When you’re a storyteller, sometimes you just have to follow where the story leads you. In the case of Dan Osper, it led him on a five-year journey to create a 12-part documentary series about the Aussie craft beer industry.
Brewed In Queensland didn’t begin as such a massive undertaking. It was originally supposed to be a palate cleanser for the Gold Coast documentary producer. Dan’s previous series, Hold On: The Bradley Sterritt Story, covered heavy subject content including a fatal street luge accident, a rare medical condition, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, so focusing on beer seemed like a good idea.
“I was looking for something lighthearted,” says Dan. “The craft beer industry was there for the taking.”
The seed of the idea for a beer documentary was to follow a friend’s journey through a home brew competition. But when Dan met and interviewed a few craft brewers in the process, the concept quickly grew. As he heard stories from the industry – the origins and future plans of Currumbin Valley Brewing, the pioneering stories of Burleigh Brewing and Stone & Wood, the rapid growth story of Black Hops – he knew there was a bigger story to tell, and decided to make an 80-minute feature film.
But Dan’s lighthearted project didn’t turn out to be so simple. His plan was quickly derailed, first by a personal hardship, then a global one. In the second half of 2019, his mother’s battle with cancer took a turn for the worse, so Dan put the filming on hold for a few months; by the time he was ready to continue, it was early 2020.
“It was January before I got back on the horse,” he says. “Thought I was going to wrap it up … then COVID came along and took all that off the table.”
As the world ground to a halt, Dan found himself waiting until he could talk to brewers again and finish filming. By the time he was able to return to interviews, he’d been following some of these breweries for a year, and was now getting statements about how COVID had affected the beer industry. The story had grown even bigger, and Dan knew he had more than an 80-minute film on his hands.
He’d made a series before; he could do it again.
Dan had the average Aussie in mind as he made Brewed In Queensland; the idea was to give punters a look beneath the hood of the craft beer industry, and to share the stories of the people driving it.
“I look at the industry and answer the questions of how it became so big, so the people who still didn’t get it could get a look,” he explains.
But it also serves as a kind of historical record that’s of interest to those who know the craft beer scene and want to track its growth and changes over the years. Because while Dan didn’t plan for this project to span half a decade – and perhaps no one in their right mind would take on such an ambitious goal – he ended up spending years filming and interviewing people across the industry, and capturing some of those changes.
Like Madocke, where Jimmy and Annelies managed their tiny Belgian brewery in their garage before eventually opening their two-storey Ashmore brewery; and Currumbin Valley, where Smokey and Luke make award-winning beer in a brewery built in a shed, on a farm, using upcycled dairy vats, and finally overcame the hurdles to open their taproom in Currumbin Waters. Or Stone & Wood, who sold their brewery to Lion in 2021, or even just the way breweries like Slipstream have expanded.
“I didn’t expect to see that kind of growth over that period,” he says, while reflecting on the growth of Slipstream. “Obviously, I didn’t expect to be doing it for so long! But you look back, and you think, ‘Wow! Some brands have come a long way.’”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the series evolved throughout the process. It went beyond covering individual breweries, delving into topics from beer festivals to bushfires to yeast research. Even the title of the documentary became a slight misnomer. While the majority of breweries featured in the documentary are in Queensland – several breweries around the Gold Coast, Slipstream in Brisbane, Granite Belt Brewery in Stanthorpe – Dan also popped across the border to Stone & Wood's bases in Byron Bay and Murwillumbah.
While the breweries he talked to are grouped in one part of the country, some of the people Dan spoke with have been influential in shaping Aussie craft beer further afield. So, over time, he came to see the series as being representative of the entire industry.
“What they’ve done, some of these people – the Stone & Wood founders, the Burleigh Brewing founders, even the Black Hops guys – has had a big part in inspiring a heap of other small breweries around the country to start up.”
Dan wasn’t exactly new to craft beer when he started. Before Brewed In Queensland, he’d worked in liquor retail for decades, and had seen the growth of craft beer in Australia: from non-existent, to a few obscure beers on the shelf, to entire walls of refrigerated cans. But he says that didn’t prepare him for the insider look he got from making the series.
“I went into it a little bit blind, a little bit ignorant. But that’s the thing you do as a documentary maker. You want to experience it as you go, rather than know everything before you start.”
