Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Farming With The Devil
2 Playsin 2 hours
"To see [our barley] from start to finish, and to also see the result in our beers, is something that's pretty beautiful."
Michael Stanzel first came to the attention of Australian beer drinkers when he and wife, Chloe Hoiberg, joined Burnley Brewing upon their return to Australia from Germany. While in Europe, he’d trained as a brewer, with those influences shining through many of the releases from the now-closed Richmond brewery.
Today, you’ll find him at Devilbend Farm Beer Co, on the Mornington Peninsula, still producing a range of both classically-minded and contemporary craft beers but with a real point of difference. As the name suggests, the brewery is based on a farm, where they grow hops and barley for use in many of Michael’s beers.
Will Ziebell joined him at the farm for a chat about their sustainable approach to brewing, Michael’s love for lager, and how and why he learnt to brew in Germany.
Before the main interview, Will and James discuss Sydney Brewery’s second brewery acquisition this year, the results from the Royal Sydney Beer and Cider Awards and what’s going on in the beer scenes in both Central Queensland and the Northern Rivers. Mid-show we also reveal the latest winner in our Have You Done A Rallings? celebration of the country's good beer citizens.
If you enjoy the show, please like, subscribe, rate and review. Cheers!
Start of segments:
- 14:30 – Devilbend Part 1
- 42:21 – Have You Done A Rallings?
- 47:06 – Devilbend Part 2
To find out more about featuring on The Crafty Pint Podcast or otherwise partnering with The Crafty Pint, contact craig@craftypint.com.
Recommended
Transcript
Travel and Reunion Plans
00:00:05
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Crafty Pint Podcast. I'm Will. I'm James. How are you going, Will? Only a couple of weeks now until we're back doing this in the same room after ah fair fair time apart.
00:00:17
Speaker
Yeah, I know I'll have to abandon my um my lounge room office studio set up, which yeah if anyone ever views the us on YouTube will know it it's pretty sad looking in my rental. But where are you, James?
00:00:31
Speaker
I'm on um on the edge of the ah big lagoon in the Francois Perron National Park, which is in the Shark Bay region. So sort of making our way steadily closer to Perth. And I was thinking actually the last week,
00:00:44
Speaker
Since i last spoke to feel like as we get towards the end of the trip, we're doing everything sort of in fast forward. So think since I saw you, we had some old couple come and do country covers at some, at Warris Station. We were staying out up the coast.
00:00:56
Speaker
So gave me an excuse to get out Bintani founder, Pete Medding's classic country t-shirt and pose for a photo with them. ah Been deep sea fishing with my son, the the greatest day of his life apparently, although he's he's had a few of them.
00:01:08
Speaker
And then on the advice of Pete, one of the founders of Frothcraft Beer, we spent a bit of time at Red but Bluff um in a stone hut that was the first humpy, as they're called, built by some cave-dwelling hippie surfers back in the 80s. So it was as rustic as you can imagine a hillside stone hut might be, but and a magical place if anyone ever wants to to call through. So doffer the cap to Pete um at Froth for his recommendation there. It was a pretty special few days, but um you're very much on the on the the tail end of this trip now and on our way back to Melbourne.
00:01:39
Speaker
de Despite still being a very long way from Melbourne. Oh, well, that was the thing. We've been trying to work out the last few weeks. How the hell do we get back to this region to like spend even more time here? But like to get back to sort of the North of Ningaloo Reef, it's either four and a half thousand Ks on the road or you fly and then have to hire something. It's like, you can see why these things take a bit of time and planning and why there there's not many people on the beaches. Put it that way.
00:02:03
Speaker
Yes, definitely.
Sydney Brewery's Expansion
00:02:05
Speaker
And out from the West to the East, ah more news from Sydney Brewery, their second acquisition of this year. Yeah, um we definitely need to have a chat with someone higher up the chain there and and find out what their sort of long-term goal is. I mean, I guess Sydney Breweries and previously Schwartz Breweries has always been part of Jerry Schwartz's larger operation with a hotel chain and what have you.
00:02:25
Speaker
um But yeah, really interesting to see that they've picked up um white White Bay's home and the brewery and the venue. and not long after they moved into Rocks Brewing's former home in Alexandria. So it's going to give them four different um breweries, and three venues, three of them in Sydney.
00:02:41
Speaker
um So clearly they've got some you know some big plans. Yeah, absolutely. It sort of adds to the inner west as well, like that um part of the Balmain Peninsula where they're on, it's got a lot of pubs and things like that. One of the things White Bay was very adamant about was sort of bringing a brewery to that community. So I'm sure there would have been a lot of people ah disappointed to see that they were moving out and and hopefully are excited that Sydney Brewery will well be there soon.
00:03:06
Speaker
Yeah, and I think what's happening brings to mind um a term that Jesse, our graphic designer, used for or sort of lent us for a piece we did in the middle of last year about what was happening, about how shift happens.
00:03:18
Speaker
um You know, this is on the back of Misfits moving into um Wayward's old home. And, you know, yes, there are some places that are closed down and and gone for good, but certainly it seems more a case of, in many cases of, you know, sort of shifting sands, um no pun intended, but I can see the background, my background here.
00:03:35
Speaker
um Or, you know, just sort of changing hands. It's like, you know, it's it's things are moving around, you know, mountain culture taking over Redfern, being, ah you know, Atomic and Redfern being another example. So just sort of changing faces in a lot of these places, I guess.
Craft Beer Industry Trends
00:03:47
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. And, you know, this is how hospitality's long looked, you know, like our one pub closes, new owners come in, cafe closes, new name pops up and that kind of thing. I think we're in a point of craft beer where that's sort of the reality now, like that the space can still work for other people just because it hasn't worked for others.
00:04:06
Speaker
And someone else comes along and and decides to make it their home and change your direction and and that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, for sure. nice So I'll be interested to um you know what sort of success they have there, what they do with the venue and that kind of thing.
00:04:19
Speaker
But yeah, i'm certainly positive news, you'd think, for the people of the peninsula. And I guess sticking in Sydney, yesterday was the Sydney Royal Beer and Cider Awards, which took place at the same time as the um Distilled Spirits Awards. um is They got an increase in entries this year. It's still, I guess, one of the smaller ones compared to, say, how the Indies used to go or you know and and and the Australian International Beer Awards. But it's always been a competition that's had a lot of respect due to the quality of the judging.
00:04:46
Speaker
um And sydney Sunday Road Brewing, i'm always been... ah Favourites at Crafty Towers. I know Mick Wurst has always been a big fan of their beers. It's the first time they've entered and they took out the best in show for their Apreski wheat beer.
00:05:01
Speaker
um What I enjoyed was it got me to go back and have a read of Mick's take on the beer last year, which was a typical sort of Mick Wurst classic. So it'd be pretty chuffed. But also to see, you know, Reckless picked up two more awards, their Red IPA picking up another trophy, their Stout picking up another trophy.
00:05:17
Speaker
um And the Coastal Brewing Co. picking up two trophies as well, um which was pretty cool. And I had noticed beforehand um that Reckless had got dressed up as they always do. And I'm sure they did the awards in fine style.
00:05:30
Speaker
Yeah, so those um their previous Avers winners, those two trophies, and as well with ah Coastal Brewing Co, like seeing these double ups of trophies shows that there's these breweries out there that are really making incredibly consistent beers across a range of styles. For Coastal Brewing, it was for a dark lager and their pale ale. They're pretty tricky categories to do well in, lager and pale.
00:05:52
Speaker
Pale has a lot of entries, obviously, so it's yeah exciting to see them do well too. Yeah, yeah. And was interesting, actually, and in the spirits, there was a a few back-to-back winners as well. St. Agnes Distillery and Renmark went back-to-back with ah different brandies. and But there was a yeah if you I guess it's, you know, we know more about the beer world than we sort of currently do about the spirits world. and But, you know, interesting to see. And Fleurot Distillery, who we spoke to last week and for the And Luke McCarthy's piece on you challenges facing the whiskey world, they went back to back as well. So it does appear that there's a lot of people out there making beer, making whiskey, making gin, making vodka around Australia now. But there's obviously some people who are doing it consistently excellently as well, which is is positive to see.
Community Support for Breweries
00:06:34
Speaker
Definitely. And then, um, looking more up north, we had a, another classic Mick Must piece, uh, on central Queensland, which, um, sort of, you know, a lot of it, a lot of the focus, I think around beer in Queensland tends to be in the Southeast, um, of the state where that's where the concentration is between Brisbane, Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast. Um, one of the owners of, uh, Wardsbury reached out and, um, said, you know, Hey, if you guys are ever in the area,
00:06:59
Speaker
We'd love to chat to you We think there's some breweries here doing really good stuff or really changing community. It is a part of, well, a lot of part of Queensland do have big pubs with big pokies and things like that. So it's um exciting to see these smaller breweries, how they operate and how they're being welcomed by their communities as well.
