Mountain Culture will have a new venue in inner Sydney by the end of the year, after the Blue Mountains-based brewery secured the former home of Atomic in Redfern, which was closed by Good Drinks less than a month ago.
The space is set to open in November and will become the third Mountain Culture venue alongside their original brewpub home in Katoomba and their Emu Plains production brewery and bar.
Harriet McCready, who founded the brewery alongside husband DJ, told The Crafty Pint that, while they'd had been considering a home in inner Sydney for some time, the decision to move into the space in Redfern came about quickly.
“DJ and I have a tendency to leap before we really think,” she says.
“This presented itself and we thought, 'What could go wrong?' We tend to err on the side of something being a really good opportunity, so we throw as much effort in as we can to make it so.”
The news comes just a couple of months after Mountain Culture and Wildflower came together to create the Village in Marrickville which pours beers from both breweries.
While the two taprooms will sit just a few suburbs apart, Harriet says they will remain quite distinct from one another in their approach to beer and hospitality.
“[Village] is more rustic and focused on Topher’s skill at brewing and how we all do what we do,” she says.
“At Redfern, it won’t just be beer on tap. We will have a really extensive range, but we’ll also have cocktails and wine and there’s a really big kitchen in there so we’ll have a substantial food menu.”
Potentially the most exciting part of the Redfern takeover for Mountain Culture's fans is that it will serve as the home of the brewery's barrel program.
A first for the brewery, Harriet says: “It’s something we’ve been wanting to do for ages. It gives us the time to let flavours develop over years, and this place affords us the space to be able to do it.”
The expansion of their hospitality footprint – complete with hiring former Merivale head of beverage Ollie Stuart as group venue manager – is also designed to enable the brewery to better tell their story and connect with customers.
“We always lead with the beer first but we always think about getting our beers to more people and our pathways to market," Harriet says. "Hospitality allows us to control the experience that people are having with our product and that’s really important to us.
“It allows us to talk about beer and that’s what we love doing.”
Indeed, they've been busy expanding their footprint of late: as well as opening Village, a couple of months ago they launched Base Camp bar within Manly's New Brighton Hotel, a partnership with ALH that sees that space dedicated to pouring Mountain Culture beers. They've also just created and launched a new ad campaign for their flagship Status Quo Pale Ale, which is running across Kayo, YouTube, social media, select cinemas and outdoor advertising in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
“We really do think we know our brand the best and we have the most talent in our team," Harriet says of the new campaign. "We’ve always been about authenticity and genuineness, and that’s what this ad represents: it’s an authentic way of putting Mountain Culture out there.
“But it’s surreal to see it in the wild. I don’t think of ourselves as being big enough to have an ad. I’m so proud, I’ve got goosebumps.”
Will Ziebell is a history graduate who knows more about The Wire than he does about beer. He was awarded the AIBA Best Media trophy for 2018; HBO have told him to please send his fan mail elsewhere. He can be found on Instagram, Twitter and TikTok.
The beer(s) or moment(s) that turned you on to good beer:
Spending time living in the UK (and backpacking across Europe) when I was 21 certainly gave me a better understanding of the beer and different styles of the world. But I'd say it was a holiday to the High Country a little while later when lunch and a tasting paddle at Bridge Road Brewers created an obsession with Australian breweries and locally made beer.
You've got three beers to turn someone else on to good beer; what are they and why?
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Boatrocker's Miss Pinky: It's a raspberry-packed Berliner Weisse that neither looks or tastes the way many people conceive of beer.
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Bad Shepherd Hazelnut Brown: A luscious mix of chocolate and hazelnut that can appeal to the sweet tooth within us all.
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Stone & Wood Pacific Ale: As the father of my oldest friend once said to me: "It's the perfect refreshing pint that smells like they've loaded it with the God's herb."
The last beer you enjoyed:
Garage Project's DFA while sitting at the bar at Miss Moses as the sounds of The Rolling Stone drifting in the background.
Three things that represent you:
- Bruce Springsteen
- Ken Burns
- The State Library of Victoria
