Picture this in your
head, the earliest life form on the Earth, splitting into two, then
doubling again and again and again. Those simple single celled
organisms becoming ever more complex, former cell structures and
eventually coming together as tissues and then organisms in even more
complex creatures. The first form of creatures to move on the Earth
were in the acidic and blisteringly hot oceans that once covered
almost the entire surface. At a stage where things began to cool and
more and more varied life existed, there formed the bacterium we now
know and love and refer to as Yeast. Yeast, the most vital component
in the production of alcohol. Without the humble simple organisms,
the sugars and other starches would not be converted into alcohol and
carbon dioxide. This could go on for ever but I'll simply used the
analogy of the creations and formation of life or the simple celled
organisms. Imagine Australian beer or breweries as these very
organisms. Once there were only a few then in no time at all there
were millions. Obviously there still aren't millions of breweries or
brewers to that matter but they all seemingly appeared out of
nowhere. No that many are established and/or expanding or changing,
it can be likened to the evolution of the simple organisms to the
more complex.
That might seem like a
ridiculous analogy but I think it quite accurately represents what
happened in the life and development of Australia's craft beer scene.
Like fungal spores leaving the parent, younger brewers left bigger
companies to form small or micro breweries of their own. With a big
gap waiting to be filled, the ones that produced decent beers quickly
grew into something great, something know, something you might find
in the odd bottle shop around the cities in Australia. 4 Pines in
Manly and Sydney Brewery in Surry Hills. Both with humble micro
brewery beginnings, one as a brew pub and the other a micro
brewery/bar. The popularity of the smaller brewers rapidly grew with
the more trendy pubs quickly snapping their beers up. The thing that
seems to be the case in Australia, or Sydney in particular is the
whole thing of fads or trends. Sydneysiders seem to latch on to
something that was once 'cool' and overuse it and eventually destroy
it making it redundant and beyond being uncool, something you
wouldn't be seen dead talking about or thinking of. Thankfully this
was not the case with craft beer. Differing slightly to the whole
coffee scene, it grew and actually gathered so much momentum that
like a huge snowball growing ever larger, it collided with big
breweries and pub companies and an explosion of such great magnitude
happened. Back to the evolutionary analogy, like the meteor that
supposedly wiped out the dinosaurs. This explosion of micro
breweries, big boys and pub companies did not destroy the scene or
make it uncool. What it did was make the whole thing a hell of a lot
more accessible. It brought craft beer to the masses. The scene
continued to grow underground and above ground in the public eye and
the two occasionally cross paths. This crossing of paths is
beautiful. Holding more beauty than any orchid from the remotest
parts of Asia and possessing so much power and control that it quite
literally took hold of the nation, Hipsters, oldies, young people,
suits, everybody united in a love of good beer.
The scene continued to
develop and evolve. Craft beer pubs holding regular tasting events
and even tap takeovers from local breweries, breweries from other
states and even the odd one from breweries over seas. It seems that
like the native wildlife inhabiting Australia, the beer and beer
scene evolved completely separately and therefore differently to the
ones in the UK and America. With so much available space, Australia
has a major advantage over the UK. Property here is a premium, as is
in Australia, it is just that London is so built up already and every
single inch of usable space is either being used or set to be
developed into housing or some kind of stupidly stylised office
space. I mean, using an old shipping container as a market plot seems
to me to be a bit more than pretentious.
This freedom for space
in Australia and it being such a vast nation means that even places
out of the city or somewhere not so cool and fancy still get noticed,
recognised and quite often picked up and bough, sold or utilised.
The most recent
incarnation are breweries in Sydney like 'Young Henry's' in Newtown,
'Modus Operandi' in Mona Vale, 'N.O.M.A.D' in Brook Vale among many
more. Pubs like the East Sydney Hotel have always showcased these
smaller, often independent craft breweries bringing them to the
masses, or whoever enters their great establishment and purchases a
beer. You even have places like 'Yullis' on Crown St in Surry Hills
that not only creates some of the tastiest beers in Australia but
also has what I'm told by a reliable source having “the best vegan
food in Sydney”. Pubs and bars like 'The Royal Albert Hotel' in
Surry Hills offering regular tap takeovers and some of the finest
beers on the standard assortment, or 'Bitter Phew' a really trendy
but openly welcoming craft beer bar hidden in a cavernous upstairs on
the grubby and disgustingly trampy part of Oxford St in Surry Hills.
It is amazing how a place like that remains so underground
considering its location and yet at the same time is so open and
nice, standing out massively in its surrounding. Then there are the
bigger pubs part of larger pub companies with often a few locations
like 'The Dove and Olive' or the 'KB Hotel' or 'The Trinity Hotel'.
All regularly changing their assortment of some of the best beers
Australia has to offer. Even places like 'The Yardarm' in Manly with
its unbelievable value $8 craft beer pint happy hour, has some
amazing beers. Every time I went in they had a different beer on one
of the many forever changing taps. It is a fabulous thing to see. Not
only are the underground places doing as much as they possibly can to
promote craft beers, but the larger establishments are also getting
in on the act.
The beer snob could
either view this development as some kind of negative progression.
Taking something really good and successful, seeing how brilliant and
money making it can be and almost using it until it no longer has any
meaning or worth. I can see how one might form such an opinion but I
cannot share that view. I am taking the standpoint that the fact that
these beers have gained so much popularity is a good thing, no, a
fantastic thing. If it wasn't for the support of these places, maybe
the smaller of the craft breweries, the ones that take risks and
bring out experimental beers like hopped Saisons and Sours might not
make it in the real world. I mean what pub in Central London that
isn't a Craft Beer Co pub or doesn't have anything directly to do
with a craft brewery, would you see a 'Dry Hopped Saison' or 'Sour'
beer, it just doesn't really happen, if it does it is incredibly rare
but an excellent thing. In Australia things are very different. I
went into some pubs, looking much like any pub you would see just off
a high street or near to main roads in England or elsewhere in
Australia. Some of them had more than one beer from more than one
craft brewery either local or from elsewhere in the country. That
alone is something that is commendable. The clientèle of a place
like one of those pubs is tradesmen, suits or the average Joe, yet
they quite often have an amazing selection of beers.
I have began to notice
new cafés springing up all over London with some stocking craft
beers like 'Beavertown' or 'The Kernel'. In fact one that my friend
works at in Teddington, 'The Fallow Deer' stocks several different
craft beers. I may have mentioned them previously in posts about
Odell's beers.
I hope you enjoyed my
idea of what (might have) happened as the craft beer boom swept
across Australia.
Some of these new(er) breweries and bars/pubs
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