00:07:18
Speaker
and That's right. And I guess in this case, it's a classic Mick Vuce because he's turned into a two part feature and got into the real you know nitty gritty in the depths of of a lot of the people's stories up there. um But yeah, I think there's been a lot of appreciation for the coverage there. you know the the i was aware that a number of breweries, you see you know new breweries open occasionally, do a hoo brews when someone opens.
00:07:38
Speaker
and and we were um they were popping up, there was actually more there than we were aware of. So that's been good for us to sort of catch up on what's going on in that central Queensland region. And we'll have the second feature up on that soon. um And I guess in between the two of those, sort of sandwiching those, an article that you've put together based on a previous um winner that we've announced for one of our ah sort of campaigns celebrating the beer industry.
Rebecca Reid's Contributions
00:07:59
Speaker
Yeah, previous Have You Done a Railings campaign, um Curious Crafts owner, Rebecca Reid or Beck. Yeah, we spoke about her on the podcast just a few weeks ago. I reached out to find out more about um her story and and the bottle shop slash tasting bar that she runs.
00:08:16
Speaker
Obviously, Liz Moore, she actually... didn't start the Curious Craft, but did take over the keys right at the start of 2020. So obviously pretty tricky time to take over a new business. She was basically straight into COVID lockdowns and then Lismore had those awful floods in early 2022 as well. So she has moved the bottle shop since since she took over it, but she's a really interesting person. She's very passionate, really serious about educating people, passionate home brewer as well, and has um put together a homebrewing community there, which uh, gets a lot of, because she's got this relationship with small local brewers in the area as well. It means a lot of those come in. So it's a really, uh, positive little community in there. I guess similar to central Queensland, um, in Lismore and around Lismore, it's really just big box retailers. You know, people haven't had a place where they can go and talk to a bottle shop owner about small independent producers and things like that. And, um, Beck just has so much passion for what she's doing. And, um,
00:09:13
Speaker
her customers and and the the breweries and wineries and distilleries that she's putting in the store. Yeah. and And I think the fact that this nomination um for her, as a, have you done a rallying as good beer citizen has now led to a full Will Zeeble expose on Beck and her background. I think it's just another reason why people should be getting their nominations in for the Have You Done a Rallings campaign at craftypint.com slash rallings. And on that note, we'll have the latest winner coming up later in the show.
00:09:42
Speaker
um Sticking on the East Coast, I feel that even though I'm on the West Coast and wearing West Coast Brewers T-shirt, they're very East Coast-focused...
Crafty Cabal Events
00:09:48
Speaker
umm intro this week um we've got an upcoming event next week at helios um it's open to all but there's also a 50 discount for our cabal members so if you want want to go and hang out with mick and the team at heli out helios for a behind the scenes tour at um brisbane's sun-powered brewery taste some one keg wonder beers and what have you and we'll include the details found show notes or you're crafty cabal member just jump into the app or jump onto craftycabal.com and have a look for the event
00:10:14
Speaker
um I would offer another plug for this weekend's event in Frio with Evil Megacore, but we sold that out a few days ago. um so yeah, looking forward to seeing 30 people at Frio Social for a chat with Rhys in a couple of days' time.
00:10:28
Speaker
And back more in home territory for us. A couple of weeks ago, I went down to the Mornington Peninsula to catch up with our guest for this week's episode, Michael Stanzel from Devil Bend a Farm Beer. um Many listeners will know Michael from his time running Burnley Brewing, and he has it yeah he has a fascinating background in beer.
00:10:47
Speaker
He started homebrewing when he was a teenager, when he was 15 years old. His parents are German, so he then moved to Germany to learn to brew and malt. With his wife, Chloe, they started a craft brewery in Germany, which isn't really a country that's um necessarily that warm and um accepting of of doing things like adding a fruit and adjuncts to beer, but they were doing that and in a sort of maybe questionable way, selling it and which we'll get into in the episode and then they decided to come back potentially to start that brewery again in Australia but ended up meeting the team at Burnley so ran that for a number of years and um Michael's ended up consulting and then starting Devil Band Farm Beer.
00:11:31
Speaker
Yeah I know I guess yeah you've you've known them pretty much since the moment they landed back in Australia as well so um yeah you know you know their their story intimately so yes it's it's a great chat um and they've got a few things coming up on the horizon as well don't they?
00:11:44
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. So ah part of the reason we timed this for now was because that they will be running an Oktoberfest. And um actually last year we sort of had Nathan Munt on as our harbinger of Oktoberfest to to talk sort of talk about it. And he in in a kind of nice way. I just found out from the team at King River that they've actually brewed some beers with, um with Devil Bend and they'll be launching them at, ah at Carwin Cellars October Fest on October 4 as well, which happens to be my birthday. So I'll probably go there.
00:12:15
Speaker
and happens to be my first Saturday back in Melbourne, Will. I might even shout you a beer on the day. may maybe Maybe that collaboration. And I do think if Nathan's listening, I'm sure he's going to be adopting the name the Harbinger of Oktoberfest as his new business card subtitle.
00:12:31
Speaker
I can't think of anything that would bring him more joy than to be the Harbinger of Oktoberfest. I feel like we need to get t-shirts of that made before this episode goes out. Maybe we maybe see if we can get them on the online store. um As well as at Oktoberfest, Devil Bend will also have their own. It runs every weekend of um of October. Michael mentions a few times there's a ticketed event. They decide to go a different way so you can just go down and call in and enjoy some ah very traditional German style beers and also German style foods.
00:13:00
Speaker
Sounds excellent. um And i I guess with Rallings being up this week, it can't be too far before we celebrate our next Bluestone Yeast Brewery of the Month. So if there's a brewery out there that's really doing it for you at the minute, do jump online at craftypint.com slash bluestone and get your nominations in.
00:13:16
Speaker
um And yeah, I guess, you know, Will, over to you again. Well, I was just thinking maybe we should give a prize if that people can tell us what the brewery they love is that a harbinger of.
00:13:27
Speaker
ah yeah Yeah, added points if you add that in the nomination form. This this brewery is the harbinger of, i don't know, yeah, leave it open to them. Yeah, so enjoy the chat with Michael. And if you do, make sure you find us on however you listen to your podcast. Leave us a like, subscribe and review so other people can find us too.
00:13:47
Speaker
Enjoy the show. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. If you're looking for the very best digitally printed beer cans in the business, you need to talk to the team at the Crafted Can Company.
00:13:58
Speaker
Serving breweries across Australia, the Crafted Can Company specializes in direct-to-can digital printing for small and medium order quantities. offering the ability to handle multiple designs, complex artwork and brilliant colours.
00:14:11
Speaker
All this with no minimum order quantity. For exceptional quality and competitive pricing, the Crafted Can Company has your can printing needs covered. Get in touch with the team and find out how the Crafted Can Company can bring your can designs to life.
00:14:26
Speaker
Visit craftedcan.com.au today.
Devil Bend Farm Beer Innovations
00:14:30
Speaker
Michael, welcome to the Crafty Pine podcast. Thanks for having me. No worries. Thank you for hosting me down at Devil Bend Farm Beer. Do you want to tell us a little bit about this farm, first of all?
00:14:41
Speaker
Yeah, well, the farm, we're on the Mornington Peninsula in Turong, um and we're on 83 acres of land here. um But a big thing with this farm here and this location, this brewery, is the fact that our permit requires us to produce 70% of the ingredients grown on the farm here, which is kind of cool, but it means that we have to grow our own barley, our own wheat, our own hops, and...
00:15:09
Speaker
And yeah, which is something that's a bit more, gives us a bit more, that's a bit more unique, I think is the right word. Provenance. yeah that's Yeah, that's the right word. Yeah, definitely. And like the tap room itself kind of ties into the history of it being old sort of farm as well. Like that we're in an old apple shed kind of, right? Yeah, correct, correct. So i can't remember when exactly it was, but this used to be an old orchard. Yeah.
00:15:34
Speaker
ah So Apple Orchard. And so we're sitting right now in the old cool stores, which is where the brewery is behind me and the storage room as well. But then right next to us where the restaurant is, or taproom, restaurant, whatever, that is the old packaging stores.
00:15:51
Speaker
so So yeah, there's actually a fair bit of history on this farm, which is pretty cool. um And yeah. Yeah. And the owners, so it's two brothers who sort of took it over with the idea of starting a something, i guess.
00:16:03
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. So when getting this ah property here, um yeah, two brothers, Owen and Michael, Mike, um they ah yeah had this this facility and they're like, okay what are we going to put in there? They're not the biggest wine drinkers, but they do like beer. So they thought, all right, brewery, that's the perfect thing to do.
