I over have to try and get, find some dorking brewery beers, but um yeah, so Ted featured on Brew and A this week, but then also you got to chat to Emma who some people in New South Wales might know from her time at Wayward, White Bay and Mountain Culture, yeah but now she's over in New Zealand back, sort of back home. Yeah. Yeah. So I sort of, sort of leveraged in Aussie export, which is actually key reborn. Sort of a Russell Crowe style. We'll attempt it while she's doing great stuff. Shall I file up as well? Potentially, yeah. I guess a lot of the Sydney-based readers might know her from a time at Wayward, White Bay and then at Mountain Culture, but she's now over back in New Zealand at Shining Peak.
00:06:27
Speaker
Yeah, I think Emma and I worked out we met each other briefly at Brucon last year. I don't know it super well, but I did interview her for a story earlier in the year about out women studying the TAFE New South Wales course as part of Young Henry's scholarship program and not too long. Oh, well.
00:06:45
Speaker
a few months after that I saw that she made the move over to Shining Peak so we've charted a bit since then and I just thought it would be a good chance now that she's more settled in to chat. Shining Peak, pretty small brew pub but I mean I don't have enough time to pay attention to What's going on? Yeah, yeah. And, i you know, I know Shawnee Peake because their reputation does really precede them in terms of awards. They're back to back champion, small New Zealand brewery. um So em it's really exciting to be part of the team there as well, particularly given their incredible experience in the beer world.
00:07:21
Speaker
I think just looking at the photos, A of the brew pub, just beautifully lit, nice old building, don't know what's been a bit of Photoshop going on there, but also some of the shots, Emma sent of the coastline there. Yeah. I was very much going, I should be booking a ticket to New Zealand now to go and pay a visit. But yeah, both those stories there will put a link in the show notes.
00:07:39
Speaker
um So I also wanted to talk about this week and yes it sort of does almost tie into the English ale thing but I guess we've been talking about sort of some of the beer styles that may have been lost previously and the sort of the rush to chase all things hoppy and and yeah well whatever.
00:07:55
Speaker
get given a mixed culture brewery has just closed the store
Brett Beers and Mixed Culture Breweries
00:07:58
Speaker
as well. You've got to sort of wonder sometimes if if that's a style that's still taking hold as much as or grabbing people's attention as it did maybe five years ago. I think it's tough isn't it if you you if you are looking to put your beers out in 750ml bottles and that what have you but um one beer I tasted this week um was from Green Gully Brewing all under their sort of island beer range called Brett Thereby Rock which I believe is a throwback to the brewer, Luke Smith's days. He was the front man of a Melbourne thrash band called Screaming in Churches, I believe. Although if you find another link to one of the latest pieces, SIC apparently could have stood for something else. um I'll leave you to do your research there. um But yes, I have Brett Darkhale and just available in cans. I just be you know i guess a few few bucks a can. If you're a cabal member, you can get a discount online. But it was really
00:08:46
Speaker
cool just to come back and actually have a beer where Brett was such a prominent character because not too long ago it felt like almost every week or certainly a couple of times a month we'd get something whether it was a sort of a mixed culture Brett beer in a big bottle or Brett Saison there'd be something or whether it was you know someone's experiment like Ben with his further in Beechworth, it was a really kind of like ingredient, very strains of Bretton and Micey seem to be appearing in a lot of beers in different ways. And when I had this beer, I was like, when was the last time I had something like that? You know, and so it's this lovely rich dark air with all this sort of sarsaparilla and berry sort of character. And it was
00:09:21
Speaker
I guess it sort of made me think, yes, it's sort of a lot of breweries who might have done that as a bit of a sort of side gig. They're probably going, is that going to sell? We need to really focus on approachable beers on our venue. And, you know, those sort of things have maybe been sort the cast to one side for a while, even though they can make for some of the most fun fascinating.
00:09:39
Speaker
drinking experiences. And so maybe it's sort of reliant on people like Luke, who's got a five-heck brewery on his farmland on Phillip Island going, doesn't really matter to me, yeah yeah you know, and putting out a tiny batch. But yeah, I mean, if you if you are missing a bit of Brett in your life, then yeah, I'd i'd recommend checking out Brett Thereby Rock, um you know, while it's while it's still around. Yeah, one of the things I love about Luke's story and brewery is it's a regional brewery. It's on on Phillip Island.
00:10:08
Speaker
and he sells cases of bread beers at the Churchill farmer's market. We can get caught up in these kind of preconceptions of who's drinking what and where and where craft beer is working and what craft beer looks like. You sort of go to a place like that and see a farmer in their gun boots walking away with six packs of Saison and he sort of You get a bit of a renewed hope maybe that there's still people we could be talking to that we aren't all the time and it takes the right brewery and the right place and the small scale nature of brewing to maybe tell that story. And the personal contact and the telling the story. I'll give this a go because it's the story and you approach it in a different way. And talking of Brett,
00:10:49
Speaker
Let's have a nice little segue here. i'm Our main guest this week, one we've been excited to get on, very excited to get on, um was using Brett in beers probably sort of 15 years ago before most people sort of would have um even know what it was or considered using
Interview with Sean Sherlock
00:11:05
Speaker
it. um Sean Sherlock, um who back then was the head brewer at Murray's when I first came across him.
00:11:11
Speaker
and now is the sole owner of Forehorn Brewery in Newcastle. I think around about the time we were planning to start the podcast he was going through the process of buying the final shares back off Mighty Craft. Prior to that he'd been in another business partner so we were sort of keen to I guess have a chat about ownership structure. you know so the managing transitions from one type ownership to another. um Given that he was someone who started at Murray's when it was based in the pub with no beer of Slim Dusty fame in a sort of, you know, a village of 50 people, then went to sort of help build Murray's to 1.5 million litres now running a brew pub. He has some really great insights on business models that can work as well. um
00:11:55
Speaker
And yeah, I mean, there's lots of good stuff on today, but also reflections on, I guess, his role as he was, you know, he was one of the, you know, probably the top three or four brewers at that time in around about, you know, the late 20 zero, what are they called? Forgot it now. 2010's just pushing boundaries with beer, but like, you know, really making some fantastic. It's hard to sort of ah overstate that. Like, yeah you know, I remember going to places like the local tap house.
