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The Art Of Being Evil
302 Plays1 day ago
“I try to do as few things on purpose as possible.”
More than a thousand brewing companies have launched in Australia since the turn of the millennium, but there’s been nothing quite like Evil Mega Corp.
The one-man “worker’s-owned Utopia” is the brainchild of Rhys Lopez, formerly head brewer at Otherside Brewing, and it’s fair to say that in the world of Aussie brewers there’s nothing quite like Rhys either.
It’s probably not worth trying to summarise the operation or the man behind it in these notes; as he admits in the chat: “Sometimes I take a joke too far.”
Instead, settle in for a conversation – with AIBA 2025 Beer Media winner Guy Southern along as co-host – that goes well beyond the origins of Evil Mega Corp, the wild beers he brews for his Squares, and the subscription model he operates to take in AI, the heroes at Médecins Sans Frontières, travel, and turning his dog into a Pope-like figure, a Roman war elephant and a Mariachi musician.
NB If you’re watching or listening in time, we’re hosting an event with Rhys at Freo.Social on September 20.
Ahead of the main chat, James joins Will from Warroora Station in WA to discuss the week’s stories, which include a rare foray into the world of whisky thanks to Oz Whisky Review’s Luke McCarthy, insight into Seeker Brewing’s sustainable new brewery, and a festive take on crowdfunding from Tassie brewery Manchild.
Start of segments:
- 13:13 – Grainstock 2025 Preview
- 19:06 – Rhys Lopez Part 1
- 45:45 – Rhys Lopez Part 2
To find out more about featuring on The Crafty Pint Podcast or otherwise partnering with The Crafty Pint, contact craig@craftypint.com.
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Transcript
Will's Weekend at Bobfish
00:00:05
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Crafty Pine Podcast. I'm Will. I'm James. How are you, Will? I'm doing great, James. I had a wonderful weekend at Bobfish the other day. It was ah great to be back there celebrating funky and wild and barrel-aged beers.
00:00:20
Speaker
Yeah, second year i' in a row at Top Nation. Three sellout sessions, which sold out in a few days. um So how was it? It was great. Good to see a lot of people. The The beers were so good. Like, you know, you can look at it as a sort of great festival and a lot of fun, but I was sort of stopped every so often to just think about like how good the beer I was actually drinking at that moment was just such high quality producers.
Festival-Goers' Loyalty Despite Location Change
00:00:47
Speaker
of ah these beers. They're not as, um I think maybe as attracting as many people as they once were. We hear they sell pretty slowly, particularly in bottle shops, harder to sell some of those more esoteric styles, but I think people are making them as well, if not better than they ever have before.
00:01:03
Speaker
Well, you did shoot me a message saying, I don't really drink sour beers very often, but I loved everything I tasted. So maybe, maybe you're the person they need to win over. If they can win you over, then there's a hope that there's going to be a follow through afterwards.
00:01:15
Speaker
The thing is, I'm also part of the problem. I'm not buying them either, but yeah, there's just such a high level of quality out there. It's it's great to to see. And you had a chat to some of the people there. We'll have some videos to share. Who who did you have a chat to while you are you were there?
00:01:31
Speaker
Well, everyone, fortunately, it's a small festival, so we managed to chat to a lot of people, a lot of punters. It's like talking to people who just, it's, you know, it's their thing every year. They like see tickets go on sale and they just have to get to it. It's like something they don't ever want to miss. They went when it was in a larger space in North Melbourne and now it's in ah Hop Nation's place in Footscray. They um still don't want to ever miss it.
Weekend Getaway to Red Bluff
00:01:54
Speaker
Yeah, no, great. so Excellent. So say and any more festivals this weekend, Will, or are you giving yourself a weekend off from festival action? I'll give myself a bit of time off. What about you? Will you make it to a beer festival this weekend?
00:02:05
Speaker
ah Chances are slim, although I will be staying in accommodation recommended by ah brewer. um Pete from Froth, who I interviewed for the podcast last week, um told me that his favourite place to stay in the whole of Australia is this place called Red Bluff on the West Coast, and in particular ah humpy, which is some basic shack, um,
00:02:24
Speaker
called the Stone House and the Stone House is available this weekend. I'll be off there with the family this weekend. I'll obviously take some beer with me, I guess. We have to lug everything up the hill. It's a very, very, very basic setup. um My wife's kind of questioning why we're paying money to go and stay somewhere like that when we have a very comfortable caravan, but it just feels like a bit of an adventure. So um we'll see how we go there. um and But yeah, very much on the wind down. ah last Last three weeks of the trip now before I rejoin you in in in Melbourne.
00:02:50
Speaker
Yeah, and a good portion of that's driving, obviously. It is, yes, yes. Or at the minute, um sort of practicing the most inefficient and expensive way to eat fresh
Fishing Adventures with Son
00:03:00
Speaker
fish. i think I think William and my son and I are now at something like 15 hours and $100 per kilo of fresh fish we've managed to eat from the last two weeks.
00:03:09
Speaker
But, you know, we've enjoyed some lovely sunrises and sunsets, stood there going, are there any fish in this ocean or is it just us? LAUGHTER Maybe more talented fisher um more talented people would find them.
00:03:23
Speaker
um we've been We've been giving some tips on where to go and William's like, they lied to us, they scammed us, there's no fish here at all. um Anyway, from from from from blobfish and and terrible fishing to ah to the the news this
Australian Whiskey Industry Insights
00:03:36
Speaker
week. um um we've We've featured a and ah ah writer for the first time, Luke McCarthy. He's obviously not the first time writing. He's well known as a whiskey and spirits writer. But um we figured a ahead of Grainstock in a month's time, we should which is bringing together sort of the brewing and distilling worlds, we should perhaps dip our toes again into the into the world of spirits.
00:03:55
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. And um part of what sort of led to this is I'd heard a bit that, you know, there's actually a lot of distilleries at the moment, but not not producing much whiskey. um It's always fascinated me, this world, because it takes such a long time to make whiskey compared to beer, dramatically different, that um how how people manage that. You know, I've met whiskey salespeople, which...
00:04:19
Speaker
function very differently and work very differently to your beer sales rep. And it's it's just such a different world. And, um you know, hearing that where you're like, oh, Jesus. Okay. So there's these distilleries that aren't actually making anything. What does that mean? And um sometimes it's, it's,
00:04:33
Speaker
not unusual that, and they're sort of built to do that. But um yeah, I reached out to Luke because obviously he knows so much about the world. He's, he would have forgotten more about Australian whiskey than anyone else would know, I reckon. And um yeah, he talked to a lot of people in the industry about where, where it sits.
00:04:49
Speaker
Yeah. You read through it, there are a lot of parallels to beer, whether it's excise, whether it's um rapid expansion, whether it's the fact that breweries that have gone into VA are also at times distilleries, so that's had an effect. um ah He yeah really beautifully tied in, a ah I think, the current state of the local whiskey industry. And um like with Bobfish before, you you know you can you read Luke, and um one of the things about the industry at the moment is the quality of Australian whiskey right ah right now is just also so good.
Price Points in Whiskey and Beer Markets
00:05:22
Speaker
Yeah. But at the same point, you know, similar to beer, he sayss a lot even even in the whiskey world, and a lot of Australian consumers are now price driven going, i need it to hit this price point. I don't care if it's, you know, the most fantastic whiskey you ever could taste right now.
00:05:36
Speaker
You need to hit this price point for me, which is what brewers have been doing with four packs, changing pack size. you know, simple Aussie lagers, that kind of thing, um which, you know, i guess is understandable given the state of play. You did kind of wonder whether the the whiskey buyer was a bit more immune to what's going on in in the world than than the sort of craft beer buyer. But it would seem that, yeah, the parallels are significant. um Yeah. And hopefully this won't be the the last piece that Luke McCarthy of the Oz Whiskey Review um does for us today.
00:06:04
Speaker
But um yeah, it'd be interesting to see what people have to say.
Grain Stock Event Announcement
00:06:06
Speaker
There's going to be distillers as well as brewers and the Australian Distillers Association at Grain Stock in a month's time. um So it'd be really interesting to see just how much common ground there is there and whether there's sort of stuff can be done to bring the two worlds together um in a common cause.
00:06:20
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. And um sticking with bringing things together, um we you had a bit of a chat.