00:16:24
Speaker
um And then because they are also fourth generation farmers, the whole challenge of growing their own hops and barley and grain cereals, whatever,
00:16:35
Speaker
was, yeah, it was a challenge, but something that was right in their wheelhouse. so um So, yeah. um Yeah, that's pretty much it. Yeah, and for those, I guess, listeners outside of Victoria, you know, Mornington Peninsula is a funny place, like, where the part we're on at the moment does have farms around and wineries and things like that, but it's kind of smaller farming land than you'd find you outside of Melbourne.
00:16:58
Speaker
You know, a couple of minutes down the road, there's probably $5 million dollar beach houses, right? Yeah, yeah. complicated little area where better better known for its beaches and farming except for its sort of wine background. Yeah. Yeah. I think, uh, don't quote me on this, but there's not many farms down here actually growing, um, grain.
00:17:16
Speaker
Yeah. I know it's Turong farm just up the road from us. They are, um, us obviously as well, and maybe like one or two others, um, just cause the conditions on the peninsula are but can be quite tricky for for grains. So for example, 2023, where our barley crop was, waiting for it were our barley cro was waiting for it to to ah get to the right moisture. So we're testing the moisture every every day, morning and night until it gets to the right moisture. And just as was perfect time to harvest, we just had this massive storm front come through yeah and just batter the the crop around.
00:17:54
Speaker
And we got a lot of weather damage, which which really messed up with our yield. um But we're still able to harvest it, but we're expecting like 40 tonne of grain and we only got like 22 tonne. So, uh, which is still enough for us to, to work with, but it's one of those things after that year, i was like, oh, okay.
00:18:11
Speaker
can understand why there's not many people growing grain down here. Cause it, uh, yeah. Melbourne weather. It's not, it's not the greatest, not the most predictable. Cool climate can be too rare where four seasons in one day, that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, ah so yeah one of the ah challenges that we face, but, um but yeah, but it's giving a newfound respect to farmers, for sure. Yeah, because you're sort of hanging out. yeah I feel like sometimes you're Mike's apprentice almost. You're trying to, like, get out on the farm, right, and sort of learn to drive a tractor and hang out with the cows. Yeah, trying Yeah, I'm trying to. So, yeah, driving the tractor around, feeding the cows and stuff like that.
00:18:50
Speaker
um But whenever comes to spraying, harvesting, and and managing the crop, I'll leave that to Mike, the expert. I always quiz him on it so I can learn from him.
00:19:03
Speaker
But, it's you know, it's it's ah so much that goes into it. um And, you know, we don't want to half-ass it as well. Because if I tried to take that on, I'd mess it up straight away. There's so much that goes into it.
00:19:15
Speaker
So I'll stick to brewing. That's something I can do. But Mike, yeah he's he's got the farming under control. Yeah.
Challenges in Crop Management
00:19:21
Speaker
And it must yeah really drive it home because, you for most your brewing career, you would have been sort of dumping that malt out of a bag, right? Or it would have turned up at your warehouse, you throw it in.
00:19:30
Speaker
kind of potentially come from Germany or somewhere far away as well to like sort of see its life must be really different. Yeah, no, absolutely. So actually just outside the taproom right now, we've got our next, well, this year's barley and it's just just shooting, coming through. It looks like a lawn almost at the moment, but over the next ah months, you know, it all it'll go through its it's ah its its phases, develop, and we'll start to see...
00:19:57
Speaker
you know, what we know as, as, as barley. Um, and then to see get harvested, we sent it up to, to, um, to Voyager to get it malted. Um, and Stu is brilliant at, uh, at, at what he does up there, getting a real good quality malt out of, out of what he does up there. And, um, yeah, now to see it from start to finish and then to also see that result in our beers is something that, uh,
00:20:26
Speaker
I don't know, something that's ah yeah pretty beautiful actually. especially Actually, one weird thing is because I'll get essentially year's worth of Pilsner malt, which will be my base malt for that whole year, I can just set my mill for that year's barley essentially, and then I can see it coming through the loud. It's on nice and clear with a good speed or whatever. I'm like, oh yeah, that's nice. I know something really satisfying about that. yeah Yeah. Cool. And are you growing? Oh, well, is Mike rather growing different types of barley are you playing around there at all? Is it more about focusing on like a two row type? Yeah, so it's a Turo, it's a planet barley.
00:21:07
Speaker
ah So we're just we're just doing that because if I can have just my base malt covered, that's easily 70% of our ingredients being used there. um Excuse me. We also have a wheat.
00:21:20
Speaker
Oh, Jesus, what's it called again? This is our first year having done wheat. So we got another paddock of wheat in at the moment. Yeah. I remember what it's called though.
00:21:30
Speaker
But yeah, so that's, ah so yeah wheat and barley essentially. um From the barley, we're going to work with Stu to try and get a little bit of it turned into carapils, just like one or two ton.
00:21:42
Speaker
um Because then essentially with carapils, wheat and pilsner for our core range beers, our two best-selling beers, which is the pale and the lager, that would mean that 100% of our grain is grown on the farm, which is pretty sick.
00:21:54
Speaker
um So, yeah, so no, so just two varieties of of of ah grain, but yeah. Yeah, cool. And what about hops? Yeah, so hops, that's a good point. um We've got five New World hops.
00:22:09
Speaker
So we've got... um Centennial, Chinook, Columbus, Cascade, and Victoria, ah which is pretty sick for for a West Coast ah IPA or American Pale that sort of stuff.
00:22:22
Speaker
And then we've got Halitau Tradition and SARS for our noble hops. yeah and We've got 1,100... one thousand one hundred binds um So a hundred noble and about a thousand ah New World hops.
00:22:36
Speaker
And we worked really closely with rye fields to get all those crowns and rhizomes in. They've been brilliant help teaching us how to have to do anything because that's something that uh Mike and Owen didn't know anything about was was hop growing because it is very vastly different to what they've done before so having uh Karen and Jade from Rye Fields talk us through and Morgan as well to talk us through that uh and guide us uh meant that we weren't starting from scratch we yeah we had someone to at least
00:23:08
Speaker
give us a really good guidance essentially. yeah So yeah. Yeah. Cool. And, um, yeah you've, um, so how long would they have been in now? Cause you've been open for what, about two years? Yeah. We just had us, is that right? Yeah. We just had a second birthday last month. I think it was, um So the hops have been in for two years. So the first year we didn't really get much out of them, um but this year just passed. We got about 130 kilograms of of cones.
00:23:39
Speaker
Then i drove them up to New South Wales to Ryefields where were able to pelletize them because, you know, save on storage space, increase brew house efficiency, all that good stuff.
00:23:52
Speaker
And we got 127 kilos out of that, which is pretty cool. So now I've got 127 kilos of nice pelletized hops from from our farm here. Yeah. And its so is it a similar thing? Like you want to mostly use your own hops? I imagine as a brewer, you probably don't potentially because 10 hops isn't actually that much in the modern day in a brewer's sort of toolkit.
00:24:13
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, with the, the core range, well, yeah, with the core range beers, I'm still mostly buying in pellets because I've got the consistency of, well, especially with the Halitau trad and SARS.
00:24:26
Speaker
um you know, I've got the consistency of those hops coming from Germany, Czech Republic. So I know how they're going to be. Whereas, because it's our second year doing hops and I don't want to have inconsistencies in our core range beer.
00:24:45
Speaker
One of my teachers at at school said, ah good brewer brew is a good beer, but the best bero brewer brew is a consistent beer. And that means, yeah, obviously being able to work with
00:24:56
Speaker
you know Yeah, adapt with with your ingredients, but I don't want to adapt too much with the hops.
Brewing Flexibility at Devil Bend
00:25:01
Speaker
Grain, yeah, sure, but hops, I'll use the um New World hops for our IPAs and APAs and stuff of that, but the core range stuff, I'll still just buy it in from from our distributors.
00:25:14
Speaker
Just, yeah. Yeah. Cool. And what about, I mean, obviously this is pretty unique brewery, so that might be the answer, but what sort of appealed to you? A lot of people would met you when you were head brewing at Burnley and then you came over here, like what was the the appeal and you, you were involved in constructing the brewery and designing it and everything, right? Yeah. Yeah. So yes, it came on as a bit more of a consulting role at first, but As soon as you see this farm here and the vision that Mike and Owen had, ah which was 100% rainwater, that's another big thing that's pretty cool about this place. So we're using rainwater, using our own barley, using our hops, and also they wanted to have a cool ship.
00:25:59
Speaker
um So theoretically, we could do an estate meal, let's just call it that, which is 100% of the ingredients coming from the farm. So... Yeast, hops, grain, water.
00:26:13
Speaker
ah so I mean, ah for me at least, and I think for all brewers, you hear that, it's something that you just want to be a part of. um And so that's definitely what drew me into it.