00:12:21
Speaker
ah but double IPA pouring and being like, ah you can get IPA in in double, can you? like you know And this is in Melbourne, where where this is Bury in regional New South Wales. and well his his guitar His icon to IPA was a beer that definitely made the crafty pint happen because it was like, I remember having the first sniff of it at beer deluxe with Tom Delver, a previous guest and just being like, what the hell is this? yeah and And someone in Australia is making this.
00:12:47
Speaker
Um, so yes, it's a really great chat. He's, he's not only a fantastic brewer, he's just a really great human, like real true gentleman in the old um sense, the word very humble about what he's done over the years.
00:12:59
Speaker
um So it's a really great chat, and if you like stouts and like brewing them, we're even going to share a few tips on on brewing a great stout, because I think he is one of the truly great stout brewers. um So yeah, really excited to have had Sean on the show. The reason we got him on, of course, is because recently him and a lot of the other breweries in Newcastle have come together to create Brew Castle. 2024 is oddly enough shaping up to be a bit of a year of brewing.
00:13:28
Speaker
They've been around for a long time, but they whether it's because of local government funding, I'm sure it's something we'll reflect on towards the end of the year. but um So we open with Sean chatting about his experiences, sort of the elder statesman, as we call him, of Newcastle's BSA. Yeah, getting Brewcastle off the ground.
00:13:45
Speaker
um So before we get to that, I've put it in bold because we're 13 shows in and we've never used the the important podcast as catchphrase. Please like and subscribe wherever you're listening to the show. and It helps us um you know reach more people. um Aside from that, on with the show, I guess. Enjoy the chat. Cheers.
00:14:11
Speaker
Sean, welcome to the podcast. Thanks, Will. Thanks, James. How you going? Yeah, going very well. Happy yeah Monday here in sunny Newcastle. Yeah, and I was at sunny down here in Melbourne as well. So there there we go as a summer approaches. um Now, we spoke to you before the podcast came on air. I think would have been around about the time that um you were taking full action before call and said we were keen to get you on for a chat. um Before we kind of get to that part, I guess the reason we've got you on this week is is you've been involved in Newcastle becoming Brew Castle. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that?
Brewery Developments in Newcastle
00:14:44
Speaker
Yes, so we've got a critical mass of breweries here now um for a while, and which is really exciting from my end, as after having spent a little bit of time as the sort of sole brew pub, small brewery in town. We've now got seven or eight, I think it is, in the in the broader area, and that's before you get to you know further outside the area in the Hunter Valley and and Lake Macquarie down towards the Central Coast. so um pretty exciting times and we've as a ah local brewing community have put together um with support from local council in terms of funding so the city of Newcastle council a brewery trail which you know has a
00:15:31
Speaker
a map, you know website, social media, interactive clickable stuff, all of those exciting things. But basically say that if somebody from outside the area, and we get a lot of people with direct flights up from Melbourne and Brisbane, but also naturally enough from Sydney on weekend trips, that sort of thing. um yeah Now there is a ah an ale trail, a brewery trail that they can actually take part in. And we of, you know, put together a map and so on based around that. So we just launched it, you know, in time for summer. And hopefully we get some good response. Yeah, I guess I mean, you mentioned it in in your sort of and first part of your answer there, but I mean, how many breweries are on on this trail now and how many breweries are within the greater Newcastle area? Because I mean, I guess prior to you launching, whenever we were up there, there'd be a discussion going,
00:16:23
Speaker
it makes no sense that there is no brewery in Newcastle and it, you know, Falkhorn's been what the best part of 10 years. And then now is it what, eight, 10, 12? Newcastle would have the odd distinction of having had like a sort of beer week prior to even having potentially breweries on its own. Yeah. it We like to think we're ahead about here ahead of the curve up here in general, but yeah.
00:16:47
Speaker
we um For reasons we may or may not get into as the discussion goes on, um it ah probably took a little longer for actual brewery openings here, albeit that you know Murray's, which we may talk about, was a relatively early starter in the broader Australian craft scene. um Certainly not one of the originals, but it predates the sort of yeah the 2010s surge of of breweries, the explosions in the inner west in Sydney and all the rest of it. um But yeah, it's just, I think there's around seven, I think. like i'm I'm not being the best advocate here for this. But it seems to be a new one opening every few months. There's been a little, a real rush of them in the last two years, which has been very exciting.
00:17:42
Speaker
ah but you know it's um It's about time. Newcastle's, as you've heard me say, at many beer events going back over the last 20 years, Jones, punches well above its weight in terms of craft craft beer in this country and it's great to see that now being made obvious in terms of the number of actual breweries in the town too.
00:18:03
Speaker
and and um I probably want to be careful with my words here and not say elder statesman because that could be taken the wrong way but have you as the you the first person to open a brew pub and it's a brewery in the city become a sounding board for some of the others that have come along afterwards you know wanting to pick your brains about you know whether it's running the business or the hospitality side or beers or anything like that.
00:18:23
Speaker
I think um a lot of them, most of them at some point have come in for chatting a beer to pick the brain, whether um it's to ask yeah and get insight on things not to do or whether it's hard to get insight on things to do is you have to ask them. But um yeah, it's, you can see, or I can see looking at my picture in the screen in the corner here, the grey in the beard. So ah I think the elder statesman,
00:18:49
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think I'm quite there yet, but certainly pushing in that direction. And i mean we forget sometimes how young um really the Australian craft industry is. Yes, there's some absolute outliers that were really early starters and early adopters, but the the yeah of the hundreds of breweries that there are now, um most of that is ah is a relatively recent phenomenon, so if you've been around for the best part of 20 years commercially, like I have, that does tend to put you in that, you know, elder statesman role, whether you want to be in it or not, I suppose. um I reckon you've been around for a long time, yourself, James, maybe yeah forty might be an elder statesman of the beer journalism.
