Tumut River Brewing is set to reopen at the start of summer after being saved by some of the brewery’s staff. They signed off on a deal to buy the regional operation from liquidators this week, two months after former owner Tim Martin announced the brewery’s closure in September. That came 11 years after he launched the brewery in the former timber town of Tumut alongside Simon Rossato.
The new owners were among several groups looking to buy the brewery, with the successful bidders featuring former staff led by Michael Cichocki and Mary Richmond (pictured above). It’s a positive turn for the brewery and welcome news for the wider industry as a difficult year in beer comes to an end. And that's particularly true for locals who will regain their local watering hole as well as staff who are set to return to their old jobs.
“We just wanted to save the brewery,” Mary told The Crafty Pint.
“There will be familiar faces too because well-known staff are coming back and they’re really keen to work with Michael and I.”
Michael has long been a key part of the brewery, joining seven years ago to lead sales, marketing and events. Mary started working at Tumut River Brewing closer to a year ago and, like Michael, instantly fell in love with being a part of a small brewery in a town and region that’s known for beautiful bushland, fishing, camping and biking.
“We’re both in a really similar situation,” Michael says. “We both moved to town due to our partners; my wife is an artist who runs classes for children, and Mary’s husband runs fly fishing tours.”
Fittingly, their core focus for the future is on the local community. The Tumut River taproom in Canberra that launched earlier this year won’t reopen and they’ll pull back on wholesale and limited releases too.
“The number one thing for us is bringing everything back to Tumut; we’re really focused on the venue,” Michael says.
“It’s about going back to where the place started; the goal was always to become a tourist destination and build something that would benefit the region.”
He says the brewery, as with most of their brewing and hospo peers, has felt the impact of COVID, cost of living pressures, and a challenging wholesale market. But they see a sustainable and positive future for the small operation, particularly given their location.
“We’re in an amazing region,” he says. “We’re surrounded by some of the best water in the country, and our grain is coming from Voyager who are in the Riverina too.”
Mary says they’ve been busily refurbishing the venue ahead of their reopening in the next couple of weeks. Popular beers like Hitchhikers, Bad Mofo West Coast IPA and their top-selling Ginja Ninja will return too, although they’ll scale back the number of beers in the core range as it was at the time the business went into administration.
“We want to really focus on Tumut, while having less seasonals, and really focus on refining the recipes we have,” Mary says. “Our food menu will be really focused on local too.”
As a small team, the new owners will be "hands-on at the bar" so regulars and visitors can expect to spot them as they come in for a drink. That said, Michael is looking forward to hitting the road again too, as he did frequently when he joined the brewery.
“What I really loved was being at farmer’s markets at six o’clock in the morning selling people beer,” he says. “I loved that side of it: really connecting with people and seeing them come back into the brewery years later.
“As the new owners, that’s what we really want to get back to.”
Tumut River Brewing is set to reopen in early December, we'll share further details when they're locked in.
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
