Jaz Wearin, founder of Modus Operandi Brewing, put its succinctly: "If there is any advice I can give to someone starting a new brewery it is get ready for a ride! It's capital intensive, it's competitive, it's ever changing. But there is nothing quite like making something from water, malt, hops and yeast that has brought people together for centuries."
Wearin started Modus in Sydney's Northern Beaches in 2014 and finally opened her and husband Grant's Merewether brewery late in 2021. Modus Merewether is capable of producing more than 3million litres of beer annually.
They are but one of many new players in Newcastle's burgeoning craft beer brewing scene.
Up the road on King Street in Newcastle's East End is Foghorn, the first modern brew pub to make an appearance in the city since the Queens Wharf Brewery still brewed beer in the 1990s. Back then, a much larger production brewery, Bluetongue (now discontinued) operated out of Cameron Park. Several of the current crop of brewers here got their start at Blue Tongue.
The Rogue Scholar Brewery on Union Street in Newcastle West brews beer, too.
Several other local breweries are coming soon, and the Hunter Valley hosts multiple brewers.
Murray's in Port Stephens is where Foghorn's Shawn Sherlock first got his beer brewing start before going solo.
In Newcastle East, The Grain Store restaurant, which opened in 2013, has a national reputation, serving only Australian-made craft beer on its taps. It has 21 independently owned and Australian brewed craft beers on tap.
"Newcastle is widely considered by most of the Indie brewers as one of, if not the major beer city, in Australia who [the locals] really gets what Indie beer is all about," says The Grain Store owner operator Corey Crooks. "We [The Grain Store] feel proud to be at the forefront of helping shape our city into what it has become.
"I think you'd be hard pressed to find a city with a per head population rate anywhere across the country that consumes the amount of Independent beer within the greater CBD as Newcastle does."
The Old Timers
Ashleigh Howe is the daughter of Murray Howe, who founded Murray's, one of Australia's longest running independently-owned craft brewing companies, solely owned by one family.
Murray's launched in 2006 at Taylors Arm on the NSW North Coast and purchased their Port Stephens winery in 2008. Now they make wine, beer and spirits on site at Bobs Farm where they also offer a variety of dining options.
"Craft was a completely new thing since we launched in 2006, the largest players in craft were Coopers, Little Creatures and James Squire. There were no craft breweries in the region," she says.
At the time, in terms of brew-pub style, no one was producing at a commercial level. Now, craft brewing has exploded, with hundreds of brewers across the country, mimicking the expansion of craft brewing in America.
Ashleigh Howe says Murray's format has always been first and foremost about brewing onsite, having a large facility, top tier strategy for product placement in small bars and fine dining. Murray's has always had strong partnerships with major liquor distributors Coles and Woolworths.
Murray's brewery brews 600,000 litres per year. They produce 15 different packaged beers and two seasonal keg releases each month.
These days everyone seem to be hopping onto the craft brew trend.
"I'm a bit of an old-timer these days at the standards of a very young industry," says Shawn Sherlock, owner and brewer of Foghorn Brewhouse on King Street in Newcastle.
"I've been around longer than most. I'm a local Newcastle boy and a massive supporter of the area, and Newcastle has always punched above its weight in terms of craft beer."
Lachlan MacBean of Grainfed Brewing started brewing beer in 2012, and before that he worked for Bluetongue brewery for five years.
Many years ago while working at The Albion Hotel, he noticed a lack of local beers. (then-manager Corey Crooks would later replace the mainstream beer with craft beer before starting The Grain Store.) MacBean decided to start brewing his own.
He borrowed someone else's equipment and his first beer was The Sneaky One (still a top seller available today). Fast forward 10 years and he's still a one-man business.
MacBean currently brews out of Sydney and probably brews 1000 litres a week.
Surviving the pandemic
The lockdowns gave MacBean a chance to innovate.
"It wasn't great. I was 85-90 per cent tap beer, during the pandemic. When that fell over I thought I better switch. I switched four brands into cans, I've had a rebrand with my cans, and received good feedback from bottle shops," MacBean says.
"Draught is still the majority of what I do and I'm happy to keep it that way because I think draught beer is the best way to drink beer.
He said as far as publicity goes, the cans do better for him. Now he has five on draught and four in can. He's watched the beer scene change around him since he got into brewing beer.