00:19:36
Speaker
They're 14 plus years of crafty pint now. It's interesting. I mean, you mentioned that that most of the new breweries in Newcastle have come in and in the last couple of years. um I mean, why do you think it's sort of there has been that sort of flurry more recently, especially I guess they've opened, you know, during or post covid and, you know, with this cost of living crisis, it's not really been the best time for a sort of explosion of growth in craft beer. But, you know, you have gone there was there was yourself and then one or two more. And then, you know, like you said, a bit more of a rapid expansion.
00:20:06
Speaker
i think um again you need to get the fine detail from all of the individual breweries. But my take on it was that a lot of them made the call um to open and were fairly committed by the time COVID hit. and and that was it they were They were not near opening necessarily, but they were they were in that early startup phase and and perhaps begun really committing some capital and you know investing in the equipment and so on. But then you know it it takes a good 18 months to two years really to get your your brewery project fully up and running from that day that you make that mental commitment ah really. So if you think of it in those terms people were probably making decisions in that immediate pre-COVID period where that was the absolute boom time of brewery openings as we all
00:20:59
Speaker
may remember um and and I think a lot of them were potentially making the decisions then and potentially committed um or or yeah gotten far down the track in terms of um you know business plans, equipment purchases, leases etc and so the timing kind of just you know came through that for them opening either at the tail end of kind of a period or straight after you know u COVID era, you know, lockdowns and everything sort of finished um and or straight into the the current financial crisis drama that we're in at the moment. um Yeah, it hasn't been the best time for them all for sure. But most of them that I see anyway, um are all ah good, solid businesses, they're good, solid people that people with experience that have come into it in the main, they've come into it eyes open. Again, if you've started your planning and started committing
00:21:55
Speaker
either pre or right at that start of of COVID, which again, we forget in hindsight that no one knew that was coming. It just kind of happened. So it's not like you sat there and went, oh, well, I'd i'd best get this done before March 2020 or else, you know, all hell's going to break.
00:22:10
Speaker
you know they're committing around that sort of time, they've obviously then made educated decisions to go forward, even given everything. And as far as I can see, again, no one's privy to each other's books, but as far as I can see from the outside, they're all succeeding and yeah they're all really offering something good and something different to the local business.
00:22:32
Speaker
And Sean, has it made you, you know, rethink how you approach foghorn or anything like that? Like having been this brewery, brew pub in of its own in a city like Newcastle to now have these others? Or has it made your life easier just because there's maybe more of an audience um looking to go out or things like that? Like, where does this sit with you? Yeah, a little bit of both, to be honest. It's definitely maybe you know um I've always been very focused on the quality of the product, that we yeah the actual beer itself, and then of the quality of the hospitality offering that we're providing. I'm really proud of that. And I think the fact that Foghorn itself has lasted for almost 10 years to this point. This is October, 2024. I left Murray's in October, 2014. And we'd started the initial,
00:23:23
Speaker
company and we're well into the fit out across the next couple of months of 2014 to open in 2015 with Fogorn. So you don't last that length of time, particularly in a brew pub model with such a ah big hospitality focus. unless you're doing something right so I'm pretty proud of that and very focused on that. But it's definitely made me look more closely at exactly what we're doing and how we're doing it and whether we're, you know, maintaining the standards that we like to set. um But it's also made it in some ways a little easier. But I'm a firm believer in the ah the old cliche of rising tide lifts all boats up to it.
00:24:05
Speaker
you know point i I guess if we had 150 breweries in the place the size of Newcastle, you might be getting a different response. But um as long as their offerings good, um it really does boost the overall um you know understanding and um penetration of craft and the sector into the broader community. And it becomes more of an expected thing that you're going to go to your local brewery and visit, which I think is great.
00:24:31
Speaker
And what is it that you're doing right then to survive 10 years? Have you nailed that down? that's so that's ah hard I should have anticipated that question. You set yourself up.
00:24:44
Speaker
hey um The focus on the quality of the product, i that's a really obvious answer, but it's something that sometimes gets lost. I know um in the crazier days of this business at startup in particular and um you know during the COVID period and so on, sometimes it's easy to get distracted by the business side of things and the running of the business and so on. And and yeah, the the temptation is to to drift a little from the product. And the temptation is there to, oh, you know, close enough is good enough. And that'll just get us through until I can, you know, they I've tried really hard not to let that happen sometimes to the ah cost of the overall business at times um that but I want people if they come through the doors here, um ultimately to, you know, to have a ah great experience to have
00:25:36
Speaker
the best beer that we can provide them in that glass. That is a real purist kind of a model and ultimately I think that has stood us in good stead over time that you know not everyone's gonna love every beer we brew and not everyone is gonna love every burger we make.
00:25:52
Speaker
or whatever. um But we we do it well enough and have developed a reputation for quality over the time that's strong enough that we've survived things like the COVID curveball and so far at least we're surviving the cost of living crisis as well as anybody.
00:26:09
Speaker
Yeah, I'm suppose you've also, I guess personally, within the business survived a few changes in business model. You know, so what we did speak to you before we launched the the podcast a few months ago, you just taken full ownership from Mighty Craft. But prior to that, when you launched the business, you were in with a different business partner.