Manchild Brewery's Festival Downsizing Plans
00:06:26
Speaker
Well, I had a chat with ah Joe from Manchild Brewery, who also runs a festival in St. Helens. And he's run both for some time and he sort of dawned on him that... ah Probably the festival maybe was a bit too big to be profitable, similar to ah position a lot of breweries and distilleries find themselves in. And he felt if he could make it smaller, bring people together, he could use the money ah from that to potentially fund his brewery expansion because he's bought a system from the team at Morrison's as as they've expanded.
00:06:57
Speaker
He's had it for a little while, ready to go. So he was kind of like, oh, actually, what I'm sort of doing is crowdfunding here. And i like the sort of teaser that ah Joe is in no way a fan of crowdfunding. He probably has similar feelings to a lot of people in the industry. A lot of the conversations you hear where people like, oh, well, you don't really get that much out of it. Whereas he's like, well, come to my festival and you'll get a lot of live music. You'll get some great comedy.
00:07:21
Speaker
You can drink beer. And hopefully one day you'll get to visit my brewery as well. Yeah, no, it's interesting. It's like giving the benefits first um in the hope that he gets gets gets to benefits himself down the line. and um Good stuff. And you've also you had a chat to another brewery doing some good and interesting stuff in the gong, the guys at Seeker.
Innovative Brewery Operations by Jeff Argent
00:07:40
Speaker
Yeah, so I spoke to Jeff Argent. he um They recently expanded their brewery. um it's It's not dramatically bigger, but will be far more efficient for them and allows them to sort of keep up with their core range as well as their limiteds, which have been going pretty wild. You know, one of these breweries that release multiple limiteds at any one time.
00:07:59
Speaker
ah When looking into expanding, they had an electric setup in order to go bigger and get gas, which is kind of so you could have steam operated brewery, which is more useful.
00:08:09
Speaker
would have had to install gas line. ah That is obviously expensive. So Jeff did some um digging and he landed on thermal oil, which he thinks They may currently be the only brewery in Australia using it. He certainly tried to ask Alanderock a lot because he wanted help setting it up and he wanted to bounce his ideas off it. He said when he fired it up, he wasn't sure if it would work.
00:08:33
Speaker
But the ah thermal oil it means he can heat that oil with electrical parts. Mostly from the solar panels on top of the brewery. And that keeps the keeps the oil hot.
00:08:44
Speaker
If you've ever, well, I'm sure most people have cooked with oil before. If you deep fry anything at home, you want to be pretty careful of the thing, the the pot of oil for a pretty long time after you've dropped something in it. You don't want to put your hand in there.
00:08:57
Speaker
Don't let you for experiences. here Will. I do, no I just you know ive i've I've seen these Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares and those kind of shows. um So yeah but basically it's an unusual system. Crumb and Valley Brewing had something similar where they used waste oil. They're obviously no longer operating but um yeah it was interesting to talk to Jeff as sort of potentially a pioneer of this. It's not new technology but it hasn't really been embraced by the beer industry that much, or at least in, he doesn't think in Australia, obviously, if if you're using this system too, you can always reach out or reach out to Jeff. Cause he'd probably still like to pick your brains. I've only brewed out a few batches on it so far.
00:09:35
Speaker
Yeah. An excellent use of the word digging when talking about gas and thermal oil there, but Fine fine' find use of a pun there.
Crafty Cabal Beer Club Events
00:09:45
Speaker
ah So we'll have yeah have links to all of those articles in the show notes.
00:09:48
Speaker
um Before we get to this week's main guest, and we've got some more upcoming events for our Crafty Cabal Beer Club members. um So Mick Woost will be hosting an event called Staring at the Sun at Helios, talking of another so sustainable brewery. Helios, the sort of sun-powered brewery in Brisbane.
00:10:07
Speaker
They're offering behind-the-scenes brewery tour, tasting, bringing on some special stuff there later this month. um Then in October, I'll be hosting um Red Duck. ah Scott and Vanessa, the fans of Red Duck, they turn 20 next month.
00:10:20
Speaker
ah So we'll be hosting them at the Audacious Monk Cellars. And in fact, the but the next event coming up is features this week's guest, Rhys Lopez from Evil Megacourse.
Interview with Rhys Lopez from Evil Megacorp
00:10:29
Speaker
I'll be joining him at Frio Social on the 20th of September for a lunchtime tasting and a journey through his... um His brain, I guess, really. he's he's probably his's a He'd be up there with the most fascinating guest we've had on on the the podcast. We talk a fair bit, obviously, about beer and his unique approach to subscription model, that kind of thing, but also um some interesting sort of political chat and sort of views on various things in the world. and
00:10:57
Speaker
Feature fairly prominently. um i don't know what you made of it. Was it one of the few that you haven't sort of been hosting, but you'll have watched back? i don't know what you'd have made ah made of the chat. Yeah, no, it definitely went all over the place. I never knew what direction it was heading. So you co-hosted obviously with Guy Southern. I felt like Guy tried to sort of temper the conversation at a few times, but can't really with race. It sort of jumped all over the place. And um there may have been a moment where the you're trying to wrap it up and he saw right through that and just kept on running. I know you want to finish this now, but I really need to get this point across. Yeah, yeah. ah a bit he's is is He's a great guy. He's one of the, um you know, I'd say smartest people in the business. And he's also got a
00:11:34
Speaker
you know, real um strong moral compass that that might not align with everybody who's out there. but so you know, we talk about his Medicines on Frontier um fundraising beer that he's he's just put together, which has had a great response and just his sort of unique approach to um brewing since he moved on the other side. So, yeah, really fascinating chat. And if you want to hear it from him in person, um yeah, you can join us there at Frio Social on the 20th of September.
00:11:58
Speaker
Yes, definitely. And, you know, um we might have a few new listeners because they just love Reece so much and what he does at Evil Megacorp. So you might want to shout him out as the Bluestone Yeast Brewery of the Month, or you could shout out any other brewery that you just love. You might love what they're about. You might just love the founders' views on AI and and the likes, or ah maybe you'd like to blacklist them. I don't know, but but Maybe that'll make you vote for someone else. But if you wanted to nominate someone, you could do so craftypint.com slash bluestone.
00:12:30
Speaker
He'd even be a good subject for Have You Done A Rallings? Sari, a good beer citizen, given he is donating all all the takings apart from ah GST and postage of his Medicine Sonde Frontier fundraising beer as well. so and But yeah, so if you want to nominate a good beer citizen, you can and i have Have you Done A Rallings campaign, which is craftypint.com forward slash rallying.
00:12:52
Speaker
i'm All of that said and done. i guess time to get to the the chat with Rhys after a short break. So, Will? Yeah, enjoy the chat. And if you do, make sure you leave us a review, comment or like on our podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
00:13:06
Speaker
Cheers. Cheers.
Grain Stock Conference Highlights
00:13:13
Speaker
Hey guys, it's Craig here from The Crafty Pine and I'm back with Stu Whitecross from Voyager Malt and we're talking all things grain stock. It is an all new industry conference coming up in October at the stunning Witton Malt House in the Riverina. It's about all things stock.
00:13:31
Speaker
Grain, brewing, distilling, baking, all the good things, 9th to the 11th of October. We've been getting updates along the way with Stu and here today to talk again.
00:13:42
Speaker
Stu, how are you, mate? Good, Craig. How are you? Good, man. Now, i've um I've been thrilled to see the program coming together on the website, grainstock.com.au. um Mate, tell us today, i guess from a brewer's perspective, like who have we got coming along speaking at the conference? Who's the ones to look out for?
00:14:01
Speaker
Yeah, look, we've got an amazing list of speakers. I've really been, think I've said previously how overwhelmed I've been by everyone, whether it's industry, brewers, speakers, people wanting to help out, asked by, you know,
00:14:16
Speaker
yeah and basically pulling this event off. um So yeah we've got the three sponsored buses coming out of capital cities. and We've got amazing product donations, but um yeah we've certainly seen that with our speakers and and presenters.
00:14:30
Speaker
um you yeah Whilst there is a focus on on grain and the supply chain across brewing, baking, distilling, um you know technical sessions from molsters and sensory sessions. and We're really kind of leveraging off the fact that this symposium is held beside a grain processing facility and beside a a paddock. so a lot of really good hands-on practical um demonstrations ah that we're running here as here as well.
00:14:53
Speaker
um ah From a brewing point of view, look I guess just going over some on the website now, um it's not just about grain. and We've got some amazing inspirational speakers out there, I think, dealing with change and adapting businesses, coping with challenges, people like Jared Deaton from Three Mills Bakery ah in Canberra, Jane Lewis, X2Birds, now Full Colour Life.
