32 Club Food & Beverage

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The days of domination

by a few traditional

beers and brands is over.

Australians have fallen

hard for craft beers.

Club Life takes a swig of

this booming business.

More than one million Australians are drinking craft beer during an average month, almost double the number just five years ago. And according to the

same Roy Morgan Research, craft beer is defying the overall downward trend in the beer market, indicating that there are opportunities for clubs that embrace this new type of tipple.

Whilst hugely popular in the United States, craft beer is relatively new to the Australian scene, taking up around three per cent of the total beer volume. But its growth has been swift over a short space of time. If you walk into many clubs these days, chances are craft beer occupies prime beer tap real estate, being poured into schooners right alongside the more traditional labels.

There are around 234 craft beer companies in Australia and 68 breweries in NSW according to the Executive Officer of the Australian Craft Beer Industry Association Chris McNamara. “In the last year or two, the growth is believed to be in double digits, low double digits per annum. That number changes by the week, there are literally new breweries opening up every week in Australia. At least 50 have opened in the last year.”

The popularity of craft beer shows no signs of abating and McNamara is confident that there is a lot more of the market for craft beer brewers to take.

Drinkers in NSW have taken to craft beer with enthusiasm. According to Roy Morgan Research released in July this year, craft beer drinkers in NSW grew by 186,000 people between 2010 and 2014. The growth is, as one would expect, predominately driven by those under the age of 50 with the 25 to 34 year old age bracket really driving demand.

Craft brewing happens every day at Campbelltown Catholic Club at its impressive on-site Rydges Infusion Microbrewery and Bar. It is here that six craft beers brands hop to life including Appin Ale, Razorback Golden Ale, Summer Moon Pilsner, Macarthur Wheat, Nepean India Pale Ale and the cream of the crop – Fisher’s Ghost Lager. The latter has earned plaudits from reviewers. Fairfax’s Good Food Guide gave the lager, with its distinctive branding, the following glowing review: “Besides possessing a disturbing logo of an alien spirit from The X-Files, the Fisher’s Ghost Lager also has a fantastically complex malt and citrus flavours.” Even more importantly, a big thumbs up from patrons has made the lager the brewery’s bestseller.

Just one staff member works at the microbrewery, Clubs Cellar Supervisor Alan Barclay, who has been there since they began brewing eight years ago. The club is the main destination to sample the brew, but it is also available locally on tap at Event Cinemas at Macarthur Square.

By Tim Escott

The beers are particularly popular with the young professional after work crowd on a Friday night. Executive Manager of Club Operations Craig Epton strongly believes that the microbrewery adds a point of difference for Campbelltown Catholic Club. He says that while it fits in nicely with Rydges’ corporate clientele it also adds a string to their bow by offering a high quality, unique local experience.

“Our head brewer is very passionate, massively passionate about his product,” explains Epton. While acknowledging that brewers who make traditional brands like VB are passionate too, Epton says making craft beer is a slower and more refined process. “It’s love and it’s passion. You are there, you’re making the product and every batch is slightly different.”

This passion no doubt contributes to the popularity of the brew, which is best articulated in cold, hard figures – the microbrewery produces double in volume what it was producing six years ago.

Drive north of Sydney and Souths Merewether Club takes a different approach, offering a rotating list of craft beers to thirsty Novacastrians. The club has taken a novel approach to choosing its brews, engaging with patrons by asking them to nominate craft beers they would like to sample via a Facebook Beer Tap campaign. If a beer gets 50 likes the club will put it on tap. So far brands such as Byron Bay’s Stone & Wood and Six String Brewing Co. from the Central Coast have had a run on the rotating beer tap.

Operations Manager Matt Lister says Facebook is the best way to target and engage with a younger crowd in the 20 to 35 year old age bracket. “They say what we put on tap and provided we can get the beer, we will get it! Stone & Wood would be our biggest craft beer after 150 Lashes beer. Winter Ale is also popular at the moment.”

Craft beer was once considered the drink of choice for Newtown hipsters and inner city yuppies, but the trend has expanded even further than larger centres such as Campbelltown and Newcastle. There are now countless breweries producing quality craft beer across regional NSW.

