With floodwaters rising, there wasn’t much in the way of good news coming out of Queensland last week. But in a corner of Teneriffe, the situation was a whole lot brighter as the Australian craft beer world welcomed another newcomer to the fold. Green Beacon threw open its roller door for the first time and welcomed guests into its industrial warehouse turned brewery and bar, completing the long held dream of a pair of Brisbane schoolmates.
Based on what could be called the Mountain Goat model, Mark Chrismas and Adrian Slaughter have gifted Brisbane a venue that is set to take the already burgeoning craft beer scene to another level. With a 12 hec brewery lining one wall, a bar made from recycled spotted gum running down the centre, and seating for 90 guests – not to mention the six beers in their permanent range and rotating specials on tap – it’s perhaps little wonder that on its first weekend so many people were willing to brave the elements that the owners are already worried about running out of beer...
“It was a pretty big week,” says venue manager Andrew Sydes. “Very exciting and very successful. And no major catastrophes! While Brisbane was being flooded we still had absolutely amazing numbers every day.
“All three of the guys from Stone & Wood came up, which was really lovely, and they all seemed to genuinely enjoy the beers. We were stoked.”
Green Beacon’s founders, Mark and Adrian, met at school but had spent many years since then travelling the world. The former spent time teaching English in Japan and living in Scotland, while the latter worked in a variety of places throughout a career in corporate finance. A few years back, they found themselves back in Brisbane, got chatting and decided the time was ripe for Adrian, a keen amateur brewer, to follow through on his dream of opening a brewery.
“There’s nothing like it in Queensland,” says Andrew, who used to manage Brisbane’s busy Archive Beer Boutique. “It’s a brewery first and foremost. They wanted to have the brewery front and centre to make it an integral part of the experience.”
As for the beers, the core range is made up of a Pale Ale, Wheat Beer, Kolsch, IPA, Amber Ale and Porter. Some are based on Adrian’s existing recipes as a homebrewer, while there has been input from his mother-in-law, Penny, who is a commercial brewer in the UK with 30 years experience; in fact, the Porter is named after her. There will also always be a rotating seasonal, which at present is the first brew ever go through the brewhouse. Called LBF 1112 – as in Long Bitter Finish and the date on which it was brewed – it is, according to Andrew, “the pale ale turned up to 11” and will never be repeated as the actual brew was a fairly turbulent affair with various adjustments having to be made along the way.
“It kept cutting out while mashing in and there were a lot of little niggles so we knew we wouldn’t be able to produce something from our core range,” said Andrew. “We made something that’s unique, that we couldn’t replicate even if we tried to.
“With the core range we wanted to cover quite a few bases with flavours and aromas. We wanted to have a really broad range to showcase the variety that exists within craft beer. We’re working on a cider too.”
For now, the only place you can taste the beers is at the brewery, with no plans to seek taps elsewhere just yet, partly as they’re petrified of running out of beer for their own place.
With Fortitude due to add further strength to the Queensland brewing scene and the likes of The Scratch, Bitter Suite, Tippler’s Tap, Archive, Kerbside and others bringing craft beer to a growing local audience, the transformation of the Brisbane beer scene that started gaining pace a couple of years ago is showing no sign of letting up.
“You only have to head to Tippler’s Tap or Scratch on pretty much any night of the week and they’re always full of people drinking, enjoying a wide range of beers,” says Andrew. “These venues wouldn’t survive if there wasn’t a market and it’s not the cheapest thing to do either, especially when you are importing beers from all over the place.
“Craft beer isn’t cheap, it’s not a commodity. It uses expensive ingredients and processes, there are the inefficiencies of small-scale production compared to the big boys, while alcohol is massively regulated and taxed in Queensland too. Yet the proof of the pudding is in the eating: the time is now. [For the guys behind Green Beacon] there’s been a mixture of being wise and lucky, as things really are just taking off.”
Green Beacon is at 26 Helen St, Teneriffe, and is open from midday to late Wednesday and Thursday and from 10am to late Friday to Sunday.