00:15:16
Speaker
yeah So um yeah I think some really inspiring, engaging talks there. um ah From growers and breeders, people like Jason Cotter from Turong Farm, who's been growing an Australian bred Maris Otter, a traditional Czech-style Pilsner malt, or Pilsner variety barley called Hannah, that I think will be really exciting for brewers to see. Matt Newell from the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries talking about perennial grains.
00:15:43
Speaker
um And not only have we got all these talks, we've also got three sponsored bars running throughout the day that will have samples of these in beers and spirits, like samples of all these these grains um available for for delegates to to try.
00:15:56
Speaker
Laura Vallee, coming all the way from the US, she's dedicated a life to studying the grain network of rye from breeding to milling, brewing, distilling. Phil Stevens, ex-Welder's dog, who now spends his time researching and sourcing and trialling native grains.
00:16:12
Speaker
um oh look what else what has we got from industry we've got kyle and sabrine from the iba we've got the chartered institute of brewers and distillers running hands-on practical sessions in our lab things like friability mill gap analysis um grains artisan baking community crafty pint will be there matt kirkegaard um will be there as well um wow what was just skimming through the website here um Our symposium is called Ferment, so it would make sense that we have um something on yeast. We've got Delphine Sagard from France who's coming across.
00:16:48
Speaker
She's done a lot of work in research and domesticating ah yeast in beer and wine. um Then we've got Josh from Mogwai, Derek from Bluestone, guys from AB b Biotech, Tom from Fermentis talking about lager yeasts.
00:17:02
Speaker
And then no shortage of brewers. Topher Boom from Wildflower, Keelan Vaughn, Stone and Wood, Matty Cuthbert, Scotty Morgan, Rich Watkinson, Rich Adamson, Steve Brockman. um The list goes on and on and on.
00:17:14
Speaker
It's a who's who, Stu. Sorry, mate. I need to take a breath. Panels with farmers, processors. There's many more that i haven't mentioned. You can check it out website. What I do want to say is that the commencement of these talks, um we've got a sunset field walk, dinner by the lake. We've got a DJ, three sponsored bars for delegates.
00:17:33
Speaker
So it's an awesome opportunity to engage with these speakers, but also interact and engage with our our fellow industry colleagues. There you go. Party by the Riverina. Fantastic.
00:17:45
Speaker
and And you've got the buses happening, you mentioned. how How is that working again? Give us the reminder on how brewers can get their tickets.
Transportation for Grain Stock Attendees
00:17:52
Speaker
We do, mate. So thanks to Joe White, Barrett Burson, AMSAT Malt, um we've got three buses for brewers coming out of Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Batemans Bay, Adelaide.
00:18:03
Speaker
um There's only a few seats remaining. um So basically, a brewer can sponsor a keg. um jump on that bus, get a three-day free pass to grain stock, return travel on the bus.
00:18:16
Speaker
um Based on the current flights to get in and out of Griffith um and the ticket prices, it's basically valued at $1,500. Wow. So they are selling out very quickly. We've only got a few left on the Sydney bus.
00:18:28
Speaker
I think Adelaide is ah is almost nearly full. um If you're wanting to get on these buses, book immediately. Yeah, fantastic. Well, guys, there you have it. It sounds like it is going to be an epic time at GrainStock. Make sure you get along. No, it's the 11th of October.
00:18:43
Speaker
Head to the website, grainstock.com.au. Fill in a form, book your tickets on the bus, donate a keg. it's It couldn't be an easier system in the process to go through. ah Jump on it. And thank you, Stu. We'll be back for more GrainStock updates soon.
00:19:00
Speaker
Thanks, Greg. Cheers, mate.
Evil Megacorp's Origins and Vision
00:19:07
Speaker
reese welcome to the show thank you Looking ah magnificent there, very lips sort of Leonine. Yeah, paddle-pop line is what I get called usually. Paddle-pop line, yeah, I can see that actually, yeah. and What are the secrets of your your your beautiful hair?
00:19:22
Speaker
I'm half Asian. No, also like when your name rhymes with grease, you've got to wash your hair fairly frequently. Like it's just a kind hazard of a, you know, you don't want any like nominative determinism. There you go, think that.
00:19:35
Speaker
Nice, excellent. Well, moving ah swiftly on from he hair products and hair maintenance, um let's start with the but here and now, Evil Megacorp. Yes.
00:19:45
Speaker
um What is it and how did you get to this point? So Evil Megacorp is kind of a subscription-based nano-brewery that is just me. So it's an ironic name.
00:19:56
Speaker
um I spent, it's my 20th year in the craft beer industry in various roles. I've been in a brewery that whole time. But I've been brewing for about 10, 11 I think.
00:20:07
Speaker
um And yeah, it was basically just ah during kind of coronavirus I was talking partner at the time about potentially, you know, what I would do if I won water. And I was like, you know, I probably should get a 20 liter brew kit and just make the beers that I want make.
00:20:22
Speaker
And she said to me at the like, you could probably do that now. And I indeed I mean I shouldn't have, but I did. And I kind of bit the bullet and you and i started like looking at kits and stuff like that. Got some stuff made out of China.
00:20:36
Speaker
ah from Ted Hubs, company that I've used several times already before for a few different builds on the other side. And yeah, and then just, then it was all a bit real. And kind had to do it. To be honest with you, the first time you told me about I thought it was a joke.
00:20:49
Speaker
Yeah. And you went, and you looked at it dead in the eyes and went, I've walked into my house, dude. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And went, this is real. Yeah, well, it's, I mean, I've always wanted to do this kind of thing, not exactly like this, but I kind of started saving for this about 14 years ago.
00:21:04
Speaker
So it's been ah a long kind of project. yeah but obviously it's taken lot of incarnations over the time. and That was before I had been on social media and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah and and just, you know, there's a lot of different...
00:21:16
Speaker
the the market and the the kind of layout of of the beer industry is quite different to how it is then so it's obviously changed a lot over that time. And did you have the name first? Did everything come from the concept, you know, Evil Megacourt, what would that look like? No, that was a joke. So it was originally, ah you know, like, it's like, it's like, a you know, the the high school thing about you talking to your mates and you kind of like, oh, we're gonna make a band and it's gonna be this and you're gonna be on bass all thing.
00:21:40
Speaker
So when you're like a bit more nerdy in beer industry, it's like, we're going make brewery one day and it's going to this and that. There's a people that I was, ah you know, just talking shit over beers with. And, um, and, and Evil Megacorp was kind of a bit of a joke name because at the time, uh, in the same way that like now everyone's brand identity is all about the beach we love the beach we love going surfing we love the outdoors three girls more seagulls yeah exactly yeah um but yeah yeah so the the brand identity of that time kind of like 2005 2008 was a lot of really big companies being like you know where ye olde you know and they'd like these sepia tones and they'd you know and they'd pretend that it was about some guy from 150 years ago who was doing this thing and then trying like
00:22:25
Speaker
pull that brand recognition to to become, I guess, because they like self-conscious about crafting this new thing and everyone really wanted to focus in on this kind of thing. And in fact, when they called boutique beer, you know?
00:22:39
Speaker
And yeah, and you know, it was kind of a piss take because some of these are like massive companies. And so it was, you know, craft washing the whole whole thing. And so, yeah, it was like, what if you did the opposite of that and just, you know, be this small, hardscrabble, independent and,
00:22:54
Speaker
ah pretend to be this big evil mega corporation and you know, sometimes I take a joke too far. And how does it actually work on a sort of daily or weekly basis? You know, you are the one, you are the sole employee, you are yeah you are the but benevolent dictator of a mega corporation. I prefer to call it a worker's own utopia but um Yeah, no, it's, ah yeah, my, my, I don't really have a schedule. It's pretty good. So like, ah I have a six week rotation.
Subscription Model at Evil Megacorp
00:23:23
Speaker
So originally it was ah a four week rotation because of, I, I partially funded, proy you know, like, so i I partially funded the last little leg of it by pre-selling subscriptions.
00:23:34
Speaker
And, um, And so then I really had to concentrate on repaying those people. And it took longer than I expected it to. And so I ended up extending subscriptions for the real earliest people that jumped on.
00:23:45
Speaker
and And with that, I had to kind of like make a whole lot of beers. was just churning it out as much as possible, working seven days a week, you know making no money and and getting those beers out. And then, but yeah, now I've reverted to like a six week rotation. So I've got four tanks, I send out four beers every six weeks.