00:26:27
Speaker
um Can you reflect on sort of how that's been and and you know how you sort of view the the way different models and ownership sort of practices can work within the beer
Insights on Brewing Partnerships
00:26:36
Speaker
industry? Because I guess that's almost a real sort of, um maybe a hot topic, but something that's central to a lot of people's focus now is they're trying to find ways to navigate until you know the the sun returns. Yeah, look, but in terms of the partnership component, um there's no question that if I would have been um
00:26:58
Speaker
you know, financially more able. I'd have done it 100% on my own from day one. but But you're telling me that the history history you know a history professor doesn't have a ah huge slush fund to dip into. No, that's right. well but Lecturing and tutoring at the University of Newcastle didn't pay as much as you might think. but then And then, you know, the best part of 10 years As Brewer at Murray's before I started this, it certainly set me up in a lot of ways, but with a young family in a house and all the rest of it, it's certainly not you know there's no spare million sitting there to to invest. What it did was, in my case, build a reputation so that when I went to the bank to borrow money, they were happy to talk to me. and we
00:27:48
Speaker
as long as you're able to then put together a decent business model, a decent business plan, proposal, all those boring things that nobody wants to think about when they're starting their dream business, um but that are ultimately very important. As long as you're able to do that, you've got the reputation there. In my case, I was able to borrow against yeah equity in the home um and come in with partners.
00:28:10
Speaker
um and you know partnerships bring their own levels of challenge, but ultimately this business would not exist without partnerships. And I'm now, since May of this year, i fortunate enough to be 100% owner, which is great. And it's been a ah long journey to get to this point. But equally, yeah the things that the partners brought um were things that I, apart from capital obviously, but even in the first instance, the building that we're in, which i mean you've both been to the brewery here, but it's a great space in the middle of a CBD in Newcastle. And that building um was sourced or found originally by my first partner, James.
00:28:58
Speaker
yeah he invited me to come and look at the building and and give an opinion as to whether I thought a brewery would work here. um So you know again, going back as much as I would want to claim as much credit as possible for this business and as much as people from the outside you know ah will often comment to me, oh look, it's been a challenge for you with all the various partners and so on. Yeah, it's a challenge, but it's a challenge that was ah was essential that the business simply wouldn't have existed without the the partnerships at the time. And I guess you were one of the first and business brewing businesses that Mighty Craft invested in and then you were one of the the last I guess that they divested from. um At the same time you probably maybe weren't quite um such sort guess a high profile case within their portfolio. What was your sort of view of what happened there like from the inside?
00:29:48
Speaker
Again, it's the 2020 hindsight story. The original people involved, so Stuart Morton and yeah Dan Wales and those guys were really good people. um and they were um They had some really good ideas. They had business experience. and Their model pre-COVID in that period of boom time if you want to look at it that way for craft and craft startups and and the the growth of the craft sector made sense um and um I had a good experience with them um from day one. They um invested and we
00:30:33
Speaker
you know We had some really good plans that ultimately got knocked on the head by COVID in a big way. And then off the back of that, the flow on effects through the craft sector generally, through hospitality, through everything. I mean, we don't we don't need to go over that. but um they um were swamped by that tidal wave and yeah absolutely in hindsight they over capitalized early I guess you could say they probably spread themselves thinner than they might have liked but at the time the view was you know get in and go hard and and grow that, you know, they call themselves an accelerator um and ultimately accelerated a little hard maybe. And yeah, look, for my ends,
00:31:23
Speaker
It was the post COVID period and the post Mark Hazeman and Stuart Morton period that I thought things got rougher and rougher in the Minecraft world. And um I still at a personal level had a reasonable experience until pretty close to the very end. So I'm not from a personal level, wanting to you know dump on all of that. But at the same time,
00:31:50
Speaker
yeah if If I'd have been an investor from the outside, I could see that some decisions were made that you wouldn't be super happy with, perhaps. Yeah, that's that's for them. and And ultimately, it was a and more drawn out process um for me to to get control of the final shares in the end than I think either of us would have liked. I think Mitocraft would have liked it to move more quickly than it did as well, to be fair.
00:32:16
Speaker
But at the end of the day, the business is stable, we're surviving. I went from at the time of getting the last shares, I was 55%, moved up to 100%. So I was still controlling the business anyway. It just meant, you know, going through the scary process of borrowing some more money in the current environment. And, you know, convincing my family to go again with more borrowing, um but ultimately now being in full control and
00:32:46
Speaker
Yeah, it certainly weren't a lot of lessons across the but time and um and and so on. It wasn't easy, but again, without the investment from the partners, um the business wouldn't have been here in the first place.
00:32:59
Speaker
And Sean, being out on your own now, do you find, you know, you don't have business partners to bounce ideas off? So so where do you sort of take that or or is that there enough within your team now? Because I know you have some very long standing staff or like how do you sort of do that just not as one person and run a business like yours?
00:33:19
Speaker
Yeah, I think um it's it's ah it mainly a positive, but there are some negatives, absolutely, having a broader pool of experience that was, again, especially in the early days, one of the great things about Minecraft is you had a lot of people there that had a lot of experience, particularly from the bigger end of the industry. And when we were looking
00:33:40
Speaker
for a for a short time there because Covid really killed it all but when we were looking at growing the business to being you know building new breweries and potentially scaling up and so on um the skill set and contacts and experience that came that they brought certainly would have been valuable had we been able to get across that line but ultimately everything going to custard in 2020 just knocked it all on the head we can't sort of overstate that that really and then the The problems that the sector more broadly is having now um really stem from that time. yeah There's decisions that were made before it that we can now look at and say, we're pie in the sky and short termism and all the rest of it. But if we hadn't have had a global calamity, and which has then in flowed through into all of the um economic problems that have followed, those you know choices might not look as bad now.
00:34:39
Speaker
from a distance. But yeah, in terms of running it all myself now, I've got Rachel Doyle and Joe Lapin in particular are two people that have been with us pretty much from the start. Rachel literally from the start, I think she was very close to the first hire going back to late 2014, early 2015. And then Joe has been with us um since I think late 2015 or thereabouts. um you know they They know this business as well as I do from the inside. They're certainly good people to bounce ideas off and then I've got a good network locally um of other people including some of the other brewery owners now in the area that we can we've put together a bit of an association we can you know no kick my ideas around and then in the industry having been around like I said for 20 years myself now commercially and having been around
00:35:28
Speaker
beer industry before that as an active member from the outside for a long period of time. um You learn a few lessons um and you've got you've got some ideas. you know so Hopefully a combination of long-term staff, some good people locally, and my own experience will see us through.