From the first interviews in 2019, through building relationships with the brewers he kept returning to, to launching the series on YouTube in 2024, he’s obviously had an intimate relationship with the craft brewing industry. But even after spending all this time on the project, Dan’s not claiming to be the expert.
“I’m still not the craft beer guy; I’m still not the guy who can talk to you about all the hops and so on. For me, it’s more about people.”
He sees his role as sharing the stories of the brewery owners – and the farmer dealing with bushfires, and the PhD student looking into Brisbane yeasts, and the beer tour operators. And, while he’s happy to narrate the documentary and be on screen asking questions, he still sees his role as an intermediary one.
“I’m not really in it that much. I sort of facilitate the story to begin with, and then I try to stay out of it as much as possible, because it’s about them, you know? The last thing I want to be is famous!” he says.
“I just do it ‘cause I enjoy doing it, and I’m capable of doing it, and someone should do it.”
Although breweries around the country share snippets of video on social media, Dan said he didn’t really see anyone making longer-form video content that looked across the industry. He decided someone should film something to shine a light on Australian craft beer for the average punter, and figured it might as well be him.
“To this day I still kick myself that no one else in town thought to do something like this!”
Having said that, he understands why it hasn’t been done – a project of this scale is a significant investment in terms of time, energy and money. Dan estimates he’s put more than $25,000 into the series over the years, as well as countless hours arranging interviews, figuring out travel logistics, organising his team, recording voiceovers, sourcing music, and distilling five years of filming into nine hours of footage.
“It’s a load of work. I’ve spent half my life in front of computers the last few years!”
For anyone wondering whether the series covers the spate of voluntary administrations, sales and closures that have marred 2023 and 2024, the short answer is no.
Part of the reason is one of timing; by 2023, Dan was entering his final stages of interviews and drawing together the various threads; he wasn’t about to start up a new one that’d stretch the series out even longer.
Which isn’t to say he ignores it completely.
“I touch on it a little bit as I wrap up: small business in particular needs your support more than ever.”
But there’s another reason, too. Dan saw this project as an opportunity to present the craft beer industry to a wider audience, and was keen to highlight the positive aspects more than anything else. The idea of ending on a down note, or digging into breweries’ dirty laundry exposé-style, didn’t appeal to him at all.
“I don’t want to make myself look naive, but respectful,” he says. “I was never really going to pry. Don’t think I would’ve been given the right answers anyway.”
Despite this, Dan believes the documentary still speaks into the current situation of the craft beer industry.
“I always did have the concept of saturation in the questions for the major interviews; everyone touched on it in one way, shape or form…
"A couple of the brewers say things like, ‘The industry will be OK as long as people don’t keep building on top of each other.’”
Brewed In Queensland is about more than just information. Dan hopes it inspires people start their own thing – whatever that may be – and encourages punters to explore the wonderful world of craft beer more than before.
“For me, it’s not really about beer – it’s about people,” he says. “If [viewers] can relate to the people in the industry, maybe they’re gonna give craft beer more of a chance rather than turn their nose up at it. Get out there, and visit your local taphouse. See that it’s not all about beer nerds sitting around talking about IPAs.
"There's some great people out there, and that makes for a great environment."
You can watch Brewed In Queensland on Dan's YouTube channel, Natural Progression Films. At time of writing, the series is almost halfway through, with a new episode being released each Monday night.
Mick Wüst is the author of the book Beer Drinker's Toolkit, a fun and approachable guide to beer. He's also a freelance copywriter for the beer industry. You can find him on Instagram as Schoonerversity.
The beer(s) or moment(s) that turned you on to good beer:
I'm sure I'd had good beers before this, but the first barrel-aged imperial stout I ever tried made me feel like Popeye with spinach.
You've got three beers to turn someone else on to good beer; what are they and why?
- Balter XPA
- Wayward Raspberry Berliner Weisse
- Boatrocker Ramjet
The last beer you enjoyed:
A IIPA from Woopi Brewing that tasted like fruit salad and resin.
Three things that represent you:
- Book - World War Z (seriously, give it a go - it's better than it sounds)
- Travel - Greece
- Food - all the bread and hot chips