00:24:01
Speaker
Gives me a bit of breathing room where I can kind of take a few days off here and there. ah can do some extra beers and stuff like that. So yeah, really it's kind of a feast and famine type thing. i'll um so you brew all those beers in one week and then... No, no, kind of usually like I'll brew like,
00:24:18
Speaker
uh, you know, brew them over kind of three weeks. Um, but at the same time, you know, there's all the other stuff, you know, label design and labeling and shipping. Making hostage videos about new releases. Yeah. Yeah. My really good real schmick social media presence.
00:24:33
Speaker
Um, uh, yeah. And like, you know, there's, there's also the, I've got the old stuff that there's leftover stuff because you're never to make exactly, you know, 400 cans of a thing. It's always going to be a little bit more than I have the leftover, put that online and then Organizing that, orders come in over the you know the next kind of week or so, sending them out and getting more ingredients for our new recipes, doing collaborations.
00:24:55
Speaker
Yeah, it's all bit a mess. but um But yeah, so then there's like one furious week where I've got all the cans together, at all the labels, everything's in milk crates stacked around me. I own like, 85 milk crates and it's crazy i'm so rich in milk crates i'm pretty sure that masters and browns are no no no no no and i bought every single milk crate except that two that i stole from uh no mind yeah um but yeah so uh i but yes and i'm like furiously them all in boxes there's so much like double triple quadruple handling which just because of the nature of it
00:25:28
Speaker
You know, chucking a little sticker, taping them up, printing out the big, you know, getting all the spreadsheets, chucking people in various carriers. Some people prefer Aramax or Cruise, please, Australia Post. All that kind of stuff. And then, you know i have one big day where I ship it all out and then, yeah, start thinking about the next thing.
00:25:43
Speaker
So, just to a step back though, the the subscription model concept, where did this all come from? um I think the first subscription that i found out about and and and bought into was Molly Rose. Yeah.
00:25:58
Speaker
um And I had met Nick, it's Nick, right? Yeah. Sorry. I'd met Nick just in brief passing when he was having beer out the back at my share house, my housemate, many, many years ago.
00:26:13
Speaker
and And he was like, you know, he's very nice guy. He was very nicely telling his wife, beers for shit, our homebrew. Which I we should really appreciate. Yeah, i like feedback from the pros, always good. And I think he was just going to head over to...
00:26:25
Speaker
a Stone and Wood. So this is a while before he out of mo um And and i was like, oh that guy was nice, you know, I'll kick in for that. And i was like, oh this a pretty cool model. And then did the numbers online, this how much I paid, this is how much I'm getting. i was like, this is actually a really good like way of getting you your base level of your stuff that kind of keeps you ticking over.
00:26:45
Speaker
And so yeah, that was kind of my inspiration. I mean, since then, obviously Dollar Bill, I'm a subscriber of that and a few other ones. And yeah, I think it's, um if you're doing stuff like like Nick and like Dollar Bill was doing where it's like,
00:26:58
Speaker
what he's doing where it's like really really beloved by really small amount of people it's a really good model yeah you know because you're not you're not trying to own your postcode you're not trying to get people you know leave their houses and walk through the door you're just appealing to the the weirdos who are probably a lot like you you know that want that one that kind of that one that kind of unique experience wherever they are you know um yeah think i think it's really good model for that so Your initial subscription sold out in what, 24 hours or something? No. Something stupid? No, it was like a year and a half. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I thought, well, anyhow.
00:27:37
Speaker
I thought you were you said to me, you know, when you opened it up, you're like, wow, I had no idea people were so excited about this. No, no, so I hit my number. Right, sorry, yeah. so so ah because I'd invested all of my money into this thing yeah um in order to like kind of,
00:27:53
Speaker
in order to access the money from the subscriptions, I needed to prove that it was a legitimate business because I got frozen by PayPal who thought I was running some kind of scam. I mean, I was, but not in the way that they thought. It sort of is, yeah. Yeah, yeah. yeah So then I had some help with some people. where got some rushed production on some t-shirts and some glassware, and then I could send it out and then I'm like, all right, that's done. yeah But I needed, had a meeting with an accountant on like,
00:28:22
Speaker
June 16th and he said you need to earn $20,000 in the next two weeks that's not gonna happen I'm like nah I reckon I can get it done yeah so then I just had to learn how to make website and I did that and I released the thing sorry I'm telling the story way of order I released these subscriptions I'm hey guys help me out they get me to that $20,000 so then I can offset it on tax and blah blah blah during COVID that the instant asset write off thing. So I really needed that extra refund in order to finance the next stage of it.
00:28:51
Speaker
um So yeah, then I sold all these subscriptions and then I was trying to release the funds so that I could be like, see, I'm i'm real. I'm a real, this is a real thing. I promise mom, you know, this is a real thing.
00:29:02
Speaker
But yes, then I need to get that money out and then PayPal froze it and then I had to, get some merch and ship that out. and yeah It was a really fun, stressful couple of weeks. but yeah, I got it um You talked about the weirdos you who might like what you're doing, your beers or what i have you.
00:29:19
Speaker
How do you go about designing
Experimental Brewing at Evil Megacorp
00:29:20
Speaker
the beers? Because they are some pretty unusual and unique styles. I know you had a bit of ground to experiment when you were the other side with the release releases, but it feels like these have gone to another level of madness often. Or do just start at 8% and then work up? Well, so the thing about the other side is that the other side makes half-eating litres a year and has all this stuff and all that kind stuff.
00:29:43
Speaker
And, you know, any business like that, you know, run out of their excise allocation after the first two months or whatever, cash flow becomes really important. so So while I was able to experiment, there was still a ah strong motivating factor to make sure that it was kind of still accessible to most people, you know, like you didn't want you didn't want to you didn't want to really swing for the fences too much because you still got to move that beer as quickly as possible in order to like fill the tanks, do the next thing, you know.
00:30:11
Speaker
um And that wasn't that wasn't from above or anything like that. That was just me understanding the material realities of sort of running a business. Commercial reality. Yeah, exactly. So, like, the difference is is that I've kind of already sold it.
00:30:24
Speaker
So, you know, if you're going to get a ah green pandan oak cream, you're just going to get it. and like you I've already got the money. What do you want? Also, you don't say this is... what the next four beers going to be. No, this is the most expensive lucky dip in Australia. Yeah, exactly. So I do do some experiments.
00:30:43
Speaker
Firstly, just like cooking as well, so that that helps. But sometimes i'll like oh I'll get a new ingredient whatever and then from there like I'll see how it tastes and how it presents and all that kind of stuff and then I'll just have three more questions that I want to answer with beer down track. like, what if I do this? Or what if I put that? you know Or if I you know i kind of make these syncretic styles kind of come together and and and create something else.
00:31:06
Speaker
but like Do try and have a theme to each release? like They happen accidentally a lot. You know? like um No, not not not consciously. I try and do as a few things on purpose as possible. But yeah,
00:31:23
Speaker
but yeah it's just like, you say I do like weird, interesting stuff. Honestly, if I left it up to to what the the subscribers wanted, would pretty much mostly be like Hazy's Double West Coast.
00:31:37
Speaker
pastry stout, that would be it. So like, I try one of every four, try and make them eat their veggies a little bit. And I try something that bit, you know, maybe something that I've been made before, or you know, like a new idea or some historic style or something like that. And terms there's the beers that are pretty out there, then there's the name, like the names often come first, or names come afterwards, and then the label design, and we'll talk about you today. In terms of the names, the labels, and even some of the merch I've seen you pushing as well. Yeah, my range of crops.
00:32:06
Speaker
so we with yeah how does that come about you know ah um you know I just don't take anything too seriously anymore. So it's just, if if it's, some sorry, I'll stop in the table. um if it if if If an idea makes me laugh, I'll kind of use it. Sometimes it's a beer name comes first, sometimes style comes first. I'm trying find something that's appropriate to that.
00:32:26
Speaker
But yeah, you know, like. What's the beauty of only having to answer to yourself? Yeah, and like and also just the way my and my stuff is is is scheduled is that like I print all the labels in my house.
00:32:37
Speaker
So I do all the design in my house and then print the labels. So I'll can my beer and then go home and drink it, decide what the style is, and then like, you know, write a description as I'm drinking it, often design a label, sometimes even come up with an entire concept, and then print it overnight, and you know, wake up, my my brain turns on and the printer's not running, and I have to change the label over or change the ink or whatever, and then the next day come and manually label it, you know.