Two brewers at The New England Brewing Co. in Uralla produce two batches a week, pumping out a couple of thousand litres. Their three varieties of New Englander – pale ale, brown ale and golden ale – are available at 15 independent bottle shops, on seven permanent taps in Armidale and on rotation at some venues. Brewery owner Ben Rylands likes to describe operating his brewery as being on the craft beer frontier. “The Sydney and Melbourne market is 10 years behind the US, and we are 10 years behind Melbourne. They are constantly rotating the tap, which is a good way to gauge whether craft beer will work. So, sometimes it will be German beer, sometimes Peroni beer and sometimes New England Brewing Co’s seasonal beer on the one tap. It’s a good way for clubs to have fun with beer.”

Rylands says the Tamworth City Bowling Club had been one of the better promoters of craft beer in the area. Secretary Manager Wayne Patch says the club had been serving New England Brewing Co.’s beer for around 12 months. “It’s consistent and it goes well,” he said. “A lot of people try it at the actual brewery and are looking for somewhere to drink it.”

The club’s commitment to craft beer goes even further. They played host to the Tamworth Dark Beer Festival in July this year and throw open their doors for Oktoberfest next month with a large marquee and beer hall serving genuine German-style beer.

34 Club Food & Beverage

Brewing beer in Australia has a rich history that dates back to the late 18th century when the convict James Squire first started

cultivating hops. Australia’s oldest operating brewery, Cascade Brewery, still casts an imposing shadow over the land it was founded on in Hobart in 1824.

Small breweries were common throughout Australia in the 19th century but by the 1930s most had closed and beer production became centralised, mainly in capital cities. In the past three decades the trend has reversed with nearly 300 new breweries opening across Australia. When dozens of small breweries opened around the country in the 1980s, the idea was so new and foreign that many didn’t know what to call them. At first they were referred to as mini-breweries and micro-breweries before later earning the craft beer label.

Widely considered one of the pioneers of craft beer is West Australian Phil Sexton. Disillusioned with life at Swan Brewery, Phil and a couple of friends gathered the funds and equipment and set about creating a brewery against a backdrop of venues that wouldn’t take the beer he was brewing.

The result was the Sail & Anchor in Fremantle, a pub that poured three of its own beers, sold imports from

overseas and interstate, and was clean and welcoming to women. It quickly gained a following, aided by a few timely events of the era – within months of opening in 1983 Alan Bond brought the America’s Cup to Fremantle, the local Rajneesh community appreciated the ethos and made it their regular haunt, and Irish and British ex-pats came flooding when word spread they could get hold of Guinness and other European beers. Within a few years, Phil and friends had founded Matilda Bay Brewery on the Swan River and launched its first beer – Redback.

Craft beer breweries soon flourished. In NSW The Lord Nelson Brewery Hotel in the Rocks (1986) was followed closely by Scharer’s Little Brewery at Picton (1987) and by Chuck Hahn’s self-named brewery at Camperdown (1988), which in 1998 was renamed the Malt Shovel Brewery and is home to the James Squire range of beers. The banner year for new breweries was 1988 with 16 starters. Hard times and adverse beer taxation laws significantly reduced that number over the next several years. A resurgence in small brewery start-ups occurred towards the end of the 90s. With the flourishing popularity of James Squire and the entry of Little Creatures and it famous Pale Ale (2001), the tide had turned in favour of craft beers. Today there over 200 craft beer companies in Australia.

A History of Craft Beer in Australia

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The biggest players in the craft beer market are James Squire, Matilda Bay and Little Creatures. But according to the Australian Craft Beer Industry Association’s

McNamara, the range goes right down to breweries that often share equipment and produce only 50 to 100 litres at a time.