00:35:46
Speaker
Well, I think we'll we'll take a a short break now and then we'll come back to hear your story from going active actively involved member um from the outside of the industry to now benevolent dictator of foghorn. ah um So yeah, we'll see you again in a couple of minutes.
00:36:00
Speaker
so
00:36:08
Speaker
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00:36:47
Speaker
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00:37:15
Speaker
John, welcome back to the podcast. We alluded to it before, but you have a bit of a background in history. So do you want to tell us how you went from being and that, being your focus into the beer industry and and Murray's as well?
Sean Sherlock's Brewing Journey
00:37:27
Speaker
Yeah, I've got um an opportunity at Murray's Craft Brewing Company, which were a startup or a new startup in 2005-06. They were up on the mid-north coast of New South Wales, about halfway between Brisbane.
00:37:44
Speaker
um little a tiny village called Taylor's Arm, which had I'd never heard of. I had 50 people in it. It was really in the middle of nowhere and the least likely place that you could kind of imagine a brewery that became what Murray's became um starting from in a lot of ways. And I was really fortunate to have a really supportive family so my wife Karen and my two daughters we we sat around they were very young the daughters at the time so they weren't super involved in the decision but we had around the loundry but we but literally drew up um a series of columns with you know for it against and we spent we locked ourselves really in the house for for a weekend and just ummed and art and ummed and art and
00:38:34
Speaker
Got to the summit and we've made the decision and i said yes on the Monday morning to the but job and we moved up there. I'm sure we'll get we'll get into all the beers and everything in a second but jumping ahead a bit did you do the same pros and cons column when you started for corn or.
00:38:52
Speaker
ah Was that a bit easier to get into? You'd you'd think I would have, but no. It was a simpler decision in a lot of ways. um It was very hard to leave Murray's. I'd really committed an enormous amount of myself to that business. I'd treated it very much like it was my own business and yeah Murray had had given me an opportunity and I really worked to take that opportunity.
00:39:19
Speaker
So it was difficult to leave, but at the same time I was really, really keen to start my own business. It was nothing against Murray's, the brand, the people, and anything else really. it was It was really me wanting to to go out on my own, or as it turned out, in partnership, but still as as an owner of a business rather than just being head brewer. So it was that was an easier this decision in a way.
00:39:45
Speaker
And adding back in time again, how was it that Murray how decided to open a brewery in a town? Well, you know, I guess, you know, a locality, you know, with with with 50 people in my understanding of that. And again, that's that's the the fine detail would be a question for Murray that my understanding um murray Murray is involved in real estate in Sydney but he was originally from the mid-north coast I think from southwest rocks or near abouts and that's not that far from Taylor's Arm and he
00:40:20
Speaker
just got an opportunity to buy the pub. The pub was no beer, you know, made famous by the Slim Dusty song. And he, the pub came up for sale. And but my understanding is, sight unseen from Sydney, he just said, yes, bought it. And then he had been traveling in the US and in particular had been to Sierra Nevada and that it changed his changed his life in a lot of ways. He was just really excited by the whole craft beer thing going on in the States. Loved the Sierra Nevada beers, particularly the classic Sierra Nevada Palo. And having just bought the pub ah really decided he wanted to start his own brewery. And that's that's my understanding of how it all happened. But it's, you know,
00:41:05
Speaker
classic Australian craft beer story in a lot of ways that you know the the pub comes up sight unseen you buy it you start a brewery there and it's it's a real you know take a risk build it and they will come kind of model and and in Graham and myself he got two brewers that were prepared to go on that journey and that I think that was a where a strength of that long-term home brewer kind of model came through, because the beers you wanted to brew were not, um you know, mainstream labour clients. They were ah IPAs and big stouts and all the rest of it, um and that was the skill set that we brought. And it was sort of, for ah for a long period there, it was a real match made in heaven. They had somebody that was really excited and prepared to fund it and to take risks, and you had
00:41:56
Speaker
um for a period at the start there Graham and then for the the longer period myself that were really keen to take that challenge on and and see what we could do. And how did it justify having two brewers in the pub with no beer in a town you know and in ah a township whatever of 50 people we we was the business instantly into wholesale you know what was the justification there to have you know yeah a senior and pretty experienced brewer and a keen you know offsider from the start. So I often think back to that myself and wonder. I think
00:42:36
Speaker
So Graham was a guy that he brought across from New Zealand as his original head brewer and he had done some work in I think with Moa in New Zealand and with a couple of brands over there and he was looking um to grow his experience and looking to build his career and um i'm not I'm not clear on how he met Murray but um they they got together. Graham moved over um and was there on his own for the install of the brewery and then the first few months of setup.
00:43:12
Speaker
i mean I think, you know, it was pretty isolating for him. I couldn't imagine what it would be like to move from another country test to Taylor's Arm. Again, it won't mean anything to people who haven't been there, but it's it's a tiny village in the middle of nowhere. It was a very, ah you know, an unusual sort of a place. And I think he really needed some support. And I think also pretty quickly Graham I think was reasonably keen to look at moving on. So I came in I think initially as literally support for Graham and then yeah Murray's vision was to was to go into wholesale quite quickly and they um we brought a bottling line in and you know Murray certainly resourced it.