00:33:06
Speaker
And have you had any blowback from people about using AI for the labels?
AI in Beer Label Design
00:33:10
Speaker
Yeah, all the time. What's your take on that? Obviously the idea is it's a one-person business and if you're not a graphic designer, what else are you going to do?
00:33:21
Speaker
But what yeah has been responsible for going, AI is a terrible thing, it's taking away creative you know jobs or what have you? Look, I, how long have we got? We can think about this half an hour, but like, I think about it a lot, obviously, and the ethical ramifications of it and all kind stuff.
00:33:37
Speaker
um I think AI in general, like I don't like to call it AI art, you know, like i prefer AGI, like algorithmically generated images. I think that's more realistic explanation of what it is i mean it's not ai it's never going to be artificial intelligence i don't think that's ever going to be possible this is just what happens when you put billions and billions of dollars into an algorithm and you can make it more sophisticated like it's just another speculative bubble that people can make a whole lot of money off it doesn't matter if it ever works out you know there's no there's no one really critical about the whole ai thing because the doomsayers you know are saying it's going to be the
00:34:12
Speaker
this revolutionary thing is going to be devastating. And then there's no pushback from the other side because they're like yep, this can be revolutionary, it's going to awesome. You know, like no one's actually saying, actually, it's probably not going to turn out that way at all.
00:34:24
Speaker
As for me and my use of AI, i really don't, I understand people's kind of innate aversion to, you know, replacing artists.
00:34:36
Speaker
this isn't fucking art, this is commerce. It's not art, it's as it's is it's a stupid picture of my dog on a beer can. you know like It's not art And also, there was no there was no capacity for artist to be used. There was no chance for that ever happening because just didn't have money for him.
00:34:53
Speaker
And I don't have the time, you know I can't ah can't can a beer and be like, it tastes like this, i want you to do it like this, and then do it immediately and then I can set it off to the printer. That's not how works. um But I think that like,
00:35:07
Speaker
there's There's also another thing that I considered is like, am I, by using AI art, am I giving myself an unfair advantage over other breweries that are paying on us that don't have that cost?
00:35:18
Speaker
But I'm not on the shelf next. You know, the beer's already sold. No one's buying my can for the agi You know, like they've already bought it. Like it's just, it was either that or I just palette swap a logo.
00:35:29
Speaker
You know, this is just more fun. But here we go AI sucks. Like as a concept, it sucks. But it sucks because it is going to take away people's jobs.
00:35:40
Speaker
You know, and it's like, I'm accessible, you know, I'm there on the internet, I answer my emails. So like people will, will, put their ire towards me about this. Not people that have ever bought my beers, but you know, just other people who want to have spray you know, feel some righteous indignation, I can utter relate that. I can relate to that.
00:35:59
Speaker
But, you know, like the real issue is that it's going to be taking away people's jobs who are like bookkeepers and, you know, translators and all those low-level jobs. like Transactional things. Yeah, but when you when you start a career and you do the like kind of dumb, easy work, as you're learning your skill set in the company, those jobs going to disappear. yeah And so there's going to be no bridge between, you know, running the company and then starting on day one.
00:36:22
Speaker
Like it's it's it's just going to be used... to take away people's jobs and reduce the or like make people compete with this free thing or this cheap thing you know and and it's yes it's very anti-right it's gonna to be it's gonna be devastating but not because good but because this is what capitalism does You know? It's a honey tool for you at least.
00:36:41
Speaker
Yeah, well, look, i don't yeah as I said, I don't think picture of my dog is really going change the world, but, you know. You wanted to ask a question about the dog as well. Is the dog in religion or something?
Inventing a Religion for a Dog
00:36:51
Speaker
Oh, yeah, yeah. So when we caught up for an interview last year, yeah the last thing you said to me when we were leaving, you were forgot to mention my dog's religion. I i invented a religion for my dog. So kind of talk us through the dogma.
00:37:07
Speaker
What? No, I was just ah like, a I can't remember um why I probably had a few beers and I was just wondering like if my dog, my dog Birdie, she's like a little, you know, Frenchy mongrel type thing.
00:37:21
Speaker
um It's like, if she had a religion, what would it look like? And this was like really early in the AI kind of thing. And like most of the most AGI stuff is just trash. I was like, ah, let's have a little dick around.
00:37:32
Speaker
And I eventually set it on something. I tried a lot of different variations of it, but it wasn't until i got to like Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity as kind of like a, you know, great colors and all that kind of stuff. and And yet, so I was like, you know, my dog is ahs a as kind of like a Pope type figure with the sunlight streaming through the stained glass. And because it's just a great delivery. Renaissance almost. Right. But I just had that just for fun. yeah And then I was like, what if I call it, are you their dog? It's me dog.
00:37:58
Speaker
And I was like, that's got to be me. things come together. exactly. So of course you've got to use an Abbey and Yeah. yeah yeah um' She's been on a few more since then. like ah you know My first Barrel-age beer was like,
00:38:12
Speaker
I walk around the park every day and she really wants to make friends with the black swans that live at the lake and they fucking hate because she's a dog. and So it's like her in like this kind of Roman battle kind of thing, like you know like the ah war elephants and stuff like that, like a war swan. War swan. Yeah, we've got another one coming out next week, yeah which is like her as a playing a banjo as like ah one of those, um what what's that, Mexican?
00:38:42
Speaker
Mariachi, like a mariachi kind of musician. Yeah, exactly. Maybe we should talk about some beer at some point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not that important. Aside from that, it sounds like you're pretty happy in your own company, but do you actually miss the company as you are working solo the whole time on the people making for everything
Solitude in One-Person Brewery Operations
00:39:03
Speaker
you do?
00:39:03
Speaker
I thought I would more than I do um because cause I'm really unscheduled. I can just like, I can catch up with friends and it's been really good, like people that I've known for 20 years in the industry or whatever that I have kind of lost touch with because I've been so busy and you know and they've been so busy, whatever.
00:39:19
Speaker
I can kind of fit in around them and be like, Hey, look, I'm taking lunch at one. do you want have a chat? but yeah, absolutely. um I've got like a kind of core range of of three or four people that I'm always bouncing ideas off and stuff. and And yeah. So you do have a core Yeah, yeah. A core range of reprobates that never push back on my stupid ideas. But yeah, no. And and also like, like being a head brewer in a large kind of company is also quite lonely sometimes. Like you've got, you are the kind of middle part between the contradiction between, you know, owner's management and production.
00:39:53
Speaker
You know, so like, Like that can be quite lonely as well, you know? um But yeah, no, I thought I would have more of an issue with it than I do, which has been really nice. So the growth's been amazing.
00:40:06
Speaker
it's but well you You've landed where you wanted to to be, but how sustainable is this? That's right.
00:40:18
Speaker
It's wild. yeah It's wild to watch from the outside. like It made sense to me, and you've actually landed landed them the premise of no scale, ambitious. Yeah, google doing a no growth. Yeah, no growth, single person operation. But can you do this for until retirement? is that Is that viable?
00:40:36
Speaker
ah we Probably not physically. Like, um like yeah my my body won't, like, especially the smaller a brewery gets, the more physical labour is involved. yeah So I probably can't do it for the next 25 years. So yeah, don't know.
00:40:48
Speaker
What about Stain and Eleven as well? Because I guess you look at even like some beer bars, the 40th beer bars, it could be, you think you have to work a lot harder to keep people coming through the door there than you with the traditional pub.
00:41:01
Speaker
And I guess, you know, with brewers that aren't just relying a sort of, you know, approachably priced core range beer or whatever always trying to do something you know different and whether it's one drop or range people like they you know trying to do you know be like almost like the hype brewery how do you how you sort of make i just hope hope to maintain that going over over time people like it this is still the cool brand that i want to be part of you know um to be honest i just don't think about it my my goal is to do something that i would like and i feel that i'm not
00:41:34
Speaker
You know, I'm not a unique, special individual. If I like it, other people probably like it, you know? So like, if if I can do something that that that appeals to me, I'm sure there's, like, I don't need that many customers.
00:41:47
Speaker
I'm nearly sold out completely, and that'll be 600 people. So what that is, that is 1% of 1% of the entire population of Australia. i need a quarter of that. Like, that's all I need. yeah So like, I don't, yeah, I don't really need to, I don't feel like I need to,
00:42:03
Speaker
uh, waste my time thinking about it. But, but at same time, like every week is R&D week, you know, like I can kind of do whatever I want. Um, and two or three weeks later I can send a beer out and just see what happens, you know? and So I feel like I can move with the market, you know, as long as I'm paying attention. Um,
00:42:22
Speaker
And what what is the end goal for Evil Megaport, do you think?
