Times are undoubtedly tough for the beer world right now, but the challenges of 2024 do seem to be focusing brewers' minds on new ways to bring people through their doors. Just a few weeks on from the launch of the Inner West Ale Trail in Sydney, brewers and bar owners in Newcastle have released their own trail in the shape of Brewcastle.
Based around a cute, interactive illustrated map that brings back fond memories of the one we created for the first Good Beer Week in 2011, Brewcastle features each of the city's breweries as well as a number of key beer venues. The aim is simple: to make it easy for visitors to the city looking for something to do to take themselves on a self-guided tour with a different beer experience awaiting them every step of the way.
While Newcastle has long had a reputation as a good beer city – and hosted one of the first craft beer weeks of the modern era – it's only in the past few years that the local brewing scene has come alive. FogHorn Brewery was the first to open in the city just under a decade ago and it was a number of years before another followed but now, as the map makes clear, there's choice aplenty.
FogHorn owner and head brewer Shawn Sherlock told The Crafty Pint: “It’s something I really wanted and to some extent have been working towards. Once the other breweries were there, having this kind of map and engaging with the tourism authority really appealed.
“It’s done really well in the Hunter wine region; we looked at what they’ve done there and thought it would be good to do something similar with beer in Newcastle, like with the ale trails in inner-west Sydney and elsewhere. It’s a simple idea that works well.”
He says they’re looking to appeal beyond the “hardcore beer person” and hope to attract people with families looking to do something other than enjoy the beaches.
"We’re really looking at it from the point of view of people coming from Sydney or Melbourne who are looking to do something in Newcastle,” Shawn adds.
Alongside his brewery in the CBD, Brewcastle features fellow breweries The Rogue Scholar, Maltnhops Brewhaus, Modus Merewether, Good Folk Brewing, Method Brewing, Shout Brewing, Thirsty Messiah and Grainfed. Joining them are the established craft beer venues the Grain Store, the Carrington Bowling Club, the Clarendon Hotel and The Edwards (now owned by Akasha Brewing) as well as Earp Distilling Co and, soon after launch, Newcastle Distilling Co.
The project has been supported by the City of Newcastle, following a successful grant application by Thirsty Messiah founder Thomas Delgatto, who told The Crafty Pint he managed to secure $20,000 to help bring the project to life.
“The idea is to bring people out and provide a bit of tourism infrastructure,” he says, adding that anyone embarking on the trail will find different offerings along the way: from breweries of varying sizes to the drinks pouring at each, whether you’re after IPAs or, in the case of the Thirsty Messiah, everything from a framboise to mead. And, by including a number of beer venues, he says punters can also sample beers from across the wider region too.
He adds: “We’ve already got a couple of bus operators looking at doing hop on, hop off arrangements.”
Over time, Thomas says the plan is to add additional information, such as accomodation options, who’s hosting live music, which venues are dog-friendly or running food specials, which are closest to any large festivals in the city, and so on.
While the city council has funded the creation of the venture, participating businesses will pay an ongoing fee to keep it running and active – promoting events and offers, for example – with new businesses able to apply to join down the line.
Shawn admits the “survival” aspect of life in beer and hospo these days has played a role in Brewcastle’s creation.
“In the early stages of craft beer, everyone knew everyone and all worked together well, even if we were on the other side of the country," he says. “Once it started to grow, the speed of growth meant that was never sustainable. The tough times now means the surviving brewers are looking around to see if there are ways we can help each other and be stronger together.
“Also, post-COVID, the authorities are looking for ways to support tourism. Brewery tourism was kicking off pre-COVID then shut down for two years, so they’re looking for marketable things for people to do.”
Thomas adds: “[Businesses] have looked at everything below the line and are running lean and mean; we can then only work on the top line, which is things like brewery trails and social media.
“I spoke to a marketing agency and they talked about getting people out of the lounge, away from Netflix and Uber Eats, as people have got comfortable doing that now. We’ve got to have something else to bring people into venues, whether that’s live music or specials.”
Ultimately, as with the growing number of similar trails around the country, as Shawn puts it simply: “It’s a way to make it easier for people to discover us.”
You can check out interactive map and download a Brewcastle PDF map here.
Shawn Sherlock is the guest on Episode 013 of The Crafty Pint Podcast, which goes live this Thursday (October 17).
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.
