Over The Hill

June 21, 2012, by Crafty Pint

Over The Hill

At The Crafty Pint, we’ve been lucky enough to visit most of Australia’s microbreweries. We’ve been to those with their own private beach, those with mountain views and those sharing grounds with wineries. Among our favourites is Red Hill, where the brewery, bar and cafe serving great beers and well-matched beer food are surrounded by trees in the middle of the owners' farm, and where you can park next to towering hop bines at the right time of the year. If you’ve not been, then you should. And if you plan to do so, you’d best get a move on, because after the Secret Stash weekend on July 21 and 22 the Golding family will be closing the bar and cafe to focus on brewing beer.

The decision has been finalised in the past few weeks since they returned from a holiday to Europe but has been under consideration for a couple of years. With their home backing onto the cafe, it has made it practically impossible to separate work and family life. As Karen says: “We can’t have weekends like everyone else does as we’ve always got work there.”

Quite what the next move will be is yet to be decided. Closing the cafe allows for room for more tanks to make use of their new bottling line. Alternatively, they are open to the idea of someone else coming in to run the bar and cafe. In the meantime, Karen says they are still likely to open on special occasions or for functions. They are also looking to provide some sort of alternative Red Hill Brewery outlet for those wanting to sample their beers when on the Peninsula.

“We’ve been talking to a couple of places about putting some of our beers on tap,” says Karen. “There’s one place where we’re talking about putting on four beers and offering sample paddles so people can still sample our beers somewhere nice.”

As for the brewing side, this move should allow them freedom to produce more new beers.

“We’re really happy about it,” says Karen. “It’s a sad decision but we really want a break from it and really want the energy to be excited about pushing forward in a new direction. [With the current situation] we couldn’t really move forward with anything; the cafe is stuck at the size it is, the brewery is stuck at the size it is so we were very limited unless we made some very dramatic changes.”

With this year’s Imperial Stout and the limited release Jubilee IPA out now and this year’s Weizenbock on its way – plus new packaging in the pipeline – there’s plenty of Red Hill around with which to drown your sorrows or celebrate their decision. We’d just like to wish them well and hope to make it back for one last pint from the handpump before they shut up shop.

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