Future Aspirations for Evil Megacorp
00:42:25
Speaker
if you just you If you look a few years down the line. um Yeah, not much. a like a and well I'd like to pay my house off, that'd be nice. yeah um I'd like to get to the point where I can kind of have a consistent thing and you start taking some holidays again, that'd be nice.
00:42:40
Speaker
um Yeah, I think going back to your question about, you know can I do this forever? Probably not. like If I was ever going to expand though, I'd probably want to make it like a worker's owned type thing.
00:42:51
Speaker
So I really need to get to the point where i can I've pulled enough out of it to pay what I put into it um that I'm happy kind of like sharing that with someone else. i wouldn't want to I wouldn't want to just hire someone. like i Personally, I don't like ah the way that we structure society where you you know you give someone less than the you know, the value of their labor and you take the surplus.
00:43:16
Speaker
um I don't like that so much, something in my life, you know, i know that that's how the world works, but I'd rather not do that if I can afford it, you know, so I just do all the work. and And when it comes to the point where I'm not going to do that, then it's going to be a kind of a more egalitarian split.
00:43:31
Speaker
Well that seems like a perfect time to take a break and come back to sort of talk a bit more about, ah I guess, life pre-EMC and outside of that and Rhys the but philosopher. we'll take a quick break and then we'll come back.
00:43:48
Speaker
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00:43:59
Speaker
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00:44:20
Speaker
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00:44:46
Speaker
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00:45:09
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00:45:58
Speaker
Alright, we're back. Rhys, do you want to step back in time and tell us what sparked your interest in beer? why Where did it all
Rhys' Journey in the Beer Industry
00:46:05
Speaker
kick off from? Little creatures. So I was studying in university and I was telling a friend of mine who was a bit older than me, good mate of mine, still to this day, was like a 17 year old kid, I'd just turned 18 I think that week and going to go get a job.
00:46:23
Speaker
doing night fill, just gonna need some money. I don't think he'd 18 for that, you know what I mean. That was just coincidence. He's like, you're 18, right? Come do this thing. work at this restaurant. And I'm like, all right, yeah, cool. I'll come do a trial. And those little creatures. Kind of undersolded at being a restaurant. It's massive, you know, beer barn on the water kind of thing.
00:46:41
Speaker
And was like, it's the old crocodile farm. But yeah, I just loved it. I just fell in love with beer and just, you know, that same thing that got everyone in that kind of 2004 kind of era where it's like, just like machines and people doing stuff. You know, it's like, it's like actually, you can actually see something being made there and that's just,
00:47:01
Speaker
I think that really that the the romance of that as especially as as we all kind of experience the kind of you know like the deindustrialization of jobs moving overseas for manufacturing everything coming about email jobs and that kind of stuff like there's something really romantic about that and myself you know I got that as well and it's first time I realized that like like you know that ah the the know you know beautiful kind of hoppy expression from that little creatures pale ale yeah i didn't know that beer didn't have to taste like to his extra yeah yeah you know yeah and yeah and i just kind of fell in love with it from there it's probably something about the speed of change in that space as well that works well for you lots of ideas but you know you talk about things being moved offshore and all the rest of them um
00:47:49
Speaker
And definitely for myself as well. Like there's every two weeks there's something new and you can be involved in this this mini project that's part of a larger project. You know, like I can imagine being down in in f Frio in those early days and things being very manual and working it out as you go along. Yes.
00:48:05
Speaker
Well, i mean, I was... You were a glassy at that point. Yeah, I literally, really that was just hospitality. I i never actually brewed cruise except for one week with Tom Champion, who's now the head brewer of... Revenants. I think it was about like five weeks, broke his arm and said we actually need someone just to move stuff around I was the passionate kind of annoying guy that just always asked questions when they were trying to have lunch and stuff and so yeah I got that one. Have you written out the name for your project? So we will make it called passionate annoying guy? Yeah, well I think it's implied. That's not the video, it's true. That's his cow punk band.
00:48:43
Speaker
um And in terms of going from there, sort of falling love with your preaches and the beer, what were your so next steps into brewing? um Well, I mean, I hadn't decided I wanted to do beer then. I was just like a passionate amateur. And then, you know, obviously those days couldn' really get American beers that weren't oxidised. So I went the kind of Belgian, German kind of route.
00:49:05
Speaker
Still don't love English ales, so I kind of avoided those ones. and then And then, yeah, I was a hospo kid, just kind of went traveling. was still studying that time and, you know, it took off, went to India for a while and then came back and I was like, yeah, after after rolling around India for a while, it kind of makes you a little bit um Fremantle feels a bit sleepy, so I was like, I'm gonna go somewhere else and move to a different city and I kind of, I did that for about four or five years. I was- Was there an element of journalism along the way or something? Well yeah, that was degree. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I degree was in journalism. So, it was broadcast actually. Because that was the most fun. got to like play with dials and stuff. Like originally I wanted to do print, but I was like, and just don't I just don't think about the future.
00:49:51
Speaker
But you know, now, podcasts and stuff, and actually having growth, right? If only.
00:50:03
Speaker
But yeah, so yeah, I was just doing that and then I kind of moved to a new city in Australia, worked there for six months then go overseas and tour around for a bit till my money ran out then moved to another city and did that for about yeah four or five years and had a really good time.
00:50:16
Speaker
And then... You ended up back at the Monk though. so Yeah, I did. Yeah, that was after. So yes then I came back and I kind of beaten the wanderlust out of me a bit. so um I bought some things to weigh me down. remember bought a fridge and ah a couch. My mom was real happy about that because I'm going to stay here for a little bit.
00:50:35
Speaker
And then, yeah, think went back to Creatures for a bit that point. Then ended up working in restaurants and stuff like that and got a job doing i was doing the brewery tours at Creatures and teaching people about beer and all that kind of stuff, which really helped my develop my knowledge and palate and stuff.
00:50:51
Speaker
Got a job doing some sales stuff for a local distributor. And then from there, got a job bringing at Gage Rhodes, It was a brief kind of period where I was at Brookholt for bit in between that and then from Gage Roads I went to The Monk which is now defunct and from The Monk I got... That was probably the first time I met you and you just brewed what would have been maybe one of WA's first sour beers. I think it was definitely WA's.
00:51:19
Speaker
It was almost Australia but I think Brennan O'Sullivan had done one just before yeah because he does that. yeah He's a bastard. Yeah, this idea i was Brennan O'Sullivan But yeah, so like, ah yeah, the kettle sour, i think back in those days we... Yogurt, just put it in.
00:51:34
Speaker
a Fat-free yogurt. Yes. That's important to step through. But and yeah and and yeah, then from Monk, I just got a...
00:51:47
Speaker
message I think from someone and they're like talking about this uh brewery project they want to start and I just left uh Gage Rhodes and they were they want to this contract brewery so I just presumed that they want information about you know from someone who was on the inside what the contract thing was like Gage Rhodes.
00:52:02
Speaker
Gage Rhodes was really heavily contracted the time that I was there after I left they did the return to craft transition um but yeah so then I just went and went and Freo had a Reuben I remember with these guys and they were telling me all their their ambitions and stuff, they came from a music background and then at the end of it they offered me a job, didn't even realise was into you.
00:52:25
Speaker
So I was like, okay, yeah, let me think about it. And yeah, and that was... 2015, 2016, thereabouts. I reckon the photo we used for that article was taken outside the Monk as well, I think. That sounds right. Yeah, yeah. About the start of other side, with the yeah with socials at the first beer. The first beer was festive. Festive, that's right, yeah. I might have actually been with Sib.
00:52:47
Speaker
Yes, yeah, yeah, back in the day. the about That's right, it was at the Balmoral. But yeah, the festive, the original festive, that was me. The launch party was in that tiny tin shed. Uh-huh, yeah, Stack Street. Yeah. yeah But yeah, no, that first batch of festive was just me trying to be way too clever.
00:53:06
Speaker
you And you know it was like all these different malts in there. It's like it's fucking summer out. Yeah, slow down too. Yeah, it was like my first try to kind of yeah build something from scratch. But yeah, yeah was actually it wasn't first try. I did a lot of red ales and red IPAs in the muck before that.
