Matt started out with a passion for beer, and for many years was a member of the Eastern Suburbs Homebrewing Club. Matt was able to translate that passion into a successful business by offering services to other breweries, including consulting, relief brewing, installations and product development. All of this effort provided a network of mates and acquaintances to bring about his ultimate goal of providing the local area with great Artisan Beer through a wholesale only microbrewery. By being wholesale only, Matt has given up the face to face selling and branding of his product and relied on good old customer service and the beers themselves to do the selling. "If they run out of beer in the afternoon they get a full one the next day, not next week "
With his engineering background Matt has been able to assemble a brewery unlike any we have seen before, yes there are the standard conical fermenters but then there is also the re purposed syrup and dairy tanks which are now the hot liquor tank and Ale fermenters, the home made keg cleaner and the brilliant 4 head bottle filler ( really need quick hands for this one ). This brewery looks and feels organic with pieces being found, scrounged, traded for or made, to the point that Matt never knows what he may run across on his travels that will then find its way into service.
Matt has a firm belief in keeping things local and being as enviro-freindly as possible. To this end, distribution is kept local ( you wont find his beers outside of inner west Sydney ). All spent grain is combined with another local breweries and goes to stock feed. These combine to keep what is known as the "beer miles" to as low a level as possible. Hating cardboard boxes with a passion Matt vowed never to use them and instead uses a system of returnable crates when distributing his bottled beer.
Keeping busy is not a problem Matt and Gerard face, generally making 6 - 8 batches a week not only of their own beer but also contract brewing, making for a pretty steady turnover and lots of manual labour. The boys are currently developing a new beer for the Great Australian Beer Spectacular being held in Melbourne on May 11th - 13th, called Christmas Tree. In the ultimate act of recycling Matt is using last years christmas tree to create a Pine infused Ale, something definately worth trying if you are in melbourne or a week later at the Local Taphouse in Sydney
Visit Matt and Gerrard at http://www.stpetersbrewerysydney.com.au/
or http://pinchgutbrewing.com.au/
Our thanks to Matt and Gerard for taking the time to meet with us and run us through St Peters Brewing
No comments:
Post a Comment