It’s wasn’t that long ago that your best – and pretty much only – hope for a decent selection of craft beer in Hobart was the New Sydney. Today, the beer scene is booming, with the likes of Preachers* and Jack Greene bringing better beer to Salamanca Place and, most recently, The Winston and the just reopened and restyled Tattersalls Beer and Food Hall giving beer lovers a bigger choice than ever before.
The Winston is the latest venture from Kris Miles, a food and booze connoisseur we first knew of at Brisbane’s now defunct Nectar bottleshop, then as the guy creating crazy beer cocktails at Melbourne’s Beer DeLuxe before he headed to Tasmania. Initially invited down to open the MONA Bar, he went on to help open Jack Greene before taking on a pretty rundown pub near his house in North Hobart with wife Caroline. In just a few short months, The Winston has returned to being a thriving local mixing quality beer, US-inspired food, pinball, pool, live music and, soon, the return of Kris' beer cocktails and a new 12-tap beer system.
“It’s been flat out,” says Kris, who likens the Art Deco pub to the Great Northern in Melbourne: a local that’s gone craftier. “We built on what was there and are now doing 60 to 100 dinners every night of the week, which is definitely better than we anticipated for winter as people tend to hibernate. There’s a lot of beer heads in North Hobart that wouldn’t have gone here before.
“We’ve got mostly craft beer on tap and a bottle list that’s evolving due to seasonal availability of beers. We just had our first Long Lunch featuring beer and food matching – ending with a vertical tasting of Moo Brew’s Seasonal Stout from 2010, 2011 and 2012 with cheese and chocolate.
“[The scene is] pretty good. We’ve had $15 pints on [when rare, expensive kegs have landed] and no one seems too bothered; IPAs and stouts are our two biggest selling styles.
“For a place of just 200,000 people, Hobart has a pretty solid selection of beer bars. It’s definitely evolved in the three years that I’ve been here.”
A few kilometres away in the centre of Hobart is Tattersalls Beer and Food Hall. It’s been opened by Andrew Tynan, who Melbourne beer drinkers may know from first Grumpy’s Green and more recently The Alehouse Project. It had always been his intention to return to his hometown to bring back what he’d learned in hospo around the world, although the speed with which he made the decision to take over the large former Curly’s nightclub building surprised everyone, even himself.
“I’m from Hobart and have been looking down here for a while. This place came up – it’s a huge venue with a huge beer garden – and there was the ability to put in 13 taps. The place was up for freehold so we just came down on a whim and decided to lease it,” he says.
“It happened so quickly. I said I was thinking of going part time [at the Alehouse] and literally a week later I’d signed a piece of paper…”
Drinkers on the opening night of Tattersalls Beer Hall
Thus the former nightclub began its transformation into two new venues. The upstairs is still a nightclub, called Wunderland (but still with Hop Hog on tap), while the former nightclub downstairs has been dismantled and rebuilt over ten weeks as a Beer and Food Hall borrowing various elements of Andrew’s previous beer ventures: lots of recycled timber, big wooden tables and expanses of chalkboard showing off the latest beers pouring through the new beer system.
Already in the two weeks since opening, those beers have included Feral’s Boris Imperial Stout and offerings from 8 Wired and Tuatara, “stuff that Tasmanians don’t know,” says Andrew.
Completing the picture at Tattersalls is a focus on Tasmanian produce and wine plus live music on weekends. Further ahead, there are plans for tap takeovers and beer events. All being well, it will, like The Winston add to the city’s thriving craft beer culture.
“The scene down here is exploding,” he says. “MONA changed everything; it made the tourism industry boom. It’s helped get rid of the old culture of crap beer swilling and parma eating. There’s wine bars and whisky bars and places specialising in good produce – it’s what I’d always wanted to happen here.”
Little wonder he’s heading home.
The Winston (pictured above in a photo by Osborne Images) is at 381 Elizabeth Street, Hobart, and will be holding Long Lunches on the last Sunday of every month.
Tattersalls Beer and Food Hall is NOW CLOSED.
*The original article called it The Preachers Arms; it is in fact Preachers.