00:44:01
Speaker
um by the standards of the day quite well and was prepared to spend some money on staff and on equipment and so on and early on with a vision to to growing ah a beer brand and that's certainly where I came in but um In my case, it was great for me because by the time I got there, Graham was really keen for a holiday. And then he was took a few works off and I jumped straight into it. And then um you know he really got me up to speed on the transferring beer and yeah working with the bigger scale equipment, the brewing side of things I was fairly competent with by the time of starting. and
00:44:42
Speaker
so you know He was quite prepared to step back and let me jump on a lot of the actual brewing from pretty early on and work from there. that was It was a very short but very good apprenticeship for me really, um that first 12 months. and I think to some extent like The hours that we both put in were crazy. We really built that that brand from scratch in a really difficult place to do it. um In an era when if you were starting breweries in Melbourne or Sydney, most people didn't really know what you were doing.
00:45:18
Speaker
yeah yes the not Not knowing what you're doing in terms of brewing, but in terms of the the support services and the you know getting electricians and getting plumbers and so on, to have a clue about working with breweries and brewing equipment and all the rest of it in the city with was hard. You can imagine trying to do it in a village of 50 people in the middle of nowhere. It was you know it was it was a challenge, but we we just knuckled down and and went hard and built it. in that first year and Graham on his own for the first six or 12 months or whatever it was and then me, the pair of us together in that first really big year and then getting the bottling line in and and building it. We really kind of built the bedrock for the brand and then know Graham moved on about 18 months I think after I got there and then I was there until, and we eventually moved the brewery in 2009, I was there till 2014 and was head brewer for most of that time.
00:46:13
Speaker
And I guess if if people are sort of have come later to craft beer, well, anytime in the last 10 years potentially, um they might not be aware of just how I guess crucial and central Murray's and the beers you were putting out there was to the I guess not just the rise of craft beer in Australia, but also the experimentation the innovation the quality like just I mean, if you can sort of give people an idea of, you know, the sort of beers that you were were making at Murray's both with Grime, but later with Ian Watson, um sort of the breadth of what you were actually putting out there, because it like even looking back now, it was like, wow, like, you know, that is a very, if the the range of beers you're putting out then but would be a sort of creative, innovative brewery now. I mean, so if you can give us some sort of insight into into the you know what you were putting out on a an annual basis.
00:46:59
Speaker
ah we We started in, like I saw, the first year of 2005, 2006. We did about, I think it was about 60,000 litres um or maybe a bit less um in that sort of 12 or 18 month period early on. and By the time I left in 2014, they were up towards one and a half million litres. So the the scale of growth was was very high.
00:47:26
Speaker
um and Yeah, the types of beers that we brewed. I mean, our main lines, beers that people became familiar with, like the Whale Ale and the Angry Man Pale Ale and some of those brands um were sort of session craft beers if you want to look at those but but they were they were very different for the time um and then we we brewed a lot of the first big ah IPAs first big Imperial stouts we did you know I've got a real passion and Graham did before me as well for Belgian styles and Belgian brewing and we did a lot of you know we did big triples and the golden you know dark strong ales and someone like that but we we
00:48:09
Speaker
We always did it, certainly in my mind it was always about brewing and twisting styles and bringing new things to the public, but always doing it with a real focus on quality. It wasn't a ah just throw anything yeah throw ingredients at the mash tun and the hope for the best. it was There was a lot of thought that went into the beers and a lot of um looking at styles and looking at stuff that hadn't been done before. I think we did one of the first um black ah IPAs or India Black Isles or whatever you want to call it. And that that came from me reading about, um I think it was stone brewing that did one of their annual, their anniversary hours or whatever. And they called this thing an India Black Isle. And I just laughed. I've never, what what the hell's an India Black Isle? And it's just the name, the concept of that um just led me to think, well, if I was going to brew one, what would it be like?
00:49:01
Speaker
um And then I'd take it to Murray and instead of a lot of brewery owners going, I can't sell that, there's no market for it. He'd go, yeah, no worries. And we'd put it out. You know, um things like pretty Belgian Imperial Stouts, um Imperial Stouts, you know, fermented ah primary fermented with Saison Yeasts.
00:49:22
Speaker
you know we did a lot of the first barrel aged beers, we did these series called anniversary ales which were you know packaged in 750 mil champagne bottles with corks and cages. um Originally Murray even imported specific Italian um collio bottles which we had to get change parts for a bottling line in the middle of, anyway are you getting the vision. It was sort of crazy stuff but people really responded to it because it wasn't a lot like that going on but they also responded to it and yeah I've got a vested interest in saying this but it's because the beers were good and they were drinkable and it wasn't
00:50:02
Speaker
just crazy stuff for the sake of doing crazy stuff. And then the black IPA, was that Sean's fault that had a picture? Yeah, that was i would the cool trouble problem Sean's fault yeah with my ugly head on the label. And that was Murray's little joke because I tried to explain it to him and said, yeah, this beer really doesn't work at the time. It's a strong, dark beer, but it's also an IPA. um you know And he says, oh, if it doesn't work, it's your fault. And that was where the label came from. it was was a lot of It was a lot of fun back then. And and to his enormous and lasting credit, Murray backed me in and backed Graham in before me. um And mia when Watson and I were working together later in the piece, he encouraged us to experiment.
00:50:53
Speaker
and we took that license and really ran with it. And we were often releasing, you know, when it was just myself on my own or whether it was myself and Ian together um when we moved the brewery down south, we'd be releasing multiple brand new beers um every month. We'd do a couple of on draft and we'd also do two often completely different beers, brand new on impact. And by impact, I mean, like,
00:51:20
Speaker
you know, bottle product and bottle condition product things that took a bit of lead time. You know, there was no, we'd have to source the bottles, get the shipping containers out the tail's arm or to even to Port Stephens when we were there. It was just a different world. There were no contract canners, there was no um industry built up around to support that kind of thing. um And without Murray's ability to take that risk and to fund it and then without mine and Graham's and the others over time sort of passion and creativity and probably focus on on quality um it wouldn't have wouldn't have worked so it's sort of like a in hindsight it was like a perfect storm at a time that the industry or the local beer sector was really ready for it I think it just all came together at the time.
