More than a year after its owners hoped to be up and running, Temple Brewing is on the verge of opening its brewery, bar and brasserie in East Brunswick. The sparkling new brewhouse is in place, the stonetop bars are about to be adorned with bold concrete âTEMPLEâ lettering any minute now, the last of the furniture is being cut and shaped and a couple of new beer recipes have been tweaked ready for the launch.
Owners Ron and Renata Feruglio, who gained a great reputation for the quality of their beers while brewing on other peoples’ breweries, gypsy style, for a number of years, hope to open the doors for good within four weeks and have a pair of beers prepped for the occasion – although they would only tell The Crafty Pint about one of them. In addition to what will be their core range of Pale Ale, Saison, Japanese Soba Ale (debuted at the Shinobi Japanese Garden in March 2010) and a Midnight IPA, first shown off to trade back in May last year) will be the Temple Brunswick Draught and A N Other, with their Special Bitter held back as an autumn seasonal and, ultimately, all 20 taps upstairs and down at their venue pouring ten different Temple beers.
The Temple Brunswick Draught, which has been in development since February, going through around 30 test batches, is designed to be both a beer that belongs to its locale, a take on a classic Aussie draught beer and also a fresh look at an old, much-maligned Aussie hop variety.
“It’s a beer we were always going to have in our portfolio when we started here,” says Ron. “The idea is to have a typical beer that everyone can use as a go to beer before going on to some of the more esoteric beers on our lineup. It also pays homage to the original roots of Victorian brewing, using almost all Pride of Ringwood hops with some Willamette. There are also ten malts from all over the world to reflect the international flavour of the area, but we wanted to go 180 degrees away from the tropical and passionfruit type hops that have been fully exploited by all and sundry and create something really rootsy. Pride is really maligned but we think it has a lot of really earthy qualities, gives the beer a bit of spice and is quite refreshing.”
The bar and brasserie, where food is in the hands of Raymond Chang, formerly of Vue du monde and CERES, looks unlike any other brewery venue in Australia. Concrete walls are being left unadorned other than graphics, the ceiling in the upstairs lounge features layer upon layer of uncovered, unshaped foam and is like peering onto the top of a cloud, while elsewhere it’s all stone, timber and sheets of glass – oh, and a series of distinctive metallic rays shooting out across the ceiling of the main bar. The walls of glass ensure the brewery is on full display wherever you are meaning that, with plans to open from 11am most days, guests will be able to sample the brewers' wares while watching them working on the next batches.
“We haven’t compromised anything that was part of our original vision, which is why things often take longer,” says Ron. “We’ve used the interesting engineering components like pipes and finishes in an architectural sense. Form does follow function and if you get the function right, you can achieve nice shapes and geometry.”
For those of a technical bent, the brewery itself is a custom-designed Newlands setup capable of knocking out 2,000 litre batches. Ron spent time in Canada having it designed to his exact specifications; as a successful and adventurous home brewer, he was keen that his expensivenew toy would allow him to make a huge range of often complex beers, so it is capable of step mashes, has a kettle that can be heated very rapidly to extremely high temperatures and, should he so desire, can be operated by iPhone remotely so he could, technically, still brew from home.
Dates for the opening are yet to be confirmed, but they are on the final stretch. We’ll bring them to you as soon as we can. Alternatively sign up for their newsletter here. With Thunder Road up and running around the corner, it’s a good time to be a beer lover in Brunswick.