00:26:24
Speaker
um But then what really sold it for me was the fact that it's just kind of... I'll be back on the tools because because as you said, I was at Burnley. I was in more of a manager managerial role.
00:26:36
Speaker
So I wasn't really on the tools as much, just writing emails and stuff like that, which is not what I want to do. So here it's just me in the brewery. creating my recipes, got that creativity again.
00:26:48
Speaker
and I mean, yeah, you've seen it outside. I'm on a farm, so it's pretty cool. so ah So yeah, so yeah, I'll say that essentially, that All of the above. Yeah. Cool.
00:27:05
Speaker
And in terms of designing the brewery, um we'll get more into your background in Germany and that kind of thing earlier, but you love brewing lagers. Were there things about the like design that you sort of wanted to build and put in to the system so you could do it, or was it more about, I want to build a brew house that only one person needs to brew, so I'm on my own?
00:27:22
Speaker
24 hours a day. Well, actually both really. um Because we need the flexibility for the brew house so that we could brew all sorts of beers, whether it be like a really hype fruited kettle sour or a traditional decoction pilsner.
00:27:36
Speaker
So the brew house, I wanted that flexibility to be able to do everything. But also, as you said, i wanted to build a brewery that could produce, you know, to that excise threshold of, let's say 180 200,000 litres beer a year,
00:27:50
Speaker
but with one brewer So all of that came into consideration with the brewery, which meant there was like a lot of hard piping going to and from tanks. so I don't have to like drag hoses everywhere. And it means that by having that...
00:28:05
Speaker
I can still drive forklifts around not having to have hoses in the way and stuff like that. um So, yeah, but the biggest thing with the brew house was being able to decoction mashing and step mashing.
00:28:21
Speaker
So I've got my mash ton and loudotone separate so that when step mashing in the mash ton, if I've got... ah a year of crop that has insanely high protein, I can just change my mash profile to compensate for that. Or if I've got low protein, whatever, I can play around on the brew house to compensate for my different...
00:28:43
Speaker
crop years. Is that what it's called? That's what we're going to call it now. Different yields. Yeah. Crop harvest. Crop harvest. Yeah. The other farmer. No, not. That's mine. Yeah. So, yeah. So essentially I can just kind of tweak my stuff in the brew house, have that flexibility. It means that, again, I can be more consistent with everything.
00:29:04
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. Cool. and And yeah, I imagine like, you know, thinking about rainwater, like how does that sort of
Water Conservation in Brewing
00:29:10
Speaker
go about? Is there a point in what, February, March where you start getting a bit nervous and like, oh, not only do I have to brew to keep up with beer sales, but actually there's not that much water to get a hand on. How you sort of manage things like that? Yeah, no, absolutely. So this is something that I had to learn really quickly because when brewing in Germany, we had an abundance of water.
00:29:32
Speaker
um So ah yeah, we were pretty lax on water conservation.
00:29:41
Speaker
Whereas here, of because my rainwater tank is literally just outside there, so I can see that how full it is. And the first few months of brewing here, I noticed how much water I used when just like rinsing tanks and was during all the cleaning processes, i actually noticed how much water I was using and I hadn't changed how i any of my s SOPs or how I do my processes since I was taught them in Germany, but I very quickly learned I need to figure out a way to use less water and because it's, yeah, it's a, it's a, what is it?
00:30:19
Speaker
It's scarce resource, I guess. Yeah. yeah so ah So, yeah. So, having to manage that is just being really, really picky what to use your water for, essentially. Is it just not cleaning or what? No, no. It's cleaning, but it's like it's like not...
00:30:39
Speaker
not rinsing for like 30 seconds and being like, yeah, that's going to be cool. It's like rine doing a short burst of rinse and then getting a fennel phalanine, checking it. Okay. Little rinse again now.
00:30:50
Speaker
So opposed to just using water endlessly, it's like just doing a little burst, doing a little bit. And just as soon as I can see, for an example, um, rinsing ah a tank after a caustic or a caustic clean, as soon as I can see the fennel phalanine is,
00:31:05
Speaker
not changing color, it's like, sweet, awesome, that's all the water I need to use. And it's kind of cool to see, because like I've got a ah totalizer on my wastewater, so I can actually see how much water each day or each month where,
00:31:19
Speaker
um but Yeah, discharging. yeah discharging um So, like yeah, I can actually see I'm doing a shitload better than I was at the very, very start, so which is pretty cool.
00:31:32
Speaker
um But actually, that said, though, another cool thing about... this place is that we wanted to make sure that all our wastewater was not just wasted. So it actually goes to irrigate our farm.
00:31:44
Speaker
So all of the wastewater from the restaurant, kitchen and brewery get treated and then irrigate the hop farm, which is cool. Hopfield, sorry, which is cool. So um rainwater,
00:31:58
Speaker
And here again, the farm, we've got our own little kind of like water ecosystem, which is kind of cool. Yeah. Well, I mean, we had lunch before we started this and there's a lot of, uh, farm grown beef on the menu. So it's pretty common to see spent grain go to, to a farmer, but here it's going to the farmer who owns the brewery, right. And then customers eating that cow in turn. Yeah, exactly. Cause yeah. So like paddock to pint philosophy, our grain in our beers,
00:32:26
Speaker
Yeah, you can see the grain growing that's in our beer. And the same thing if you've got... You had the gnocchi, right? It was delicious. Yeah, it's got beef in it.
00:32:36
Speaker
So you can literally see the... Hold on, this sounds a bit bleak, but you can see the cows that is now in your gnocchi. I didn't really want to think about it that way. yeah but but it's ah But yeah, but also that cow then ate the spent grain from the brewery. So it's like a nice real...
00:32:52
Speaker
beautiful circle of life ah sort of thing. So um yeah, and that's it's something that we try to incorporate in all aspects of the brewery, whether it be kitchen, brewery, whatever, is that we want to make this He has brewery as self-sustaining and as possible.
00:33:12
Speaker
So, solar. So, we've got solar on the roofs and we also tap into Mike's solar because Mike's got a house on the farm a bit further down there. But whenever he's got excess solar, we can steal power from him as well. Same with water. if Actually, that's another thing.
00:33:28
Speaker
he's I can steal his water catchment as well. So, if I'm low on water. Yeah, so he's got a big tank over there too. So, every now and then I'll just steal water from Mike. Yeah. so ah So, yeah, so we want to essentially make ourselves as sustainable and green as possible.
00:33:46
Speaker
um And, yeah, that's essentially it. Cool, cool. And what about the beers? I mean, maybe starting on like the cool ship and things like that. So that was like, is that what sitting in some attic somewhere?
00:33:59
Speaker
yeah it's literally just above in the roof behind me. Okay, yeah. um There's a little trap door up there. But yeah, so that's sitting up there. I've only used it a couple of times.
00:34:11
Speaker
um I used it for, ah yeah, so did a um like a wheat-based wort. i used some of the hops from our noble hops that I dried out um in in that beer, sent it up to the cool ship and overnight it cooled down. so over that that first 12 hours of it cooling overnight, I didn't really see much activity in it.
00:34:39
Speaker
Then what, the next day, so 36 hours later, I started to see some, a bit of ferment activity. And then another day after that, I really saw like a bit of a crowds and growing there. I was like, okay, cool. It's actually working. I've got a fermentation here. So I brought it into another tank. I've got like a bit of a, for lack of a better word, like a dirty tank down here where I have my spontaneous stuff in there and let it finish out in there. We did our first bottling about, I think it was like September last year.
00:35:05
Speaker
um of that cool ship beer uh and it's shocking how good it turned out it's ah it's one of those things for me being a lager brewer and having brewed in only like clean breweries i just remember putting the wort up there and open up the shutters to that room so to let the air come in and cool it down and all the microbes and yeast and whatever in the air to you know, inoculate that word.
00:35:34
Speaker
I was just sitting up there. It's like, okay, I guess I wait now. I don't know. And yeah. And then in three days later, was like, okay, actually worked sick. So I was just, it just felt weird doing that, but it, yeah, turned out really good. So the Cool Ship beer bottled into 750 mil bottles. And it's just, there's like a little bit of,
00:35:56
Speaker
bready horse blanket, nice lemon pithy citrus notes. um Yeah, and it's it's cool because, again, it came from from our terroir. Did I say that? Yeah, I said it.
00:36:12
Speaker
Why not? yeah If anyone can say it, you you're in a sort of small collective in Australia. yeah You can yeah make a claim to that anyway. And and what about, you know, you talked before you like happily to make... um fruited hype beers and IPAs and things like that. And people who knew from Burnley would have sort of got that sense as well, that you would sort of make anything and everything, I guess. Is that still how you like to see things at Devil Bend or do you sort of try and define yourself a bit sort of more down the line or anything like that? It's actually really good question. So when we first started doing here, i i was the recipes I was doing were very much in that Burnley mindset where we've got the, yeah you know, we had the taproom in Richmond where we got a lot of good foot foot traffic and, you know, people were wanting to try everything.
