James Squire conducted a special tour of its Malt Shovel Brewery in Camperdown on the weekend, as the fifth annual Sydney Craft Beer Week got into gear, reports Michael Hughson.
The Malt Shovel Brewery has been at the centre of the Australian craft beer since its founder, Chuck Hahn, first opened its doors in 1988 (originally it was known as the Hahn Brewery).
One of the most influential figures in the craft beer sector, Hahn has watched this industry grow substantially. Since 1988, Australia has gone from having under 30 breweries to over 300, an increase driven by a surge in the popularity of craft beer.
The brew house itself is old-school, with much of the process control and operation still carried out manually by a team of dedicated brewers. Nonetheless, the brewery is capable of producing three 5000L batches of beer a day, and has been operating at capacity over the last 18 months in an effort to keep up with demand for its brews.
A special agreement with parent company Lion allows Malt to shift production off-site to a larger brewery once a particular beer’s rise in popularity sees volume demand grow beyond the brew house’s capacity, leaving space for a new brew to be developed.
Importantly, the expert brewers at Malt do not lose control of their beer once it leaves the site, with any recipe changes requiring their approval to go ahead. This safeguards the integrity of the James Squire brand.
The major focus of the brewers when developing new recipes is to create ‘gateway’ craft beers – beers that bridge the gap between the standard beers in the Australian market (such as VB, Carlton or XXXX) and the more sophisticated end of craft beer offerings. In this sense, Malt is still very much at the heart of the Australian craft brewing industry, even if it isn’t producing beers at the top of the craft field.
The ‘gateway’ approach, according to Malt's head brewer Chris Sheehan, is in response to the generally unadventurous nature of Australian drinkers when it comes to beer, and is part of a strategy to encourage new drinkers into the craft beer market. The rationale behind this is that if consumers are drinking more widely, there will be more opportunities to sell to them.
Brew development continues apace at Malt, and the tour concluded with a special tasting of a new beer that will be hitting shelves in the coming months. The Swindler, a summer ale, is sure to lure a few more Aussies onto the craft bandwagon when it launches.