00:53:24
Speaker
But you know, they can handle it. But then you were involved, I guess, in that very early stage of outside. through all the growths, then becoming established one of WA's best and you know bigger breweries as well. So what was that like? Sort of going, i guess, a lot of different jobs in different breweries and then suddenly you know being a central part of this. It was awesome. It was a really, really good learning experience and probably invaluable to what I'm doing now Like, um just the whole... ah I mean, music festivals are full of creative type people and those kinds of people are really prone to changing their minds immediately.
00:54:02
Speaker
So that, you know, it's like when you build a brewery, you don't just design a brewery. You probably design like seven breweries as the plan changes and you go back to the drawing board, start all over again. Um, and, but it was all the stuff. It was doing the logistics, doing the rep side of things, you know, obviously like acquisition of of materials that need to go down to this place. It's making it for you.
00:54:24
Speaker
Oh, we were doing the kind of contract brewing thing for the few years. Um, and then, you know, like planning out how the brewery is going to be, what's the structure look like? Is this cool room big enough if we change the amount of tanks we have and all that kind of stuff.
00:54:36
Speaker
Like that was really, really invaluable experience. and And unfortunately I was the person in the organization that had the most brewing experience, which was bugger all. So i kind of had no one to turn to, just had to figure it out. And yeah, and you kind of, maybe a survivorship bias, but you kind of just stop worrying. i just say what And in terms of your time there, any beers that you yeah hang your hat on and go, I'm really proud, that but that was an awesome beer lately.
00:55:06
Speaker
Hmm, in particular? I mean, I just love red ales and red IPs. I was going to say red liner. Yeah, red liner. And it's a great beer. Yeah, that malt bill. actually think I stole that from an American brewery and tweaked it a little bit just because what he ingredients had.
00:55:25
Speaker
stole from American brewery in one of those brewery magazines, kind of, make it at home. I just copied down ratios then plated around. um with that in my basement my uh basement my bottom floor of my um uh apartment that i was in freemount for years and yeah and then that evolved over time and became harvest and then harvest kind of was the basis the blueprint for red liner um yeah i i i just love red which is hilarious because the the beer that you did with nick from molly rose for yes kind of origin yeah yeah so i was with james at molly rose we're all well i'll try the emc
00:56:01
Speaker
collaboration and like that is a Lopez malt base tastes like every other malt base ah in the red space yeah yeah yeah well I mean I it does have a lot of my fingerprints all over that beer we did that kind of in a phone conversation me and Nick but um as he was like what what would you do for this this and this and like halfway through he's like we make beers exactly the same I'm like awesome um it was great yeah um yeah it was great yeah hear that Nick was involved so early on yeah in your sort of home brewing days. I don't think he knows that either. Oh really? yeah We'll see if he listens because hang out with him every now and then see if he brings this up. Nick.
00:56:41
Speaker
And I guess moving away from beer, even this conversation. Yeah, we've been talking beer way too much. But even this conversation already has been, I guess, very sort of philosophical and physical viewpoint come through in the way you talk about the way you view business, the way you view AGI,
00:56:58
Speaker
Well that kind of thing, it has harry I guess where do you sit you know in in terms of how's this evolved and how do you manage to feed it in through the beers and you know try and get any any messaging out there to your you know your the EMC tribe about following your views on the world.
Rhys' Political and Social Views
00:57:16
Speaker
EMC squares is what I'm going to call it. Maybe your views on the world, you know, because they you do have a very developed and you know quite an individual take on on everything. Yeah, yeah. ah Well, okay, so I mean, my joke answer where I sit politically is like, ah what's what's that convention? It's like, um ah socially libertarian, fiscally Maoist, you know, it's kind of, that's kind of half true.
00:57:44
Speaker
But yeah, I'm a very lefty kind of dude.
00:57:49
Speaker
I did journalism, obviously. i kind of had, like, my dad's from a Muslim country, And my formative teenage years were when the towers fell and just seeing and being interested media and world events and all that kind of stuff, seeing the kind of the the vitriol of of of stuff being poured onto to Muslims in the Muslim community.
00:58:10
Speaker
And it's just not reflecting my experience with Muslims that I've known, you know, and then people that and people in my family. I was like, this doesn't actually feel right. You know, and so I was like, I was inherently from very young age, really distrustful of kind of anything.
00:58:24
Speaker
and And that led me to kind of, you know, like questioning is like, okay, so why are we having this war on terror kind of thing? and And, you know, there's the Francis Fukuyama kind of idea that was like kind of last gasp of of of kind of nationalism or whatever against this kind of globalized, beautiful, democratic, liberal democracy, capitalism thing.
00:58:51
Speaker
He's a bit of an idiot, but that might be true to degree. I think like the the answer was always like, why is this like that? And the answer from all sides of politics was like, that's just what Muslims are like.
00:59:03
Speaker
you know They're just these bloodthirsty weirdos. And the only thing that really had an explanation for it was dialectical materialism, Marxism and that kind of thing. It was like, people are like this because their material conditions dictate that. you know And so yeah, that's kind of... um got me kind of curious about it and and materialism has never led me wrong. you know like It's helped me make correct decisions in the beer industry and the the way I should go about things and and and what I should put attention to and helps me understand people that have different backgrounds to me because I'm like, okay, if I was that person and this was my experience, how would I think? How would I look at the world?
00:59:39
Speaker
You know? And like, honestly, man, i'm like the little stupid differences of nothing compared to the big stupid similarities. Like we're all basically the same. yeah You know? So I just, you know, I just think, like, I think you've got to be like, the world's getting weird, right?
00:59:56
Speaker
It's getting bad, it's gonna get a lot worse if it gets better, if it gets better at all. And you just kinda gotta find common ground with people and then kind of work with them, not against them. know Do you think other and businesses if within beer, other breweries, bigger brewers, whatever, could look at some of the elements, I guess, did unlike ethos of Evil Megacorp and go, oh, we could be more like this and it would be a good thing. Are there sort of things that you wish people would look at and go, we could take that out of Reese's crazy little thing,
01:00:25
Speaker
and make what what we do better in some way? i I mean look, that would certainly be flattering. But I, you know, like I've been, ah you know, kind of a bit of an iconoclast for most of my life.
01:00:41
Speaker
And it's not fun if you don't have the kind of personality for it. Like, I wouldn't, I wouldn't recommend it, you know, like, uh yeah you kind of gotta to just be pretty uh pretty sure about yourself and the way you go about the world and and and kind of cop the slings and arrows you know like i don't know that i don't know that wouldn't suggest it to someone um yeah you know like i uh i i'm just opinionated and i'm confident and um and that comes with downsides that i'm totally cool but
01:01:13
Speaker
I would feel, i mean obviously i wasn't very vocal about as much of this stuff when I worked for Other Side because I knew that any kind of negative attention that would come on me would financially impact my friends that I worked with.
01:01:28
Speaker
You know, like if if I'm- Consequence. Yeah, that's exactly. And that's fair. Yeah. You know, but if I'm being a dickhead online because you know, I think that guy's committing genocide. um If someone doesn't like it and they stop buying my beer, it comes out of my pocket.
01:01:42
Speaker
That's fine. Yeah. you But if it's impacting on other people, that's when I feel like a sense of responsibility, shut the fuck up. um I guess talking making a difference through beer, tell us about your Medicine Sans Frontieres project that's just sort of happening round about now while we're talking.
Fundraising for Medicine Sans Frontieres
01:01:58
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, brewed the beer a couple of days ago. So Medicine Sans Frontieres, Doctors Without Borders is an organization, I think possibly some of the best human beings in the world.
01:02:08
Speaker
You know what it is to be a surgeon or whatever, all that medical, all that university debt, you got this $400,000 a year job and all that kind of stuff, high stress, blah, blah, blah, but you know, you get very well remunerated.
01:02:20
Speaker
These people volunteer to go into active conflict zones and set up hospitals. they've got You can check out their website, they've got these big inflatable tent hospitals and they perform obviously for free.
01:02:32
Speaker
um Medical, emergency medical treatment to anyone that needs it. irrespective of their race, religion, political affiliation, that kind of stuff. At the moment, three big places they're doing is South Sudan, Gaza, and of course Ukraine.
01:02:45
Speaker
But it's like, it's dangerous. these people putting their lives in line for nothing, just for humanity. You know, like I think since 2023, since December 2023, I think 12 of them have been killed in just Gaza.
01:02:58
Speaker
You know, like these people get killed for doing this. So I've supported them for many years. and I've been donating monthly since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But now I'm in a position where i can kind of do more.