00:37:01
Speaker
So whether it be a sour, or a double IPA or or just a nice crisp lager, there was people in the CBD or Richmond area that were just going to try everything. Whereas here, it's a bit more of ah a family venue because we've got a nice playground out there, families come here.
00:37:18
Speaker
Kids run loose one run wild on the on the playground and then parents kind of sit back, have a wine, have a lager or a pale. So I would say 90% of the beer that we brew here or sell here is our pale ale and our lager.
00:37:34
Speaker
And there's still a spot for that hypey fruit sour. And right now we've got a triple IPA on and ah and ah yeah in a West Coast IPA.
00:37:48
Speaker
But people are normally having like a pot of it or maybe a pint of it. And we go, sick, awesome, liked it. I'll take a four pack home, but I'm going to sit on the lager for the rest of the day. So it was definitely sort yeah, first few months of being here, having to learn that ah the demographic is just a little different here.
00:38:08
Speaker
um So now we're two years down the track and i feel like we're more defining that we want to just have... a real good lager that ah people can just rely on.
00:38:23
Speaker
And same with the pale ale. And then have our specialties you once every month or two in cans and kegs. and We got a new sales manager on, Scott, um who's who's killing it.
00:38:36
Speaker
And if Scott's like, hey, I want to have an Irish Red next month in in a couple of whenever for St. Paddy's, sweet, awesome, I'll do that. and So I think we kind of, yeah, ah doing everything, but...
00:38:53
Speaker
in smaller quantities, concentrate more on the lager and the pale. Yeah. so yeah And I got a sense, and again, we'll go into Germany in a bit, but I got the sense that the lager was something you really spent a lot of time on. I feel like I saw you at Gab's. It might've been a couple of years ago and you're like, I've just got the lager like where I want it to be. And yeah so what's that process sort of like?
00:39:16
Speaker
So again, when using our own grain, because lager, you you've probably heard my a million brewers is that you can't hide anything in a lager. It's such a simple but yet hard beer to brew.
00:39:31
Speaker
um And the very first year our grain, I feel like it had a bit more of a, um not sweet breading note, it was a bit more yeah grainy for lack of a better of word.
00:39:44
Speaker
And it wasn't until the 2023 harvest that the beer was really starting to
00:39:54
Speaker
speak to me god that sounds so and stupid but like it it just started really coming together that's the right word yeah so really coming together uh and then again now as we get better at um at our well i say we where's mike mike's getting even even better with this with his cropping regime and we got real lucky with the weather for 2024, the lager's just getting better and better and better.
00:40:25
Speaker
And I just did, I recently, it was like two months ago, I went up to um to King River and visited Nathan up there, um sat down, got ah he he gave me a pills and a curls, and straight away I just looked it and said, thats that's filtered, I can't look around.
00:40:42
Speaker
his brewery is the same size as ours and I'm like why the hell am I not filtering like I'm just being lazy not filtering so I quickly got my hands on a filter started filtering the lager the mid strength and I've got a bunch of Octofest beers in tank right now I filter all those as well and it's just one of those things where again it's just taking that lager to a whole new level um So the lager, when I saw you at Gab's, I was like, yeah, it's finally where I want it. But and i then I see something else like, oh, actually, I can do this. Oh, actually, I can do that.
00:41:15
Speaker
And then ah so is it's a constant thing that I do want to keep improving because it's, I know, once once you I don't settle on like, yeah, that's pretty good. I feel like you're not pushing the boundaries of your brewing. Whereas if I keep trying to improve my lager, then, um, someday I'll be happy with it.
00:41:36
Speaker
Maybe you won't, maybe that's the, that's the trick. can Never be happy with it. Never be satisfied. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Um, but yeah, no, so no, it's, it's, yeah, it it does take a long while to get to it, but it is, it is, I'm very happy where it is right now.
00:41:49
Speaker
ah Yeah, and you're right. maybe maybe Maybe you're right. Never be satisfied with it, so you're always constantly improving. Cool. cool All right. Well, let's take a quick break.
00:42:03
Speaker
Cool. Cheers. It's time for Have You Done A Rowlings? Proudly presented by the legends at Rowlings labels. For the very best digitally printed cans and cartons with no MOQ, visit rowlingsprint.com.au and chat to Brad and Paul today.
00:42:21
Speaker
Welcome listeners, we're here with another Have You Done A Rowlings winner. I'm joined by Craig. Craig, what are we here to talk about? G'day Will, fantastic to be back. We're celebrating the good beer citizens of the beer industry, so people...
00:42:37
Speaker
Whether they're working in in brewing, in sales, in marketing, in events, serving beers over the bar. The people who are going out of their way to contribute back to not only the beer community, but the broader community. and And thankfully inspired and supported by the legends at Rallings, who are themselves known as a wonderful family business, who go above and beyond the call of duty every single time. I think anyone who works with them can...
00:43:01
Speaker
attest to that. It's called Have You Done a Rallying? um We've got a couple of a winner and ah and ah an honourable mention today. Fantastic. do you want to kick us off maybe with an honourable mention from a listener?
00:43:14
Speaker
And this is a pretty cool one. i We got ah ah a nomination in for the team at at Stomping Ground Brewery who, i for for people who follow their Instagram and everything, may have noticed that they've gotten on board with the Flow Festival as a partner of the Flow Festival, which celebrates deaf arts and culture.
00:43:33
Speaker
um They weren't sure who was involved with it, so I thought I'd give um the team a call. And thankfully, I connected with Abby Packer, who's their marketing manager, um who's been a real driving force behind this. Now, what what they've done is Abby has teamed up with a Melbourne deaf artist, Gonqueta, who...
00:43:52
Speaker
They've collaborated on on brewing some beer. They've created artwork that sort of um documents the whole brewing process and Auslan interprets each step of the brewing process. um there While I was speaking to Abby, the artist Gonqueta was actually outside painting a mural across the the wall at their Gipp Street venue in Collingwood.
00:44:12
Speaker
um And they're hosting an event where they're actually having an Auslan interpreted beer tasting. So just so I thought it was a really wonderful way of um of broadening access to a new community that perhaps um you know are just as interested in beer, but maybe haven't had as easy a way into it as as possible. So hats off to Abby Packer at Stomping Ground.
00:44:34
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. So that event's next Wednesday as well, if you're listening to this in time and want to um check it out, stomping around their Gip Street venue. And also, if you want to know more about Auslan and beer, we actually featured Gonqueta or Jacob, as we knew him in the article, and and his and his friend's um sort of promotion of Auslan beer and um how they see it is important for breweries to sort of have an understanding of beer.
00:45:00
Speaker
deaf community and that and that kind of thing. um yeah But we've got our winner here who is also from Melbourne and this nomination comes from Nick Gottschalk. I really hope I'm pronouncing that right because Nick is a long-term reader of The Crafty Pint and I've always wondered how to pronounce his last name. I don't believe I've ever met him so I've never been able to clarify but apologies. Well i'm I'm sure he'll let us know in the comments.
00:45:26
Speaker
It looks, yeah, yeah, absolutely. it So what Nick had to say about Otter's Promise was ah he said that Dan and Mick from Otter's Promise run the coolest bar and bottle shop in Melbourne and perhaps even the world. Aside from being great people, Dan made himself available a number of times to sit down with me and go through my business plan for a theoretical bar that never actually came to be.
00:45:46
Speaker
ah Nick says, damn the cost of living crisis and the economy. Nick, I think there's still hope for this bar. let's Let's get on the other side of this. um And even before that, Nick says that ah Dan would lend him some limited space in the cool room to store wine that Nick didn't even buy from ah the team at Otter's Promise.
00:46:03
Speaker
It was wine for his engagement party that he was holding in a park. Nick says they're all around great people. And um he also wanted to shout out Sim and Meg, who also work at Otter's Promise.
00:46:14
Speaker
again That's a fantastic win for Otter's Promise, a long-term crafty supporter and a great crafty venue. Guys, this that's if you've got a a nomination, if you've got someone in mind who's doing something really cool for the industry, whether it's – you know, they're they're behind the bar, they're in front of the bar, they're in the office or whatever, or on the road, whatever it might be, um jump onto the website, craftypint.com, Rallings, and throw a nomination in. It takes five minutes.
00:46:41
Speaker
And, i you you know, you might never know, you might get a shout out on the pod. So jump on it. You may have me mispronounce your last name. Back to the show.
00:46:52
Speaker
Cheers. Need something printed but it's only a short run? Talk to Rallings. Whether it's cans, cartons or coasters, Rallings has a solution for you. Visit rallingsprint.com.au today.
