You could never accuse the team at the Australian Brewery of lacking courage. For a start, they opened their brewery in the deeply un-crafty suburb of Rouse Hill in Sydney’s northwest. Then, while everyone else was sticking with bottles, kegs and growlers, they decided to become the first Australian craft brewer to install a canning line. What’s more, they called themselves the Australian Brewery, a move with more than a little chutzpah behind it.
Three years on from its launch, it would seem such courage is paying off. Head brewer Neal Cameron’s beers have collected numerous medals, they’re expanding distribution across Australia, and other small breweries are beginning to dabble in the world of cans. And now they’re about to start exporting to India.
It follows a visit to the subcontinent last month that we wrote about in our newsletter a few weeks back. Organised by Austrade, it saw a handful of Aussies,including Coopers and Nail Brewing, send beer to an event in Delhi. At the last minute, the Australian Brewery decided to send a human too, with their Beer Ambassador David Ward accompanying a few cases of their Pale and Pilsner to see how they would be received by a country in which the growing upper middle class is becoming increasingly interested in craft beer.
“We thought if we were going to do it, we might as well do it properly,” says David. “The event at the Australian consulate was very positive. Everyone liked all of our beers, and all the other beers in fact, except the Nail Stout, which was a bit too much [for their palates].
“We were a little bit worried about our Pale Ale as we were told not to send anything fruity and that beer has Galaxy hops in it. But we just backed ourselves and our beers and our Pale was unanimously the most popular beer on the night. Now we have a couple of distributors who are pushing to get it over and who are keen to take the Pilsener too.”
For the event, Austrade invited members of the Indian media, distributors, importers and a lot of people with outlets around Delhi.
“There’s a real craving in the upper middle class for beer,” says David. “There’s not a fantastic range there. Kingfisher is everywhere and in response to Indians wanting better beer Kingfisher has released a premium beer – but it’s still Kingfisher.
“I spoke for a while on the state of the craft beer industry in general, which everyone was really excited about because it’s something new. The idea of drinking a nice beer is a bit different and already there’s a lot of European beers there, such as hefeweizens, yet most bottle shops still only have about eight beers.”
He admits that the choice of name for the brewery was chosen with a future export strategy in mind – and that they were already looking at other export markets when this opportunity came up. To date, there has been little other than Foster’s, XXXX, Cooper’s and Boags flying the flag for Australia overseas. But more recently, Mountain Goat has been sending small shipments to the US, a handful of micros have entered the voracious Swedish market and just last month Stone & Wood landed a few pallets of Pacific Ale in the UK.
With India now lined up – at least for a trial run – it’s something that the Australian Brewery plans to explore further, with another overseas trip seemingly on the horizon for their Beer Ambassador.
“We would love to be the Australian beer known overseas,” he says. “The importers in India are really positive and love the fact it’s in cans. There are quite a few microbreweries starting up over there and they are keen on Galaxy hops too.
“They love Australia and they love beer.”
And that’s a position The Crafty Pint can heartily endorse!
The Australian Brewery has just released a new seasonal, The Extra Hoppy Ale.
