They might not be Australia’s oldest homebrew club but, as the Merri Mashers celebrate turning ten, it’s safe to say they’ve packed a whole lot into that first decade.
They’ve helped launch professional breweries, built a vibrant community, and have risen to become one of the country’s largest – if not the largest – clubs with their 150 members.
There are few events on their annual calendar that better encapsulate that sense of community like their annual IPA Comp, which has been running since the club's early days. It’s a competition that allows for every style of IPA under the sun, from hazy to Belgian, and taking out the top title gives the winner one of homebrewing's great honours: the chance to brew on a commercial scale.
The competition itself is broader than the inner north boundary of the Merri Masher's home suburbs and draws entries from clubs across Victoria. This year, there were a total of 140 beers entered with the overall winner one of Merri Masher’s own, Zac Walsh (pictured above in the Ill Street Brews jumper, alongside his mysterious mate from the Park Bench Philosophers and Tallboy's Jack Ledingham and Dan Hall).
Zac's winning recipe was a brown IPA conditioned on a yuzu tincture that he re-brewed at Tallboy & Moose last month.
“It was a super fun day with really friendly people,” Zac says. “It’s always fascinating to see how other breweries are set up and how their processes differ.”
Zac normally brews at home with a 30-litre system but he’s spent plenty of time around professional brewers too. He brews part-time with the team at Boatrocker, a gig he started after a work placement there through Kangan Institute’s Micro-Brewing course.
Zac’s passion for brewing began back in 2016, inspired by the wide range of craft beers introduced to him by his dad. After buying his dad a voucher for a brew-on-premises establishment, they tried their hand at brewing for the first time.
“I spent the day brewing on their system and thought, 'I could give this a go myself [at home]',” Zac says. “It was a slippery slope from there.”
Fast forward to the pandemic, and Zac was able to brew every couple of weeks during lockdown, polishing his skills and techniques.
“During that time, people either took up homebrewing or low and slow American barbecue; I also gave sourdough a crack, but that didn’t work out as well," he says with a laugh.
As for the winning recipe, Zac has always loved darker and more traditional styles of beer; it was also during the first lockdown that he conceived the winning brown IPA recipe.
“You get the best of both worlds,” he says. “There’s the sweet, dark roasted malts and the nice, American hop backing.”
His rendition is a way to pay homage to the homebrewers of old – American brown ale as a style was resurrected by homebrewers in Texas – and it provides a good excuse for Tallboy’s Tex-Mex-themed launch party.
The idea for adding the yuzu tincture came from an old yuzu stout bottle he had seen on the wall of Fury & Son’s bar a few years back. Having tried yuzu in a lager, as well as in hoppy beers, he already knew that it worked well in those styles.
“I was on work placement and asked them how it went in such a dark, malty beer – and they said it was fantastic.”
Using the first harvest of his own yuzu tree, he decided to give it a crack, pairing the citrus with the spicy and tropical flavour profiles of Amarillo and Simcoe hops. Taking advice from the brewers at Boatrocker, Zac made the yuzu tincture by steeping the rind in food-grade ethanol for a couple of weeks.
He says the competition also gives entrants important feedback with beers judged according to BJCP rules and guidelines.
“Receiving feedback from people who are qualified is invaluable,” he says.
Like many homebrewers, Zac has ambitions of going pro and relishes working at Boatrocker, where one brew day might see you fill barrels and the next might turn your focus towards a classic English mild.
“It’s an excellent place to work and they brew a lot of the styles of beers that I enjoy brewing myself,” he says. “I love their focus on more traditional and less common styles of beer – it’s a great place to learn tips and tricks.”
Indeed, over the past ten years, the Merri Mashers have been an incubator that's helped launch the professional careers of many homebrewers, both as brewers and across a range of other roles in the craft beer industry. Since joining the Mashers last year, Zac says he has found it to be a community he can lean on for inspiration, help and guidance.
CoConspirators Brewpub in Brunswick was founded by members of the club, with whom the team maintains a great relationship; last year, the winning IPA-competition beer was brewed there. Old Wives Ales was also a project started by Mashers’ members, while Derek Lacey, who founded Australia’s first liquid yeast company, Bluestone Yeast Co, is a proud member too.
Derek says homebrew groups offer the chance to hone your craft and, in Merri Mashers, he found a really open community eager to build each other up.
“It was great to just meet other homebrewers who are trying it out or making mistakes,” he says.
“There’s a lot to learn from their mistakes and your own and it makes you feel like it’s OK to make mistakes and admit them.”
As Derek was founding Bluestone, he also found the passion of the group invaluable: the community was eager to advocate for a local liquid yeast business they’d been hoping to see in Australia for years.
"Our launch event was with the Merri Mashers and to have these people who were really excited and passionate about brewing and what we were doing blew me away,” Derek says.
“They were all super-excited homebrewers who had been wanting this to happen in Australia for a decade. They were so excited and passionate that it was really exciting to me.”
Derek says they’ve always sought to sponsor the likes of the IPA Comp and other competitions as they’re eager to see the local scene continue to grow.
Indeed, the event reflects the club’s strong relationships with the broader craft beer community. HPA are the event’s major sponsor, which has been hosted at The Woodlands Hotel in Coburg for several years; many breweries, ingredients suppliers and retailers support the competition and its various style trophies.
For the team at Tallboy & Moose, sponsoring the event is an easy decision to make. The brewery’s marketing and events manager Lisa Ethé says the close community and connection between beer drinkers, amateur brewers and pro brewers benefits everybody.
“We love to support the Merri Mashers because we get to meet people who are craft beer enthusiasts and who are at the same time our target audience,” Lisa says.
As sponsorships manager and member Matthias Zürrer explains, Merri Masher’s focus with its meetings and events is to foster a supportive environment and connect homebrewers with Melbourne's finest beer venues.
"There’s a lot of exchange – it’s amazing what you can learn,” he says. “We get to taste other people’s beers, as well as go to exciting venues and see what they have going on.”
But, he says the best thing about the club is the community itself.
“To get to talk about beer for an entire night and not have to feel bad because everyone cares about it," he says, laughing, "that’s very exciting.”
The Serpendipity Texan IPA is launching at Tallboy on August 16 with details here.
Georgie Preston is an Arts graduate and choral singing enthusiast. She visited more breweries before the age of ten than is generally considered acceptable, and now enjoys anything from a stout to a sour.