00:47:05
Speaker
today Welcome back. Sweet. Michael, let's go back to the very start maybe. yeah One thing that sort of surprised me when I first met you was the fact that you were home brewing as a teenager and you're still doing it as well. Like, do you understand sort of why, like what drew you to making beer when you were what, 16 or whatever? Yeah, 15. So, um, yeah, as we know, in Australia, you can't buy beer when you're ah under 18 years of age.
00:47:36
Speaker
Nice loophole. You can buy the ingredients, brew it at home. There's your beer. So that's literally what got me into it. But it's funny because like, yes, I started brewing at 15.
00:47:48
Speaker
Then at 16, put my beers into a local homebrew competition at Warrandyte. So I grew up in Warrandyte. Chucked in my beers to the Warrantat home brew competition at the Warrantat Festival and won champion beer.
00:48:05
Speaker
but Because I was 16, I couldn't accept the award, so my dad accepted it. And so everyone's thinking that my dad is Michael Stanzel. When I was 17, same thing happened.
00:48:16
Speaker
My dad accepted the award. Went 18. won again. i went to accept the awards and they go, uh, no, sorry. We said Michael Stanzel. That's that guy over there. So no, it's actually my dad. I was underage for the last couple of years.
00:48:30
Speaker
So the festival was like, shit, have we been yeah promoting underage drinking? But no, they were promoting underage brewing. So think that's, I think that's, I think that's okay. Um, but yeah, so yeah, uh, that's essentially what got me into brewing. But then,
00:48:45
Speaker
Then as I yeah started learning the chemistry and science behind it, i really just started falling in love with it. and First beers that I was brewing, surprisingly, were Pilsners and Lagers and stuff like that.
00:48:57
Speaker
um And yeah, what what first started off as a means to get alcohol turned into a passion. um and And yeah, that's essentially it.
00:49:08
Speaker
And you were just like, okay, well maybe this is a career. I guess also for context, your parents are German, right? Yeah, yeah, correct. So both my parents are German. So I'm first generation Australian. Is that correct? um I think so.
00:49:21
Speaker
ah so So, which means i've got the German citizenship. and So when my partner i partner and I, Chloe, we did a bit of a travel around Europe when we were...
00:49:32
Speaker
ah How old were we again? 18 and 20. And then when, you know, traveling around Germany, having all her beers and just falling in love with their drinking culture as well.
00:49:46
Speaker
um Yeah, kind of... came on our radar that we could move to Germany and I could do an apprenticeship there. Just like, it was just in the back of our minds.
00:49:59
Speaker
Then, you know, tried to hand it a few jobs back in Australia, you know, i went uni, did graphic design, didn't like it, did ah another few things and it's just like, well, why not make my hobby my career? And what better way to do it is then to put my German citizenship to use and actually move to Germany studying Germany. So I did an apprenticeship as a brewery and a maltster there.
00:50:26
Speaker
And good thing about Germany is that education is free. So um did a, what was meant to be a three year course, but I was able to shorten it onto two years cause I was a nerd.
00:50:38
Speaker
um And yeah. And so yeah, finish, finish that in 2013. thirteen right and um did you yeah how was your german and things like that when you moved over there oh it's so funny so yeah like like we said my parents are german so i my parents would speak german at home all the time i did a year 10 11 12 german classes at high school and you put german down as your second language so you got that extra ah extra enter score yeah absolutely yeah absolutely and then um but then uh
00:51:14
Speaker
i could I could talk about the weather and ask where the toilet is. But then moving to Germany, and I thought my German was pretty good, but then I moved to Germany. And as soon as I'm like actually trying to get my, um you know, my register as ah as a Do have to do that here? Well, you have to register with the council that you now live in this town and whatever. um And as soon as I started doing that, was like, oh, my German's shit. Like you can't fill out a form. Yeah, i can't fill out a form. Like how am I going to actually live here?
00:51:46
Speaker
And then ah so I sent out ah resumes to a bunch of breweries. um Got accepted by one brewery, small, tiny brewery in a small town on the Moselle River.
00:51:58
Speaker
um Worked there for a year and a half. And while working there, I started going to brewing school. So essentially how it works in Germany, it's it's called the dual system.
00:52:11
Speaker
you do your practical education at boarding school, and then your, no, sorry, your theoretical knowledge at boarding school, and then your practical knowledge in the brewery where you are an apprentice.
00:52:22
Speaker
So you would do, if it is spanning the the three years and as it normally would, you would do two months at boarding school, doing all your classes and then four months at the brewery, then two months at boarding school, four months to the brewery.
00:52:37
Speaker
So at the end of three years, you've done two years practical knowledge at the brewery and one year theoretical knowledge at boarding school. um Wait, why am I saying this again? Oh, yeah. So then when going to my first two months at boarding school, having my first classes there, I'm just looking at my textbooks and I'm like, ah yeah, I'm weighing over my head.
00:53:00
Speaker
so because our classes were and but chemistry, physics, math. And you mean like a lecture hall, like people would imagine uni in Australia or like... No, small little classroom like high school. Yeah, small little classroom like high school because the school is ah is is essentially high school.
00:53:19
Speaker
So all my classmates were 16 to 18 and then I was 20. twenty t So was one of the older students. um but then And then also myself and another...
00:53:30
Speaker
person whose name was also Michael. um He was from the States. So we're the only two foreigners there. But yes, it's essentially like a high school classroom, chalkboard, teacher up there teaching you whatever, and you're there taking notes and writing everything down.
00:53:48
Speaker
But yeah, first first two months was really tricky because i would be in class writing down all of these notes and copying from the chalkboard and whatever, and every third word I wouldn't know what it meant.
00:53:59
Speaker
So then after writing all these notes down, I'd have to go back to my dorm, read through it with my dictionary and actually kind of relearn what I learned. So I'd learn it in German and then have to relearn it in English.
00:54:14
Speaker
And so the first two months, it was really tricky. and because yeah like I said I did chemistry, physics so I had to learn the periodic table in German I don't even know it in English but I know it in German now um and I very much from remember being in one physics class we spent we had this formula on the chip chalkboard we had to figure it out whatever and the ah equation we were figuring out was Erziehungskraft and I had no idea what that was
00:54:45
Speaker
And I'm like, okay, cool. I'll figure it out. Awesome. That's my answer. It's correct. But what have I found out? So I'll get back to my dorm, read up the word in the dictionary. It's like, oh, gravity. Cool. Sick. I've just figured out gravity. um ah So, yeah, that was pretty tricky at first. But then, again, because you kind't I was like thrown in the deep end.
00:55:07
Speaker
ah So I had to learn really quickly. Um, and then after a bit of time it became easier. So then I didn't have to relearn it in English. I was just learning in German and my German was strong enough to just be like, cool, I've got it.
00:55:21
Speaker
Um, which was kind of cool. Um, but yeah, no, at first it was really tricky. Um, so yeah. When you're in the brewery taking notes for yourself and things like that, are you writing in German ever are you writing in English? Uh, I did start with German because I didn't know the actual, uh, English words for it. So, um,
00:55:39
Speaker
For like malt or for... No, just for like processes. right So i I came back here and so yeah, when starting at Burnley, i I didn't actually know the English terms for like knockout or sparging or whatever. Actually, just quickly, i want to just clarify.
00:55:57
Speaker
a lot of brewers think we'll will'll call a process during the louding process for love. That's not correct. Okay. I just want to set the record straight right now.
00:56:08
Speaker
So, what... Do you know what Forlalf is? No. Enlighten me. Okay. So, Forlalf is ah is is well what a lot of brewers say in America and Australia. Forlalf is a process of clearing up the wort in the latter time before they transfer that wort over to the kettle.
00:56:28
Speaker
That's not the right word. That's Trav recirculation or Trubwurzer-Circulation in German. Forlauf is a filter term and we need to put an end to that word being used incorrectly. I'm just putting it on the podcast right now. One man mission here. 100%. But I'm very passionate about that.
00:56:47
Speaker
um This may make not make the final cut, but I'll make sure that's real at least and then we can share it everywhere and you can start. Your little journey. Perfect. Yeah. I just need need that first reel and then I can start my campaign.
00:57:00
Speaker
Awesome. Awesome. And yeah, I mean, what was what was brewing like? i Obviously, ah yeah i imagine you're in quite a large brew house making lager eventually. or Yeah. Yes. Where did you sort of end up and was it very, I guess, factory based or how how do you sort of see it? Well, so the first brewery that I worked at was a yeah small brewery in a small town, all you know manual brew house, cleaning tanks with a trolley pump.
00:57:31
Speaker
open fermenters, very like, ah yeah, craft brewing ah essentially. um But then as my apprenticeship came towards the end, I got a job in a large brewery.
