Range Brewing have today announced they're closing their Melbourne venue. The Abbotsford taproom opened in 2020, giving the brewery a southern outpost, but it will serve customers for the last time on June 15 as they focus on their Brisbane operations.
"We’re obviously gutted about it; I don’t think anybody would be happy about closing a venue," Range co-founder Matt McIver told The Crafty Pint. "But we’re reasonable enough people that we could see that it wasn’t working anymore."
In making the decision, he says they’d crunched numbers in-house, weighing up continuing to trade through to the end of their lease against closing now and looking to sell off the lease and assets, before choosing the latter route – one that could help fund further venues in their home state.
The challenge of operating a venue two states away proved tougher than they’d expected, while rising shipping costs – $400 to send a pallet from Brisbane to Melbourne now versus mid-$200s when they started – played a role in their decision. Matt also feels the lack of a kitchen worked against them, but given one of the key reasons they’d launched the Abbotsford venue was to act as a distro hub in Melbourne, they had prioritised a large cool-room instead.
“It’s a great little venue and we’ve loved having a place where people can drink our beers fresh every week,” he says. “It’s not a happy decision but we’re focusing on what’s to come."
Over the past three-and-a-half years, Range Abbotsford has been part of a growing hospo scene in and around the suburb, hosting regular beer launches in tandem with their original brewery home. Since then, Range have opened Patio in the Brisbane suburb of Rosalie and launched The Bethnal, an events space next to their Newstead brewpub, and it's here they plan to focus their attention.
The taproom's imminent closure follows that of another Abbotsford pub, The Carringbush, which poured its last beers yesterday, and comes amid a tumultuous time for the beer and hospitality industries.
“It’s not a sign of the overall business – this is just one arm that wasn’t doing so well," Matt says. "If we were shutting the whole brewery as nothing was profitable then that would be a totally different story. And it sucks that we’re doing this when there’s been so many VAs and liquidations and full-on brewery closures, but it’s nothing to do with those things: we’ve not got a big bill with the ATO; we’re not going into administration.”
While Range Abbotsford hasn't panned out as they'd hoped, they remain convinced more venues form a major part of their future – just venues that are closer to home. Matt says The Bethnal has just enjoyed its most profitable month, while Patio is “humming along nicely” as an example of a modern neighbourhood bar.
“It’s not necessarily just a beer bar but has a strong natural wine selection and a good cocktail list,” he says. “There’s a more diversified menu than the [Newstead] taproom but it still has ten fresh taps of Range beer.”
Co-founder Gerry Martin added in a statement: “While we’re closing this chapter in Melbourne, we are doubling down on hospitality in our home state. With the success of Patio and The Bethnal, we’re putting all our energy and focus on building out our hospitality group in our home city."
Looking at the wider Brisbane scene, Matt says they’ve enjoyed a strong start to the year, adding: “The general vibe has been good. We’re quietly confident and optimistic for the rest of this calendar year, and by the 25 / 26 financial year everyone is looking up.”
The pair launched Range Brewing alongside head brewer Mitch Pickford in Brisbane in 2018, quickly winning over locals at their sleek, minimalist, Scandi-inspired Newstead home, and causing a buzz around the Australian beer world for their beers, in particular their fast-flowing stream of hazies and IPAs.
In 2020, they picked up Champion Independent Australian Beer for their Fahrenheit IPA – one of a series of trophies at that awards – and collected another trophy for Champion Juicy-Hazy in 2022, a beer we put at the centre of a deep dive into what makes a champion beer.
They have said they'll continue to sell their beers via Melbourne bottleshops and bars, as well as shipping to Victorian customers from their online store. And, prior to closing on June 15, they'll be offering case specials and draught specials at the venue ahead of a closing party with DJ on their last Saturday.
Both Matt and Gerry will be in Melbourne to pour beers at the Abbotsford closing party: a chance to have a few beers with staff as well as those who have become locals over the past few years.
“A lot of people in Melbourne will be upset and rightfully so – it sucks,” Matt says. “But hopefully they’ll understand. People know it’s pretty tough for breweries right now.”
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.
