Moo Brew’s Seasonal Stout and, in particular, its strictly limited release Vintage Barrel-Aged sibling are icons of the Australian craft beer scene. So, when the Tasmanian brewery announced that this year’s 2,500 Vintage bottles would be the sixth and final such release, eyebrows were raised at Crafty Towers. The good news is that, rather than doing away with the barrels in which they’ve been ageing their seasonal stout for the past six years, the plan is to expand the barrel program. What’s more, from 2014, the Seasonal Stout will all be barrel-aged, with a proportion of next year’s batch spending time in oak before being blended back into the rest of the batch prior to release.
The decision comes down to a couple of factors, according to head brewer Owen “OJ” Johnston: the desire to experiment a little more and the need to free up one of the John Kelly artworks used on all Moo Brew’s labels in anticipation of adding a sixth permanent beer to their range.
“I’ve got six paintings and have used all six of them now,” says OJ. “The one that we use on the Vintage Stout is only used for 2,500 bottles each year. It’s a bit of a waste, so in light of that and the fact that we want to do some more barrel ageing we decided this would be the last Vintage release.
“I feel like we’ve kind of done the barrel ageing of the stout. I’m not overly sentimental over our beers or recipes, so while it was a relatively important beer in the landscape when it came out, I’m happy to change it. We can fill and empty these barrels pretty quickly, so this way I don’t have to sit on 2,000 litres of stout for 12 months. They could be doing all sorts of other stuff in that time.”
First up for a little bit of barrel action will be a Belgian Tripel, 500 litres of which went into new American oak that “smells absolutely amazing” two months ago and will be blended back into the remainder of the batch for a Spring release.
As for the identity of the beer that will ultimately take ownership of the sixth John Kelly painting, it’s too early to say. With Belgo only being added to the permanent lineup last year, it will be at least a year before another arrives. OJ says his brewers are pushing for an IPA, but he’s yet to be convinced.
“The painting will go back in the shed and gather dust on the wall while we put our minds to an exciting new product,” he says.
As for the wider Moo business, the year that’s seen them get more beer into more venues across Australia, crop up at more events and festivals than before and release the likes of a delicious wet hop Robust Porter and the Schwartzhopf collaboration with Mountain Goat and The Wheaty has been their biggest yet. While the original brewery atop MONA is for sale, there are new tanks on the way for the new one that will add flexibility to the brewing program. Even July, normally a quiet time for brewers as drinkers hibernate, has been the second biggest of the calendar at Moo, according to OJ.
“How does that work?” he laughs. “Maybe it’s because we’ve been working to make our beers more accessible for the past 18 months. I looked at a plan for the year ahead recently: there are 28 events at which we need to have a stall, a stand or other presence…”
Yet, while you can find Moo in more places than ever before these days, Tasmania remains their biggest market; at least for the time being.
“There’s a good scene here in Hobart,” says OJ. “[There’s] that extended period of time where a new brewery starts up and quality goes up and down for a while as they sort out production issues and the quality of their beers. Now a number of Tasmanian breweries have come through that and are coming into the purple patch where they will stabilise the quality [of their beers] and start trying some different things.”
Certainly, a quick glance around the isle backs up the last part of this theory, with Van Dieman recently launching its “Mash Up” series of partnerships with local primary producers, IronHouse releasing more experimental beers than ever before and, just last week, Seven Sheds adding another first to their impressive list of out there projects with the release of a Porter that recreated the journey of the original beers that travelled in hogsheads by sea from the UK to Australia.
With the local bar scene thriving too, as highlighted in our article from last week, it’s a great time to be a beer lover in Tasmania.