00:57:43
Speaker
and We would produce 450 hectolitres two hours. Our centrifuge ran at 800 hectolitres an hour and the filter at 300 hectolitres an hour.
00:57:56
Speaker
um So, lot ah yeah, a lot bigger brewery, which I loved because I learned so much there. and Yeah, so...
00:58:10
Speaker
yeah so so in the in that what Something that I love is is working in large breweries is that their processes are so perfected that if you learn in a large brewery, well, this is at least my experience, so learning in a large brewery, you learn so much in all aspects from brew house to filtration to centrifuging, cleaning tanks, just anything.
00:58:32
Speaker
And all those principles that you learn in a large brewery, whether be automated or not, you can just scale back to a small brewery that like I've got right behind me right here. And, um,
00:58:44
Speaker
And yeah, just scattered back to how you would do that exact process here and this small brewery here. And, um, yeah, know I just found it did the most valuable knowledge i've ever gained working in a large brewery like that.
00:58:57
Speaker
And obviously, so you go from like a big lager brewery process driven and things like that, but you and Chloe, uh, sort of decided to do things your own way and maybe a bit more, a bit more Australian slash American new world kind of approach, right? Yeah, the audacity for us to try and tell Germans how to brew beer is wild, actually.
00:59:19
Speaker
So, yeah, as as you said, so working in um in the large brew, brewing Pilsner, Pilsner, Pilsner, wheat beer, and that's it. And just while in Germany seeing the craft beer...
00:59:36
Speaker
gained popularity in Australia, I really felt like I was missing out. So were you coming back sort of a bit and being like, oh, wow, there's way more breweries now or anything like that? Or it was more your mates you were catching up with over like... Yeah, exactly. So mates mates would be telling me about it.
00:59:51
Speaker
ah My parents would send me like articles of like good beer, because I remember good beer week maybe had just started while we were over there. And so my parents would send me articles of it. I was like, man, there's a lot going on in Australia that like I felt like we were missing out on.
01:00:05
Speaker
So when seeing that and then, you know, learning more and more about... um ah ah Because like New England IPAs were getting big in the States and stuff like that.
01:00:18
Speaker
um So Chloe and I were like, well, why don't we... kind of start our own little side hustle, use someone else's brewing equipment on ah at a winery and produce a modest 250 litres a week, sell that, and then it's just going a bit of fun. means it breaks up my Pilsner Brewing with something a bit more fun and creative.
01:00:44
Speaker
and um And, yeah, so we went through the process of, you know, establishing a business, ah registering all that. Oh, Jesus Christ. did you that The paperwork. Okay. You think paperwork's hard and in Australia? Germans, they love paperwork. Yeah.
01:00:59
Speaker
um It's funny because people would say like, you know, beer, it's it's easy to sort of be involved in beer in Germany. yeah and more it's Maybe if you have 500 years. yeah It was just it's just the amount of paper that we had to do was wild. But we got we got it through there. and And luckily, our mates were really, really helpful.
01:01:15
Speaker
um But yeah, we got... ah got this brewery going we called it wild animal brewing company um and we had a term in english in english and then all and as say well what things also our blurbs are all in uh english as well so it was like it was uh yeah it was it was you know because we're only doing 250 liters it was very easily sold 250 liters a week it was very easily sold so it's not like we had to really work that hard to sell that much um but
01:01:50
Speaker
what was ah and which all in English, which kind of meant
01:01:57
Speaker
ah we we we pulled the foreigner, I don't know better card a fair bit. So obviously in Germany, you've got the German purity law. So we had a coffee oatmeal stout. So oats and coffee, not allowed in there. So in very, very tiny font, just below the yeah barcode, we had it's a beer-like drink.
01:02:19
Speaker
So if the Brauerbund, which is the brewer's board, it is. think you're going to say like Brewer Cops or something like that. Yeah, Brewer Cops. They're just going to come at all the breweries and checking what's in storage just to make sure it's only hops, water, malt, and waste. Yeah, Brewer's Board. We call them the Brewer's Cops, actually. I like that better.
01:02:40
Speaker
um Yeah, the brery brewery police, they... they that If they were saying like, hey, there's there's oats in this beer, there's coffee in this beer, you can't have that. so yeah, it's it's not a beer. It's a beer-like drink.
01:02:52
Speaker
um because ah yeah So there was just little cheeky things that we did to make sure that we could still brew other beers because, again, all the things that we've seen in the States was like these...
01:03:03
Speaker
ah Actually, a really good beer that I really liked and something that we could get in Germany was um Elvis Juice from BrewDog. And that's a grapefruit IPA. And I had that beer. I was like, that's brilliant. I want to brew our version of that.
01:03:16
Speaker
But again, it's got grapefruit in it. So we had to call it a beer-like drink. um Did a strawberry wit beer, a session pale ale with donut peaches. And so we're just kind of like doing our own little craft beer.
01:03:33
Speaker
Um... but yeah But most of the time calling it beer-like drink because ah just so we wouldn't get in trouble. um But also, we're too small. No one's going to really get too stressed about two Australians brewing couple hundred litres a week.
01:03:49
Speaker
um That said, anyway, it was it was a lot of fun. i really enjoyed it. um And it probably ah made Chloe and myself realize how much we love the um the creativity in these beers, um which then prompted us to start slowly working on coming back home to Australia.
01:04:13
Speaker
so because we by that point i'd been in germany for six years chloe had been in germany for five years and realizing that wild animal actually had had merit uh well like i will let's go back to australia where this will thrive and uh well you know this yeah could thrive and then yeah do that because that's one thing in germany uh sorry i'm i'm creating my own questions right now, Will. But one thing in Germany is that ah because the beer is already so good, because craft beer was born out of a revolution. There was shit beer in America, watery whatever.
01:04:55
Speaker
And so drinkers wanted something more flavorful. And that's when, know, new hot programs came about and more flavorful, good pale ales and, you know, later ah IPAs became a thing.
01:05:07
Speaker
But the beer in Germany is already brilliant and it's affordable. So there's no need for a revolution. So the craft beer industry in Germany, in my opinion, is quite stagnant.
01:05:18
Speaker
So despite wild animal... been in mind and Chloe's eyes quite successful because we're always sold out. There was no need for it. um And if you look around Germany, what we've been back here for eight years.
01:05:36
Speaker
And if you look at the German craft beer scene, it hasn't changed. Whereas here in Australia, there's been a hundred breweries going up, ah you know opening and and then in some places closing as well. But there's been a whole,
01:05:53
Speaker
Life cycle. A whole life cycle. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. and that time yeah Yeah. I was there in 2019 and you do like, you can sort of seek out like craft beer bottle shops and they've kind of got a couple of beers, but it's like, but also you can get all the beer that's made in within a sort of 50 kilometer radius. Yeah.
01:06:12
Speaker
in any supermarket or yeah wherever you buy your pack of gum as well like yeah and it's just everywhere and it is very good and it's way cheaper as well it's it's so affordable yeah yeah and yeah that's the affordability that's a big thing as well because clientele was selling in a ah bottle for um of wild animal they were 330 mil bottles but they were like 1 euro 50 which doesn't sound like much but then you look at comparison the brewery that i worked at corp and so you get a bottle for like 33 cents so it's it's a lot uh because i remember my uh my colleagues uh you know like like the colleagues that i worked with at the brewery they um like the beers that we brewed they'll buy a six pack from me every now and then
01:06:54
Speaker
and be like, bro, that's... I could have bought a slab for that, but now I've just got a six-pack. was like, enjoy. um So, yeah, no, very different. um But, yeah, so that's how we started Wild Animal was just out of...
01:07:11
Speaker
boredom and jealousy of what was happening over here in Australia and then the love of that project is what brought us back here um and quite funnily actually so we were visiting Australia in 2016 I would say in twenty sixteen i would say and just happened to bump into the original owners of um of Burnley, and they mentioned they were starting a brewery, got into contact with them, and stayed in contact, and then when moving back to Australia, they ah essentially...
01:07:51
Speaker
yeah offered offered me and Chloe a job. Chloe to start in the venue and then me in the brewery and then Chloe went on to do sales and I stayed in the brewery. so So that's how we came back to Australia essentially.
01:08:06
Speaker
yeah And Michael, like you've obviously been back in Australia for a fair while. Like how do you sort of look back at German beer culture? Cause we, I think we can look at it and be like, you know, Germany is maybe craft beer. It doesn't work out that well, but beer is everywhere. it's It's kind of respected in a way that in Australia wine is, but beer still isn't like, do you, do you kind of still see that? I was kind of surprised when I was in Germany in 2019, I was like, okay, I kind of was led to believe Germans don't binge drink.
01:08:36
Speaker
they they like They like to drink a lot. Yeah, yeah. that's ah No, the Germans drink a lot. um and ah ah Yeah, no. So German beer culture.