01:03:11
Speaker
So i got in touch with them and they gave me authorization to use their logo and stuff. They didn't authorize my label, which I'm totally okay with because when you see it, you'll understand.
01:03:24
Speaker
But yes, then I just you know went online and it's like, Hey guys, I'm doing this beer. pre-sold 124 packs and then a whole bunch of people donated directly to them as well through that page. So, so far we've raised $7,500.
01:03:35
Speaker
want to really try and see if I can push it to 10, because that'd be amazing. Not for any good reasons, just a round number. But yeah, I should have little bit more left over in about two weeks, it'll be ready.
01:03:48
Speaker
Maybe I'll sell some more. And I'm trying to see just how much volume I get before I do the final release, obviously, because don't want to oversell. How did you decide what beer was suitable for such a...
01:03:59
Speaker
such a project. ah Well, that was actually because obviously, oh so it's not, I'm not donating like part proceeds or you know, profit split or whatever.
01:04:10
Speaker
It's everything. So all the money, except for the shipping and GST, all the money that people have spent on that beer is going to MSF. that means that I'm paying for everything.
01:04:21
Speaker
so I kind of, I've been wanting to this for about a year. And I've been like scrambling away kind of leftover bits, you know, like didn't use that whole bag of grain on that, you know, that last bag that I used in that thing, put that to the side. It's kind of like, it's like a composite of about, think about five or six different base malts.
01:04:37
Speaker
And then just like little bits of leftover bags of hops and stuff that I backsealed and kind of chucked in the freezer. And of course it's an IPA because that's what everyone else, you know? We're going to ask people buy full pack something sight unseen.
01:04:49
Speaker
I'm not going to something too weird. Oh and also I got some watermelon terpenes with this going on. It was great to that reaction before he even said the beer was going to be. Amazing. Sold out for, yeah. Amazing. Really, really cool man. I think it shows the weirdos who are into what you're doing are good weirdos. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which often the case.
01:05:11
Speaker
I guess looking more broadly at beer, you've worked for a number of breweries, a number different roles. What's your take on the health of things now, whether in WA or whether wider?
01:05:23
Speaker
Where do you think it's heading? like you know You're very much the pointy end, you know yeah but what's your thoughts? Um, I think beer suffering, i mean, you know, you talk about excise and, and, uh, the costs of everything like shipping is increasing and all that kind of stuff. But like, I mean, the exercise notwithstanding, like, well, it's actually connected as well because the excise is directly, you know, related to to CPI and except for when it goes down, of course, they never take it down, but, uh, is directly correct, connected to CPI since COVID most
01:05:57
Speaker
multinational corporations and you know the the capitalists are essentially doing a capital strike and they're driving up prices because they can't you know everything's rising as result of that and that's hurting the area but it's hurting everything you know it's hurting everyone that that rents or has a mortgage and that's just like beer is is not immune to that and and i think that especially somewhere like western australia where everything's so spread out transport is huge you know that's this massive impact on stuff like i think that Beer is going to shrink as you know global trends are kind of shrinking and stuff.
01:06:34
Speaker
I think there's a lot breweries out there that, I'm definitely not naming names, but a kind of have been existing as kind of zombie corporations for a while, where they're able to you know pay off the interest of their debts, but not attack the the you know the principle of the loan.
01:06:47
Speaker
and And then you have this kind of shutter where you have this kind of post-COVID reaction and and some of them drop away. you know like That's kind of just what happens. you I think though that we are going for a massive transition period and there's opportunity there.
01:07:04
Speaker
I think it's also concerning, like like clearly craft beer was very much a millennial thing. you know like The younger generations aren't really engaging with beer in the same way, but but I think we just haven't found the thing yet.
The Future of Beer Innovation
01:07:16
Speaker
know I think people like One Drop, Rocky Ridge as well, like these like really hyper-prolific, really experimental brewers are creating something and eventually something's going hit and then and then you know hopefully we're away yeah and what's exciting you i mean ah presumably one drop and rocky ridge what they're doing yeah anything else whether it's breweries or beers or ingredients or styles or this really you know you mentioned terpenes there is that something you're having some fun with oh i like i like terpenes like um terpenes really good uh because with me in particular um
01:07:50
Speaker
beer is so limited than anything that I can get a couple of extra liters out of is literally paying for groceries. You know, if I get extra 10 liters, that's like my groceries for the month. You know, that's awesome. I love eating groceries.
01:08:03
Speaker
but But in terms of like stuff that's really interesting, like I'm really interested in I've been talking with a couple of people from Lollemonde about just their weird ideas because they're all hyper passionate beer nerds too they just don't work at breweries anymore so they have these ideas they can't use and so like you know recently there was the Lollemonde tour around Australia and one thing they did was suggest using like diamond lager yeast pitch at 15 degrees couple of days later one third for a fermentation pitch Nottingham
01:08:37
Speaker
and then try to get like the thiole production from that and then the biotranspiration from this one and and kind of create a unique kind of fermentation profile um kind of set my brain off fire. I've been co-pitching stuff for a while just to kind of see what happens, you know.
01:08:55
Speaker
I'm really lucky in that like because I'm printing on my labels, I can be like, oh, that over-attenuated or that under-attenuated, now it's this. And I can just fix that on the spot, you know? So I don't i don't have that um that react that buffer zone where I need to get everything lined up four weeks beforehand and bla blah, blah, blah, and ship on that day.
01:09:14
Speaker
So, yeah, being able to like play around with that. I've got one in-tank at the moment that's amazing. It's like really, really interesting. And it's just a straight West Coast RPA, but its just it's really, really cool seeing how those two things interact with each other.
01:09:26
Speaker
um Yeah, like looking at another one that I want to do soon, which is like trying to get, trying to decouple the Hefeweizen strain creating the, uh, uh, 4VG, clove phenolic and the the kind of Isoin-elacidate banana, ESTA and see if like pitching in series with that can decouple those two things and stuff like that and you know that is actually really interesting to me but that's not sexy and one's gonna buy a vehicle's back but it you know it feeds me you know well you know we've we've sort of got inward into Rhys there looking back outwards again and if you have sort
01:10:00
Speaker
one sort of you know hope for beer in the future, you know having seen it in so many different ways, what what would that be? I'd like to see more people doing what I'm doing. I'd like to see more owner operators where they are And I think there's there's a lot of potential growth. It's really hard at the moment.
01:10:20
Speaker
the For the medium sized breweries, particularly with the changes in the last couple of years to the excise threshold and all that kind of stuff, that's quite difficult for those guys, but there's a lot of opportunity for people smaller than that. um I think the nano thing that I'm doing, or maybe you have a corner bar or something like that and and have your little, you are the go-to place in your suburb.
01:10:40
Speaker
Like that kind of stuff could be really cool. Like, sorry, I know you want to finish, but I just like, I think that there's,
01:10:47
Speaker
I think the internet has kind of really flattened culture a lot. Like I remember like 20 years ago, could go to Melbourne and see people dress different, you know, whatever. And you go go to ah go to Sydney and then there's this particular food trend that's happening.
01:11:00
Speaker
Now everything's kind of homogenized and because the internet's great, but it's made it really easy to spread ideas um to making them sure that kind of everyone in every suburb of Australia knows what bar me is.
01:11:11
Speaker
Like there's no longer these kind of regional like quirks and trends. yeah I'm hoping, that a proliferation of really really small producers like myself can maybe start creating movement you know like that.
01:11:24
Speaker
You can have these kind of hyper-local styles and trends start to emerge just because there's a whole bunch of dumbasses like me competing for a point of difference. yeah Thanks, Rose. It seems like a really nice way to resolve this, Chad. There's a lot happening EMC, but there's a lot happening inside of you, and it's been quite... Quite a journey to watch, be around for many years. And if nothing else, I'm just happy that you're articulating you to the best of your ability through your one-person operation. It's amazing. I don't think there's any other option. No. No one else would have you. It's bleeding out of me one way. Thanks a lot for coming on the show. Cheers.
Fermentus' Yeast and Packaging Innovations
01:12:07
Speaker
i
01:12:11
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01:12:33
Speaker
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01:12:53
Speaker
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01:13:13
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01:13:14
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The Crafty Pint Podcast Overview
01:13:21
Speaker
The Crafty Pint podcast is produced and edited by Matt Hoffman.
01:13:25
Speaker
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. 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.
01:13:44
Speaker
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. 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.
01:14:00
Speaker
And until next time, drink good beer.