"I've been in the industry 18 years; I do a lot of beer judging internationally. A lot of new players come in, and I taste some of the beers from new brands and think there's a few things going on that shouldn't be going on," he says. "Some people think it's easy, but it's actually not. Getting the beer right and then getting it out there to market is not an easy task, but it's attracted a lot attention. Everyone thinks 'how hard can it be?.' "
Winemaker and beer brewer of Hope Estate in Polkobin, Michael Hope is looking forward to putting 30 of their beers on tap at Hope at Honeysuckle, in what was previously the Newcastle maritime museum. They've won the tender, and the lease is in place for the next 50 years. They plan for it to be a cellar door in Newcastle with beer tasting, wine tasting, paddles, master classes and more
But Hope says COVID has changed the way they do things.
"It's changed our way of life and I don't know if and when it will ever return to what it was," Hope says. "Habits changed, people who used to go out to the pub might have realised they can buy grog at the bottle shop and set up their man cave at home."
He found the best time for trading was when lockdowns ended but the borders were still closed and "every man and his dog said 'let's get out and about.' "
"We've had a couple of years without our major events. Lockdowns and people not going to pubs, bars and restaurants. I'm just accepting that it's the way. I think what COVID has taught anyone in business is that you roll with the punches," he says.
Sherlock added that December 2021 was Foghorn's most brutal month on record.
"I won't lie, the last two years have been tough," Sherlock says. "This last Christmas was a real killer. We'd just come through the second lockdown and trading really well in early December. At the end of December we lost all bookings and functions. That was the story across hospitality, we're just starting to come out of that now."
Sherlock said their last four weeks have been good and the tide seems to be turning. He's positive about Foghorn's future and the future of beer in Newcastle. He's always been a believer that a rising tide lifts all boats and, as long as the beer is good, there's plenty to go around.
"People in Newcastle like good beer, and they're prepared to pay a little more to get the better product. They're not obsessed with the mainstream," Sherlock says.
The New Players
Despite the pandemic, the future of beer is looking big in Newcastle.
Modus Merewether begins officially brewing onsite this week.
The Rogue Scholar opened in September 2020 and brews 40-50 kegs a week or 2000 litres, with capacity up to 4000. Owner Adam Hardy plans to start distilling his own gin soon as well. He's been wholesaling his beers since 2016. The Rogue Scholar currently has 16 taps, 12 normal draught and four traditional English hand pumps - and Hardy services all of them. His main seller is his ginger beer which rotates through 30 local venues.
Hardy says he would love to see Sydney's inner west brewery vibe here in Newcastle.
"From the early to late 2000s to today, the transformation is huge," Hardy says of the Sydney scene. "I don't know how many breweries were operating in 2010 but there are so many more now. It's a bit too soon, but that's what I think is going to happen in Newcastle and the rise of suburban breweries in places like New Lambton, Kotara and Lambton."
Shout Brewing Co was established in 2018 and is now relocating from Mayfield West to Clyde Street in Islington. They are currently stocked at local bottle shops and the new brewery is set to open in late August.
Method Brewery on Maitland Road is in the making and the Thirsty Messiah in Broadmeadow is also on its way.
Method Brewery is made up of three owners and brewers - Gavin McKenzie, Sean Costigan and Matt Blofield. They hope to be open by winter of this year. Not only are they brewers, but they're also building the brewery themselves, bar a bit of plumbing.
"From the construction of the toilets to the laying of the slab, to the building of the cool room to the building of the bar, seating, general fit-out," Costigan says of what they've done. "We had a few other things done by some very gracious friends for mates rates, and the equipment is on its way."
The men have been talking about opening a brewery for a few years. They knew it wouldn't be easy.
Blofield has worked in the brewing industry for the last 12 months, and McKenzie is partway through a uni course in brewing. Costigan was a professional brewer at Murray's brewery before leaving to start his own painting business.
Blofield was a tradie and then went to work at Hope Estate brewery. They joke that Costigan quit brewing to be a tradie and Blofield quit trading to be a brewer. (McKenzie works as a paramedic and is also a home brewer.) Currently they're all three tradies soon to be professional brewers.
Twelve months ago they signed the lease on what was once, ironically, a home brew shop where Costigan learned to brew.
Beer lovers can expect a bit of everything with very approachable beer. But they're big beer geeks themselves; they'll have beers to suit the biggest beer snobs. They have no kitchen and instead will rotate food trucks and vendors.
"It's always been a vibrant craft beer community. It's been really unusual there weren't more breweries in the city prior to Foghorn," Costigan says. "It's amazing it's been seven years with just a few. There's quite a few now. There's a lot of high quality brewers and I think we'll see some great beer."
"The more the merrier," Blofield says.
In Morisset is Bread and Brewery, which Jay Beckham, one of three owners of a pico brewery which, he says, is even smaller than a Nano brewery. They brew only 600 litres per week.
"Things have been really good. It's been really well received by the community, the brew-munity. We just did the first birthday," Beckham says. "For everyone, COVID was a little bit of a shock. For us it went better than anticipated because we started doing deliveries, beer and charcuterie boards. We were going to keep those going, but once we got out of COVID we didn't have enough time."
