Another local brewery has entered administration, with the founders of Golden West in the Perth suburb of Subiaco running out of money. The directors of the business, which first launched as Modular Brewing before taking on the name of an historic soft drink company, appointed GTS Advisory yesterday.
The venue is now closed – albeit potentially only temporarily as the administrator is in discussions with another business interested in reopening the 350-plus capacity venue as a brewery in the coming weeks.
Golden West becomes the latest WA brewery to enter administration in the past few months, following Running With Thieves – now operating under a new ownership structure, and Sound Brewing Co – acquired by Cheeky Monkey in December. Many more across Australia have been through the same process – both Hawkers in Melbourne and Big Shed in Adelaide are currently working with administrators – as others have closed or sold in a tough 18-month period for the craft beer industry. We examined what this means for the industry in Where To From Here For Local Beer?
Mathieu Tribut, the director at GTS Advisory who is overseeing the administration process for Modular Brewing / Golden West, told The Crafty Pint the owners had been through a "quite successful" small business restructuring process in 2023 and had enjoyed good business in the last quarter of 2023. However, he says sales fell dramatically at the start of this year and they ran out of cash, leading to his appointment.
As a result, they were unable to trade, which led to the closure of the Subiaco venue yesterday. However, some members of the brewing team have been retained to complete the brewing of a number of batches of beer which the administrators plan to sell through distributors as they work towards a more permanent solution.
The administrator said there had been discussions with three parties interested in the business – discussions are continuing with one of those three – stating: "I'm confident that we will find someone."
While the existing directors will not be part of any future outcome for the site, he told The Crafty Pint: "We're fairly certain that the premises will remain and will reopen, but maybe under a different name.
"It's likely [the interested party] will take over the premises and continue as a brewery, but it may not be the same brand."
If discussions continue as hoped, he believes the business could reopen in around eight weeks.
Golden West was founded by schoolmates Daniel Burt, Stuart Nicholls, Jai Tulsi, Tom Luke, and Daniel Gammell as Modular Brewing, before the quartet welcomed Stuart’s workmate Cristobal Moreno and his brother Rafael to the team and evolved into Golden West Brewing Co.
Just last year, they claimed a trophy at the Perth Royal Beer Awards for their Smooth Bourbon Vanilla Porter, but now they've fallen victim to the economic challenges that have been wreaking havoc for many industries across Australia.
James Smith launched The Crafty Pint in 2010, two years after moving to Australia from the UK. He was taken to Mountain Goat within weeks of landing in Melbourne, joined their indoor cricket team, and is still navigating the rabbit hole that is craft beer to this day.
The beers that turned you on to good beer:
- Watching pints of McEwan's 80 Shilling settle when visiting family in Edinburgh.
- Pints of flat Bass from the jug at the Cap & Stocking in Kegworth.
- A first Paulaner Hefeweizen when working in Munich in 1998: “This smells of bananas!”
- Castle Rock Harvest Pale – how could a 3.8 percent ABV beer be so good? (It turns out it was an early example of the three Cs – Cascade, Centennial and Columbus – in an English bitter).
- Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA poured through hops at the Sunset Grill in Cambridge, MA, in the company of a man who turned out to be the Beer Nut (while we were both covering a double murder case at the time).
- Ordering a Mountain Goat Hightail on my first day as an Aussie resident as it was local and I’d never heard of it; “A dark Australian beer; well I never…”
- Murray’s Icon 2IPA at Beer DeLuxe Fed Square, recommended by a guy I’d not long known who's now the main man at Fixation, served by Mik Halse, now head of sales at Hawkers. How could an Australian beer smell as good as that?!?
You've got three beers to turn someone else on to good beer; what are they and why?
- Any really good, fresh and balanced West Coast style IPA. Punchy hop aromatics are the most obvious way to capture someone's attention and these IPAs, done well, present the key components in beer (if you're sticking to just water, malt, hops and yeast) in harmony yet with the volume turned up.
- Saison Dupont. Arguably a selfish choice here as I bloody love the broad saison style and dearly hope it will finally take hold in Australia one day. Given a choice, I'd probably crack one enlivened with Brettanomyces like Molly Rose Matilde for myself but, when it comes to turning on someone new, you've got to go with the classic.
- Rodenbach Caractère Rouge. Because if you don't enjoy or can't appreciate this beer, I'll never win you over. And because Filip, the fruit and wood specialist at Rodenbach that designed it, is a beautiful human.
The last beer you enjoyed:
Fixation IPA at The Incubator.
Three things that represent you:
- The Soft Bulletin by The Flaming Lips
- Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
- Golden Plains
NB All articles written by James in the first eight years of the site appear as By Crafty Pint. Today, that's used for collaborative efforts by the wider team.