Many craft beers come from ClubsNSW Corporate Partners Carlton & United Breweries (CUB), Lion and Coca-Cola Amatil. CUB currently has Matilda Bay and Fat Yak among others. Lion’s bestsellers include the massively popular James Squire range and Little Creatures. Meanwhile, after a short absence, Coca Cola-Amatil re-entered the craft beer market in late 2013 with brands such as Alehouse and American blockbuster Blue Moon. Their craft beer products are currently imported but local production may be explored at a later date. The company is pinning its hopes on Blue Moon, which was launched back in 1995 by an ex-Coors brewer. With its distinctive orange taste, the beer’s customer base in the US is 50 per cent female.

At the other end of the spectrum there are tiny microbreweries and craft brewers who don’t even have a brewery. Contract brewing where people pay others to produce their product is a growing trend. There are also the so-called gypsy brewers, who move into whichever brewery is willing to lease them a fermenter and storage tanks.

Craft beer is moving into the mainstream says Paul Gloster, Head of Category and Channel Beer and Cider at Coca-Cola Amatil. “I think the big opportunity for craft beer in Australia is that we get it as a beer that someone picks up every day. There is so much diversification, variety and new styles of craft beer hitting the market in the US but what you are finding is some of the bigger craft beers are starting to behave more like a traditional brand in the market so we are starting to see an evolution from small and niche and infrequent consumption by connoisseurs moving into

more everyday consumption, broader availability and more frequent consumption by more mainstream and more everyday drinkers.”

Could Australia’s smaller population make for a crowded market? Not for Gloster. “I think right now the diversification in the market is absolutely fantastic because we are seeing new styles being re-interpreted, we’re seeing old styles come back to life, we’re seeing traditional styles being amped up so extra hops or a more complex flavour which is certainly something different to what a lot of the broader beer market offers which is a kind of homogenous taste. I think by having a more diverse range means that you are going to have much broader appeal to the clientele coming through.”

Gloster thinks people are prepared to pay a premium for a craft beer but acknowledges that strong brand loyalty has yet to develop. “There’s certainly a lot of brands out there, but right now people in the craft market are exploring, so they are trying different tastes, they are switching between brands. Director of Trade Relations for Lion Doug May has noticed a shift in beer consumption at clubs. “Not long ago all tap banks in clubs mirrored the same brand selection whether it be sports bar, main bar or dining. Today it is all about the right brands on the tap bank for the right occasion in each of the different bars where beer is served.”

It is just not the brands people are drinking that are changing. “Beer drinkers are drinking less volume, are demanding more flavour and are willing to pay more for these beers,” says Lion’s Brewmaster Chuck Hahn. “Australia now has over 200 small breweries – many brewing some great beers. In line with responsible beer consumption, we see increased opportunities for beer and food matching across the country. These different styles of beers can be ‘enjoyably matched’ with a variety of different foods, and we actively promote this concept.”

Eventually demographics will change too. Right now many clubs are in the same demographic boat as Tamworth City Bowling Club. “A lot of the young people up to 35 to 40 years of age, they will have a crack at craft beers,” says Secretary Manager Patch. “A lot of the older drinkers drink XXXX beer, that sort of thing.”

Lion’s Doug May agrees that craft beer has large following of 18 to 35 year olds but says that 38-plus age demographic are slowly getting in on the trend.

Despite craft beer’s strong growth Chris McNamara warns that it’s important to be patient and to make sure that staff know their pale ales from their wheat beers. “The one thing that venue operators need to understand is that craft beer has much better margins but it doesn’t sell itself,” says McNamara. “Venue operators need to be aware that there is an element of a hard sell in the initial years. In major venues like the bigger clubs, the drinking public is still learning what craft beer is. It does come down to staff training. It needs a commitment from management to put a bit of time and effort behind it, but the rewards are there when they do it”.

Given the thirst for craft beer in Australia, that commitment could very well be worth the effort.

WHAT PUTS

THE “CRAFT” IN CRAFT BEER?

So, what earns a beer the “craft” label? A recurring theme is the quality and care in

the brewing technique.

“It’s about having a brewer being hands on, being less of an industrial product and more

of an artisan, handcrafted product,” says Executive Officer of the Australian Craft

Beer Industry Association Chris McNamara.

It is the very nature of craft beers that appeals to drinkers looking for something

that is authentic, different and made with care.

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Club Food & Beverage