What kind of craft beer were you buying from a bottleshop in 2011?
Unless you were close enough to shop at one of the country's few specialist retailers, then maybe some James Squire or Little Creatures. Depending where you lived, you might have managed to track down some Mountain Goat, Burleigh, Feral or Holgate.
There's a good chance much of the packaged craft on offer came from overseas, maybe a few (possibly questionably imported) American hop bombs or German and Belgian classics, which the brewers certainly wouldn't have called "craft".
Maybe "craft beer" wasn't even a term you'd heard before, but as you picked up a bottle of Weihenstephaner Hefe, you knew you liked your beer to taste quite distinct from the lagers most bottleshops carried.
If you called into Purple Palate on the Sunshine Coast, however, you didn't just have your pick of international beers and a far smaller number of local beers than you'd find just about anywhere today. You'd also have the chance to learn about them at the monthly Maleny Brew Crew.
Andrew Jones has run the bottleshop since 2009 and says the club's origin dates back to an article Sunshine Coast local Graham Reeks wrote for Brews News. At the time, Purple Palate was already running a popular wine appreciation night, and Graham suggested Andrew take the same approach for beer since he had been expanding the lineup in his store.
“We were trying to be different,” Andrew says. “We didn’t want to be Dan Murphy’s; we weren’t trying to sell beer just on price point.”
In order to educate customers, they felt they had to introduce drinkers to the beers they were bringing in, many of which were imported from overseas.
"Those beers were probably seven or eight bucks a stubby, which was insane at that time," Andrew says. "Now it's commonplace, but it was about helping people establish that they wanted to try new beers and beer from new breweries."

Over the 14 years since that first event, precious little has changed about the Maleny Brew Crew nights: they still take place one Saturday a month at Finbar's, a bar beside Purple Palate that has long been another important crafty haunt in the Sunshine Coast's hinterland.
As for Purple Palate, the bottleshop's changes have been driven by expansion. Around seven years ago, Andrew boosted their beer fridges from two to nine, and while they continue to bring in classics from overseas and craft beer from across the country, Purple Palate naturally has far more local beers to pick from.
When the store opened in 2004, there was little in the way of local beer, aside from the likes of Sunshine Coast Brewery which launched in 1998. Today, the region has dubbed itself "Australia's Craft Beer Capital" due to the sheer number of breweries in the area, with well over 20 spread from the top of the coast to the bottom.
"The opening of brewpubs really drove home that people aren’t just a brewery, they’re a part of the community,” Andrew says, adding that while the number of breweries has grown, it remains an interwoven local industry; beer drinkers often know if a brewer has switched breweries and can be eager to switch their allegiance.
“It’s a small and tight-knit scene here," Andrew says. "Sometimes you follow the brewer more than the brewery.”
As they get ready to start the fifteenth year of the Maleny Brew Crew, we asked Andrew to join us to tell us more about the long-running beer appreciation night and the story of the Purple Palate.

What's your focus at Purple Palate?
Purple Palate is a hidden gem in Maleny, carrying more than 700 different wines, 300 different dpirits and 300 different beers including a lot of local craft, imported and limited.
We have been running since 2004, and since Andrew Jones came on in 2009, the shop has expanded and grown. With monthly events including wine appreciation nights, Meet The Maker evenings, online tastings, spirit classes and, of course, Maleny Brew Crew.
With Andrew’s wine and spirit knowledge, he holds a Diploma of Wine and Spirits Education Trust (WSET), and the constant staff training, Purple Palate is there for customer education and service.
What about your Brew Club – why'd you decide to launch it?
In 2010, Andrew was approached by Graham Reeks who was freelancing for Brew News and writing about craft and imported beers on the Sunshine Coast.
Purple Palate had an impressive array of German and British beers and Graham did an article and afterwards suggested a beer-tasting event that he would host and Andrew agreed. Thus, the first-ever Maleny Brew Crew began in January 2011.
Andrew was keen to get his customers to try beers and styles they hadn’t had before like he did with wine to help with driving sales, rotating ranges, keeping up with trends, and finding out what the customers wanted.

Has it changed much over the years or have you kept a similar format?
The original format was 19 big German, English, New Zealand and Aussie beers served in 200ml pours. Though it was fun, it was decided that eight beers served in 125ml pours was a better number.
We soon made them a regular monthly event and added trivia. Over time, the brew crew has gone on the road to different breweries, other restaurants and beer expos. The mainstay is still beer, woodfired pizza and Graham-inspired trivia at Finbar's Lounge Bar in Maleny.
Every Brew Crew we do a Rapid Review of each beer; we try and give our opinions, which can be both good and bad.
Do you remember what some of the early beers featured in Brew Club were?
Originally the Brew Crew was heavily Weihenstephaner with the whole range including Vitus and Korbinian, Schlenkerla Urbock and Eisebock, and Erdinger range. There was also Landlord, Young’s, Little Creatures and all the Matilda Bay beers, plus Mac’s and Moa from New Zealand.

What about attendees: have some of them been a part of it the whole way?
With Graham and Andrew at just about every Brew Crew, and a cadre of 25 to 35 people, over the last 14 years a particular group have been regulars. That includes Scoey, Dave Sanderson, Davy Stabler and Princess, with later arrivals like Dave Coffey's boys and Steve Ellett's crew coming onboard. Phil and Chris, who were originals, travelled for many years but have returned to the fold.
There have been other groups of regulars who come along every month for a year or two, then disappear again. Several have become professional brewers; one used it as a launchpad to start his own brewery in Brouhaha, another opened Mort’s in Nambour, and another went on to build his collection of brewery t-shirts as head brewer from Blackflag, Copperhead, Brouhaha and Coral Sea.
Has your focus as a bottleshop changed much over the years?
Starting with only two doors in 2009 and now expanding to ten fridge doors, we now carry a vast array of beers, cider and now ginger beers. We have doors dedicated to Sunshine Coast breweries, imported German, Belgian and other European, with a heavy focus on Australian craft including Brouhaha, Mountain Culture, Black Hops, BentSpoke, Hope Estate and many, many more.

Is there anything you’ve learned along the way you wish you’d known earlier?
Understanding social media engagement is hard but once you have put into place certain tasks it becomes easier.
What beers are proving popular with customers at the moment?
A lot of craft drinkers are like ADHD kids, always looking for the next thing and usually just getting one or two. But the biggest trend at the moment is flavourful but not overly fruity pale ales. My personal habits are still driven to double and triple IPAs and Russian imperial stouts.

What styles and trends do you see taking off? Or, for that matter, fading away?
I think the huge quadruple and massive over-hopped NEIPAs are a once-a-week thing where they used to be an every-weekend staple. Now it’s gone back to cleaner, lighter styles, but we still have a strong cadre of Coopers drinkers up here.
What beers are the Purple Palate team enjoying at the moment?
In the team, Chaddy’s into his Heads of Noosa Amber and Coopers Extra Stout, Dan is into his BentSpoke Barley Griffin Pale and I’m still consuming Black Hops Superhornet and imperial stouts. Graham, meanwhile, is into red IPAs and anything with good bitterness and strong flavour.
The 14th birthday edition of Maleny Brew Crew is taking place on January 25 at Finbar's.