Sailors Grave’s Dunetown is set to open on Thursday*, a little more than three years after Gab and Chris Moore first revealed their plans to create a farmhouse-style brewery at their home in East Gippsland.
The new brewery is located between the town of Marlo and Cape Conran Coastal Park, with the Dunetown name drawing on its position in the lee (the bit of land that faces away from the wind) of the dunes that lie between the two.
While getting the doors open as been a whirlwind, Gab says they've faced relatively few delays in the final few weeks as excitement has built among the team at the prospect of finally welcoming people inside.
“It’s Sailors Grave fully realised,” she told The Crafty Pint. “We’re eight years in but this is how we wanted it to always be.
“It’s a fully realised hospitality venue in a beautiful location where we’ll continue doing interesting events.”
As an example of what's in store for visitors, their New Year's Eve celebration features classical music inspired by maritime heritage; it's a fitting early event for a brewery that’s named after a local reef that was long the enemy of sailors passing along the coast.
“Everything we do we try to do with providence and integrity while bringing something new,” is how Gab describes their approach.
“I hate following the path of others, I always want to push the boundaries of what people expect and what they might engage with.”
The venue itself is truly Sailors Gravesque too; the 16-tap bar – which features four Lukr side-pour taps from the Czech Republic – is designed to feel like a classic pub as imagined by Gab and husband Chris.
“Like everything Sailors Grave does,” she says, “it’s gone through a filter.”
Gab has also worked closely with their long-term artist collaborator, Joe Lyward, to include design elements that tell the story of Sailors Grave and the corner of the world the Moores and Gab’s family have long called home.
“There’s stuff all over the ceiling,” she says. “Up and down the hallways where it all tells our origin story as well as that of the place we’re in.”
Their new, custom-designed brewhouse is set to make beer for the first time this week too. If you'd like to learn more about their approach to brewing with integrity, take a listen to our conversation with Chris and Gab in the very first episode of The Crafty Pint Podcast.
“I’m just really excited to flex the muscle of what the brew kit can do and what we can do as a brewery,” Gab says. “There is so much exciting about it that we’ve built in: a micro-malting, a coolship and a pasteuriser. There’s so much we’ve had to hold back at our past site and now we can really realise what we want Sailors Grave to be.”
As with their beers, the food at the brewery is centred on East Gippsland’s agricultural story, with a Mexican menu based around corn, which has a long history in the region.
“It’s really about leaning into the agricultural past of the Orbost region,” Gab says. “We've been growing corn here for around 100 years, so we're collaborating with a local business called Snowy River Seeds which my grandfather co-founded in the 60s.
“They’re now world leaders in corn research programs and, because they’re doing corn research, they have a lot of amazing varietals that basically just get fed to cattle.”
As they get ready to open ahead of the coastal region’s busiest couple of months, they hope visitors to the area embrace another side of the coastal community, both in the busy summer period as well as throughout the year.
“We want to capture people coming here for nature while giving them more to do,” Gab says.
For now, it certainly feels like locals are on board, constantly asking the brewers when they can drop in.
“Everyone is always asking how we’re going down here,” she says. “I don’t know how many times I’ve been asked that in the last six months.
“I think everyone is really keen and really rooting for us.”
Sailors Grave Dunetown is set to open on Thursday, December 12. Originally the opening was slated for Wednesday but a power outage has caused a delay.
It's located at 85 Marlo Plains Road, Marlo and you'll find it and hundreds of other breweries and good beer venues on the free Crafty Pint app.
All photos are by Nella Fullard.
To hear more about Gab and Chris' remarkable story, listen to their episode of The Crafty Pint Podcast.
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 in 2018 and in 2024; 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