Murray's Brewery and Craft Beer Innovation
00:52:08
Speaker
and go cause I remember the b you know as the each winter there'd be another imperial stout variant would be added to the you know to the collection. There'd be the Heart of Darkness, darkness then the O.K.'s Heart of Darkness, and then Wild Thing, and then variants on Wild Thing. like It just kept building, but people wanted wanted more. And going back to your anniversary with the style, and were they American barley wines? and one year you aged in a barrel with Brett, like all these things that sort of came in years down the line were all happening in this shed on a farm in, you know, in Port Stephens. Yeah, again, it's, it's crazy looking back on those times. um And, you know, and what,
00:52:51
Speaker
What I'm probably proudest of from that time is how many of those beers actually worked. oh I was always really confident that they would, and i was and um we yeah we didn't put things out that didn't work, um but at the same time, we had a pretty remarkable hit rate was with not too many misses, ah which, um again, looking back,
00:53:14
Speaker
was unusual, and i'm I'm really proud of it. But it was, yeah, well I think at one stage, there was one winter there where we had, I think, four different Imperial Stout variants, and that doesn't sound like much now, but at the time, there were Imperial Stouts on the market, A, and then B,
00:53:30
Speaker
If I'm going to brew and call anything Imperial, it's got to be at least 10% ABV or above. So if we' we've got four Imperial Stout Stout variants alone in the lineup in the space of a month that were 10% ABV or above. um Again, it's just not something that certainly at the time that was done. um I think maybe Brendan and Will over at Feral were doing some similar stuff um and certainly in the brew pub Rich Watkins was doing stuff in Canberra but um yeah there wasn't wasn't that sort of scene for those kinds of big beers that we now have.
00:54:11
Speaker
And in terms of you know the brewing ethos that you will have carried across from there into foghorn, how would you describe your approach to brewing as a whole and not not necessarily recipe design, but what you you believe you know brew pub operations should be offering and and then what i guess but you want to bring personally into into the the beer world?
00:54:34
Speaker
it's I brought effectively the same mentality into what we do here at Fogorn, but with the freedom to do it, you know, smaller batches, and with particularly from my personality, the complete obsessive control. So packaging product and sending it across the Nullarbor, you know, the beer is never the same, particularly the hop-driven styles, and particularly in those days with, you know,
00:55:03
Speaker
poor transport options that are available now and so on. um Part of the reason for really focusing on starting the brew pub itself was so that we could control that quality in a really obsessive sort of a way. um So that people, if if they're going to spend good money on it on one of these beers, they're going to get the best possible experience with that beer. So that's part of it. also the initial stages of setting up the brew pub. And it sounds crazy in hindsight, but it was the truth. I was really focused on setting up a business that would not compete with Murray's. So Murray's at that time were and nationally ranged. um they were You could buy Murray's beers in Dan Murphy's Woolworths or whatever in Darwin. and you know You could buy it in Perth. You could buy it all around the country.
00:55:51
Speaker
We set this, but myself and James set this business up initially um as to be the best brew pub that we could put together in an era when there weren't a lot of brew pubs in Australia as well. um there were There were quite a few breweries, but everyone was really focusing on packaging and on growing brands. I was really keen on the quality of the product and present and developing a really quality brew pub experience, having seen them overseas. um And I think Yeah, separate to not wanting to compete with Murray's, I think the focus on quality and on on that business model has been proved correct over time. um And I think some of the
00:56:31
Speaker
The challenge is the industry is facing now and we've only got to read a lot of the stuff coming out of the States as well. We're really coming back to that focus on really two models. You've got your brew pub and your small and local brewery model that is sustainable and can work.
00:56:49
Speaker
or then you pull together some bigger resources and you you go for a bigger ah regional scale semi-production model. But that kind of era of trying to straddle both worlds, I think that's where the real pain is and has been um and sort of will continue to be.
00:57:08
Speaker
and and in terms of all the styles you might I know you talk about having a particular fondness for Belgian styles but I've always thought you can tell when a stout is a Sherlock Stout. Whether it's the debt i don't want you know whether it's you know ah sort of less than 10% or one of the big ones. I don't know if you want to share too many trade secrets but you know is there Is there a common approach you take, whether you're making a you know dry Irish stout or you are making something like this, you know the ridiculous whole bulging, boisterous bicep we may? like Because I do think you have something and go, that's a Sherlock stout. Is there a sort of a bit of ah a nugget you can offer to any budding brewers out there in the building of a great stout?
00:57:48
Speaker
so Yeah, and there's no secrets as far as I'm concerned with the process. This is a thousands and thousands of year old process. You've got to be spectacularly arrogant to think that you've come up with anything amazingly new in terms of the process itself. But my ethos in general is big flavor and big aroma. So if you're going to use, that's why I'm in the craft end of the business.
00:58:15
Speaker
but balance within that. So if you're going to have a big malt, big hops, big yeast character like you would have in the Belgian styles, it still needs to be balanced in such a way that you can have a second glass. I think you've heard me give that sermon many times. And that's what really drives my whole approach to it. So don't dumb anything down, but the skill in what we do is to balance that so that if someone's going to approach a 10% stout, it's going to be a good one that they can actually drink. In terms of stout specifically I've probably developed a reputation for that because I have the beers I started out brewing. I mean brewing some appalling Cooper's kits under the house with my father back in the day in the late 80s early 90s trying to um yeah replicate Guinness or Cooper's Best Extra Stout or whatever and just making so many mistakes.
00:59:10
Speaker
But learning a lot along the way and and really if the secrets to my stats and why they taste the way they do is getting the water right first. So I'll get the profile right with some calcium carbonate, which is true. You know, I won't go too techy for a general audience, but, um you know,
00:59:28
Speaker
getting the water right helps, keeping your pH um in the in control and in the right area helps. And then um don't be scared of the traditional ingredients in stout, particularly the big the big um the beat the heavy hitter in brewing stout is roast barley and a lot of people get really nervous with that and try and use German variants that are de-husked that carry less tannins and all the rest of it. That's shit. Go hard or go home. But understand how this works in the in the recipe and if you're going to use lots of
01:00:06
Speaker
the strong astringent roast grout, and you've got to go fairly high with your bitterness and your IBU. So high roast, balanced with high BU, with correct water profile, um and good, fairly attenuative British yeast. ah You throw those things together, and that's the secret recipe for the, or the not so secret recipe for a Sherlock Stout. There you go, just build everything up, but just make sure they come together in harmony, yeah.