Also in Morisset is Lake Mac Brewing Co and a third brewery, Yard Kings Brewing Co and Smokehouse on Accolade Avenue, which is set to open in May.
"Once Yard Kings open, you'll have three breweries within walking distance of the Morisset train line," Beckham says.
Also on the cards is the Thirsty Messiah Brewery on Lambton Road in Broadmeadow. They're hoping to be open in two months' time.
"We're full steam ahead, just doing what we can do, exploratory work that we can within the bounds of what's permitted, with liquor licenses and construction to come," owner Thomas Delgatto says.
He added that he and his wife Libby are just ordinary folks who have taken on this work. With a considerable investment, they could not be more ready to share their beer.
Newcastle's Craft Beer Future
Everyone seems to agree that the craft beer industry takes work, particularly in the last two years.
"It's gonna be a slow burn and a long road back of getting people to go out," Hope says of the post-pandemic world for brew pubs, cellar doors and restaurants.
Wearin said more brew pubs and small breweries are opening across Australia, not just Newcastle.
"Just like coffee, wine and bread, beer is becoming an important localised product which means there is some opportunity for smaller breweries to service local communities in a model like brew-pubs," Wearin says. "Large scale production these days is a lot trickier due to the amount of commercially available beers, private label and internationally owned beer brands."
"I know that Newcastle could probably sustain 10-15 breweries, and my opinion is it would probably work better spread out over the suburbs rather than concentrated in one, so each community gets its own local," MacBean says.
"There's a few other guys around. A lot of people got stalled by COVID, hopefully it keeps booming," Hardy says. "I definitely think there's a market and it's untapped and hopefully it explodes in the next few years."
Howe says, "Newcastle's history as a blue collar city leads very well to the storytelling of beer, it all leads to a certain skew and story to tell. Our sense is, however, from experiences, too many players reduces demand. While competition is a good thing, you can have too much product and not enough people."
"It is an exciting time to be a Novocastrian beer lover with the region about to welcome a stack of new brew pubs," Crooks says.
Sherlock says the industry is collegial. Newcastle will reach saturation, but we're nowhere near that yet. "Whatever we do, if we do it well is the critical thing," he says.
Who's Who
Bread & Brewery 19/14 Kam Close, Morisset. 0490 353 584.
The Coastal Brewery Company 3 Dalman St, Forster. 6554 7886.
Dusty Miner Craft Brewery 7 Hampton Ct, Aberglasslyn. 0432 064 388
Foghorn Brewhouse 218 King St, Newcastle East. 4929 4721.
The Grain Store Craft Beer Cafe (retail only) 64 Scott St, Newcastle East. 4023 2707.
Grainfed Brewing Co Stockists: grainfedbrewing.com.au
Hope Brewery 2213 Broke Road, Pokolbin. Opening late 2022: Wharf Road, Honeysuckle. 4993 3555.
Ironbark Hill Brewhouse 694 Hermitage Road, Pokolbin. 6574 7085.
Lake Mac Brewing 3/2 Brodie St, Morisset. 0435 056 220.
Maltnhops brewhaus Taproom 10 /26 Balook Dr, Beresfield. maltnhops.com.au
Method Brewing 18 Maitland Road, Islington. Opening soon. (Facebook for details).
The Mighty Hunter Valley Wine Country Drive, Nulkaba. 4058 4155.
Modus Merewether 20 Merewether St, Merewether. 4011 5850.
Morpeth Brewery Commercial Hotel, 127 Swan St, Morpeth. 0426 968 616.
Murray's Brewing Co 3443 Nelson Bay Road, Bob Farm. 0481 249 438.
The Pourhouse Craft Beer Bar 327 High St, Maitland. 4933 4473.
The Rogue Scholar 4-6 Union St, Newcastle West. (Facebook for details).
Shout Brewing 22 Clyde Street, Islington. New site mid-2022. Online shout-brewing.square.site.
Steel City Beer Company Plans for brewpub. Find local taps and stockists: steel-city.com
Styx Brewery 97 Wilson St, Carrington. 0400 763 058.
Sydney Brewery Hunter Valley (Lovedale) 430 Wine Country Drive, Crowne Plaza Hunter Valley. 4991 0947.
Thirsty Messiah Brewery 140 Lambton Road, Broadmeadow. Opening soon. (Facebook for details).
Tin Shed Brewery 109 Dowling St, Dungog. (Facebook for details).
Yard Kings Brewing Co 32 Accolade Avenue, Morisset. Opening May 2022. yardkingsbrewingco.com.au