01:08:50
Speaker
They are very, very proud of of the German beer culture because it has such a rich history. Well, the German purity law is over 500 years old now.
01:09:03
Speaker
And they really, really, really believe in it. I remember i brought up the argument with one of my teachers being like, you know, because i was I was reading more and more about the craft beers. and Because dry hopping, you couldn't do dry hopping in Germany because hops were meant to be added on the hot side of the of the brewery. So, in the yeah, in in the brew house.
01:09:23
Speaker
um And I kept arguing with my teachers being like, yeah, but like, you don't need it anymore. Like, we can add other stuff into beers. And then they'll always... be quite stubborn and be like, no, good beer only needs four ingredients.
01:09:37
Speaker
So very proud of of their history. And they just love their beer so much too. So so much so that even when driving as opposed to having a lemon lime bitters of water or whatever, they'll just sit in there or Gatorade. They'll literally sit in their car with a non-alcoholic beer, which again, of course the the German non-alcoholic beers are a lot more advanced than the ones that we have here.
01:10:02
Speaker
ah And then another thing is
01:10:09
Speaker
something I learned from one of my friends is that, yeah, you said that Australians, we do love binge drinking. But Germans, they describe it as when they're drinking beer, it's not a sprint, it's a marathon.
01:10:21
Speaker
So, yeah, they'll drink a lot, but stretch it over a long and bit of time. So, as opposed to doing a six-pack in an hour, they'll kind of spread it out.
01:10:33
Speaker
And you'll be bringing your own sort of a slice of German beer culture to Devil Ben, right? That's sort of something you've appreciated, I think, uh, since coming back in terms of, I think with Burnley brewing, the, the sort of scale of the Oktoberfest was quite different to a lot that had gone before it, where plenty of breweries had done sort of day time, like one day events and things like that. but Yeah. You just went, all right, we're going run it in September, first of all. Yeah, yeah. And it's going to go for a month just like it does in Germany. Yeah, yeah.
01:11:01
Speaker
what What was that sort of about? And, and but you know, it must be such a, I guess, like nice time for you as well. Yeah, no, it's 100% my favorite time of year, whether it was in Germany or now here in Australia. Because back in Germany, every year I'll go down to Munich and spend at least a long weekend down there.
01:11:21
Speaker
going into all the different tents and yeah, just enjoying what is Oktoberfest. And because of that love of Oktoberfest, had to bring it back here to Australia. So Chloe was very good at creating um the events that we would ah have for Burnley during October, and which again, like you said, we would start when Oktoberfest would start in Germany, which is mid mid ah mid-September and then finishes on the first week of October.
01:11:48
Speaker
um So our Octoberfest would essentially be done before the other breweries would have their events. um ah But yeah, as it is something that's very close to my heart. It's something that we're doing here at Devil Bend too.
01:12:01
Speaker
um So this year we're going to be celebrating throughout all of October. So not September like we did at Burnley. We've kind of learnt that. okay Yeah, we've kind of learnt that. Yeah, we've kind of learnt. Okay, it is called Octoberfest. It's happening in October. germanys out German hasn't worked that out yet Yeah, no, no, no. So... um so ah Every Saturday will be a ticketed event.
01:12:24
Speaker
um ah So, you know, we've got the band, entertainment, all the fun games. Everyone wears their Liederhosen and Diendels and stuff like that. I've got 10 different German beers on tap. Three of them were collaborations, which is really exciting fun. um And, yeah, so because, again, and being on the farm,
01:12:50
Speaker
This location, I feel like we're really lucky ah ah being here because we've got our own Wiesen. So in Germany, the location of Oktoberfest is called the Wiesen, which is the paddock, essentially.
01:13:07
Speaker
And we have a giant paddock out here. So we have the potential to make our own little German Oktoberfest. So this year, we're kind of giving it a go with this Ticket to Fendt.
01:13:18
Speaker
Uh, and if it goes really well, it's something that we would like to expand and, and create something quite special for, for Melbourne, Victoria, um whatever, whoever wants to come. The world. The world. Do you have any thoughts, um, before we finish up? You know, I've often wondered why Oktoberfest, it does, there's been Oktoberfest events in Melbourne, Australia for a long time, for yeah for years, decades even. Yeah. But in the last, I feel like it's since COVID in particular, craft breweries have really embraced it in a way they haven't before and people get more around it as well. And do do you think there's a reason for that or have people just sort of caught on that it's a good way to get people into your venue? Or you think the there's a more appreciation of the beer or the culture or any aspects of it? That's a good question. I mean, something that you could...
01:14:09
Speaker
almost link it towards is the uprising lagers in the crappy industry because let's look back five six years ago yeah craft beers craft breweries did have a lager there but it was kind of like yeah cool we have a lager on tap there just for the cotton draft drinkers you know um but now that there's a good appreciation for craft lagers and people are starting to realize oh hang on lager doesn't have to taste like shit it can actually taste good Maybe that's why there's been an up uptick in the Oktoberfest events. Because something, I mean, we're looking at at Crafty Pint, all the Oktoberfest events that happened last year. It it went from, don't know, three or four to 20.
01:14:51
Speaker
And it's like, oh, Jesus. I don't know, it's pretty cool. um But yeah, it it maybe it's in the shift of what people are drinking. um People, in my mind at least, they're...
01:15:05
Speaker
stepping away from the double triple IPAs and going towards something a bit more simpler. um So maybe that's it. Because like, it I mean, in Tank right now, I've got what a Schwarz beer, a Märzen and a Pils.
01:15:21
Speaker
And they're just very nice, easy drinking lagers. um And is that what people want to... It's starting to gravitate towards. don't know.
01:15:33
Speaker
Maybe. Yeah, I think the appreciation maybe goes multiple ways. like yeah brewers appreciate the more there's more ability to make good ones, more knowledge, more people potentially want to drink them from local breweries.
01:15:46
Speaker
Craft beer is not new anymore. So maybe people just are happy to turn up at it. Like going to a craft brewery is an unusual experience. for a lot of people it's replaced going to pubs and things like that. So it's like, well, I kind of actually just want the one beer. yeah that I know and can sit on and I love and yeah that kind of thing too. yeah as It used to be more of a box ticking at exercise, arguably. Yeah, that's true.
Shifting Beer Preferences
01:16:07
Speaker
I mean, that's, yeah, ah I'll just use myself as example. I used to always go to breweries and um and, you know, get a tasting paddle or a pot of each beer.
01:16:15
Speaker
um But now I'll go in, see the lager, taste it, you it's pretty good and I'll just have pints of the
Introduction to The Crafty Cabal
01:16:20
Speaker
lager. um so yeah it yeah ah could be just that shifting no more box ticking and more appreciation for lager hope so because I love brewing lager excellent Michael thank you so much for joining me yeah no dramas thanks for having me cheers mate
01:16:41
Speaker
The Crafty Cabal is the Crafty Pints Beer Lovers Club, a community built around good beer, good people and good times.
Oktoberfest and Other Events
01:16:48
Speaker
Members get access to exclusive events, giveaways and deals at breweries and venues right across the country.
01:16:56
Speaker
In September it's looking pretty full. Oktoberfest parties are popping up all over and if you're in Sydney we've got double passes to Frenchy's Oktoberfest to give away. We've also opened comps for two big destination festivals in November.
01:17:10
Speaker
Crafted in Newcastle and Vinehop on the Mornington Peninsula, so get your road trips planned. On top of that, there are cabal-only events too. September 20 sees James team up with Rhys from Evil Megacorp at Frio Social for a guided tasting and Q&A.
01:17:26
Speaker
In October, Red Duck heads to Melbourne's audacious monk to share beers and stories from their 20 years of brewing. And Brisbane, save the date September 25 for a special Helios brewery tour.
01:17:37
Speaker
And don't forget the everyday perks, like a free pot for Cabal members at the Windsor Ale House, Miss Moses and Hepburn Springs Brewing. Cheers to great beers and good times. Head to craftofcabal.com to sign up today.
01:17:51
Speaker
The Crafty
Podcast Production and Support
01:17:52
Speaker
Pint podcast is produced and edited by Matt Hoffman. You can get all your beer-related news and reviews on the Crafty Pint website, craftypint.com, and can stay up to date on future podcast episodes via our socials.
01:18:05
Speaker
We wouldn't be able to produce the podcast or the website, events or festivals we run without the support of the beer industry, whether that's suppliers, bars, breweries or bottle shops. If you'd like to support the show or partner with The Crafty Pine in other ways, please reach out to Craig via the details in the show notes.
01:18:21
Speaker
And if you're a beer lover who'd like to support what we do, you can join our exclusive club for beer lovers, The Crafty Cabal. Visit craftycabal.com for more. And until next time, drink good beer.