01:00:35
Speaker
Excellent. Sean, to ah keep you on the pulpits for a second, delivering sermons. um We like to finish off with a bit of a reflection on the past, present and the future. So to sort of kick things off, when you started, maybe whether when you started brewing at Murray's or when you started Foglorn, is there one thing you really wished you had of known when you kicked those businesses off?
Advice for New Brewery Owners
01:00:57
Speaker
all your business Certainly in the fog on stages I think I ah really knew what I was doing on the brewing side of things by that stage and I was very confident in what I brought and I had a really clear vision on what I wanted the venue to look like and the type of hospitality model and the type. So those things I was really clear on. um my weakness that I've had to work on is was definitely in terms of um finances, financial control, that kind of thing, understanding um the nuts and bolts of the day-to-day
01:01:35
Speaker
finance of running a structure of running a business. I observed Murray and I worked in other hospitality businesses before and during my academic career but I'd never been that person you know responsible day-to-day for payroll and responsible day-to-day for you know those kinds of things and so you know if If I could go back and do you know do the proverbial short business course or do some you know bookkeeping 101, definitely. That's not a very sexy thing to talk about, but it's really important. And it's something that I've had to learn. and um and um
01:02:17
Speaker
much stronger on now than I was when I started. so that's And in terms of someone who's looking at starting this kind of a business, that's something that I'd recommend that they look at. Again, from the outside, that seems like a really obvious thing. But when you really passionate about your product and when you're really focusing like a lot of us do on yeah what sort of food you're going to supply, what sort of yeah the lights and the mood in your venue, what sort of yeah beers you're going to have on the list from day one. You're focusing on all of that sort of stuff. um Sometimes you miss the obvious with with the financial side of things.
01:02:55
Speaker
And then back in sort of elder statesman wise, go sort of grand poo bar sort of position here, if someone was looking to come in and do what you're doing now, what would be the the one tip you would give them ah as they enter into a ah brewing business, brew pub business?
01:03:13
Speaker
so so In terms of the brew pub side of things particularly, um even though it's a small brewery, install the biggest setup you can afford. um like And if you've got unlimited cash and you can afford a super duper huge setup, then maybe you should be setting up a production brewery. But if you if you if you are setting up a small brewery, the toughest thing is is everyone getting so excited about wanting to start their own business and they they go in, yeah they they read the um
01:03:45
Speaker
the Dogfish head book about, you know, the guy starting with his sub co-system and brewing, you know, 50 liter batches and all the rest of it. That's really romantic. And that's a fantastic way. And ultimately he was able to build a fantastic brand out of that. And and it was obviously successful for him. But, you know, 200 liter system um really You're translating that into three and a bit kegs, ultimately per batch, unless if you're brewing big, exotic, high ABV beers. um How many kegs a week do you have to sell to pay your rent, to break even, to pay yourself a wage, to...
01:04:22
Speaker
you really got to bring it down to that. um And if yeah you work out your answer on how many of those kegs is, well, how many brews a week does that mean on your 200 liter system that you need to do to get that volume of beer? And everyone focuses on the brewing part of it, which is fun, but then yeah you've got your transfers, you've got your You've got a keg to be, you've got all the rest of it, plus where you're going to store it, how many tanks you're going to have, blah, blah, blah. If you can set yourself up with a 12-heck, 15-heck, 18-heck system um to start with, it just means that you can brew a couple of times a week. It frees you up to do all of the other things, dealing with
01:05:05
Speaker
issues in your kitchen dealing with, you know, whatever it might be. And you're not just constantly tied to physically brewing. So that's ah one really obvious tip. But I've given that tip to every single person that's asked me. if People listening to this that have come and asked me about setting up group hubs over the years have heard that. dont want to Give us something else, Sean. Come on.
01:05:29
Speaker
And what do you want to hope or sort of wish or desire for beer in Australia into the future?
Future of Craft Beer in Australia
01:05:38
Speaker
I'll break it down into short term and long term. So short term is survival. Our industry is struggling. There's no two ways about it. And there's a lot of good people and a lot of good breweries that are that have already gone under and that are at risk of it.
01:05:54
Speaker
All of us are in that boat at the moment. I'm very confident that we'll be okay at foghorn, but you can never say never. We might be having yeah another discussion in six months time. you I hope not. But some so to survive was the first thing I really hope that we can survive and come through this difficult period. In terms of longer term and bigger picture stuff, I really um As somebody that's built a career out of experimenting and you know bringing newer B styles and so on ah to market, um I really hope that
01:06:31
Speaker
our sector keeps that spirit but does it in a way that focuses a little more on quality and drinkability than at times in that last few years before COVID. um There was so much just chuck it at the wall and hope for the best brewing that was going on that I think We almost bred a consumer that didn't like beer. We almost bred a consumer that but only wanted to drink the brand new thing and then really it was less about drinking it and and enjoying it and understanding it more about.
01:07:10
Speaker
just the novelty factor in and of itself. So at the risk of sounding like a real old-timer, by all means, ah experiment, go nuts, push beer in new directions. that's what That's what the craft end of the market is here for. But do it in a way that um keeps the elements of what beer is alive and that focuses ultimately on quality, repeatability, and drinkability.
01:07:40
Speaker
Fantastic. Yes. Thank you so much for joining us, Sean. Hopefully we'll see you soon. and hopefully i Thanks for the conversation, Gordon. Cheers, mate. Cheers.