Paul Bowker - Brick Lane Brewing Company

It was always part of the plan to put a brew in, but for many years it it was just a plan. It's a hundred percent acquisition of Green Beacon. No, we had a chat with everybody. Anyone would have seen this coming a mile away. Super simple and direct question. And that's just what we're here to do, talk about beer in the brewing industry and have a conversation with the people who make the industry what it is.

and see what we can learn from them. And this week there's a lot to learn as I speak again with Paul Balker, Managing Director of Bricklane Brewing Company. The small brewing movement was built on a lot of romantic ideas about brewing that were born from a reaction to a brewing diopoly that didn't offer the consumer a lot of choice.

The Kraft narrative was small, traditional and independent. It initially eschewed a lot of the brewing techniques and business strategies that were seen as not being craft. And in doing so, it spawned a million conversations about what that term craft meant, who was craft and how it happened.

In that world, a brewery such as Brick Lane, well resourced from the outset with the help of business people and celebrities and openly adopting the modern brewing techniques that its resources provided it with, was viewed by a craft industry with some cynicism. And yet, in twenty twenty three, the brewery has won a swag of major awards for beer quality in the craft space.

And in a world where so much news is on craft businesses struggling, Bricklane appears to be going from strength to strength. These are the observations and nuances and logical inconsistencies about the brewing industry that continue to fascinate me. And I always enjoy discussing Brickland's role in the brewing industry with Paul Balker as a result. And I hope you enjoy it also.

Paul Balker, welcome back to Beer as a Conversation. Good to be here, Matt. Mate, it's it's it's been a it has been a while. Um I was just thinking I'd I'd actually forgotten that we did catch up deep in the dark days of

COVID, fifteenth june twenty twenty one was when we last spoke, and I'm just gonna read you the show notes for that. Um We last spoke with Paul together with his head brewer John Selton back in november twel twenty eighteen, um not long after the Celebrity Back Brewery launched, uh over the past three years has grown drastically, both with partner brands that it brews under contract and its own brick lane brands.

Recently the business announced a fifty million dollar expansion, putting it in the same realm as Stone and Wood and Mighty Craft. How things have changed. That uh every week's a new week, particularly at the moment. How how do you feel being c um mentioned now in the same uh sentences as uh Stonewood and Mighty Craft. I I I guess one of those you wouldn't mind uh but th the other one you probably wouldn't

Seek too many comparisons. Yeah, well obviously I've we've never compared ourselves to Mighty Craft Matt, so it was it was interesting that you chose to. Um but you know, obviously the beer in industry has changed. significantly over the last couple of years. I'm just gonna I I am just gonna say at that stage I think they're um

uh stock market valuation was probably more than the thirty seven cents it is now. And that's not per share, that's total. That's one cent. Yeah per share I think. Um but so yeah I I I wasn't comparing the businesses or anything like that. I think I was just

the scale of the business. Yeah, and that that's probably fair enough. And um, you know, you also need to look at it. I mean, everyone has their own strategy and at the time Mighty Craft had a strategy. And if you step back and look at it at a high level uh bringing together a group of breweries, um, making things more efficient, getting them into distribution that made sense, whether local, state, or national. The overarching strategy was probably right. Uh the execution obviously.

uh didn't back up that strategy and um arguably they didn't move with the market. Um but the first one, the stone and wood one, um th they're awesome. So um thank you for comparing us to them. Thank you for engaging in in in in that. Um I I don't expect you to do a dissection of uh Mighty Craft.

Um, although uh I I do appreciate that insight. Um but how how things have been going? I mean certainly d uh I um They went on to say for all of its growth and undeniable beer quality and we'll pick up the undeniable beer quality, uh Bricklane's corporate feel has always left something engaged beer consumers feeling a little unengaged in the brand. Um and we talked a little bit about the um brand growth and we we might even come to that now, but It's been a huge year for Brick Lane in terms of

the awards you've had at the significant uh and relevant quality awards uh this year. Yeah, it has been. It's um been great to get that recognition this year.

Uh it's not anything different to what we've done since we started. So I guess I've I haven't listened to our podcast from twenty and eighteen and I don't really want to either, but uh but we had a very deliberate strategy back then that involved really three things and One was to build a um a brand that was all about quality and consistency and a national brand.

Another one was to build a strong partner brewing business to ensure that the capital that we were deploying was fully utilized. And the third limb, which, you know, we might touch on later, was really to build a brand home and a hospitality um limb. So in terms of our own brand, quality's always been at the forefront and I guess if you have a look at the equipment that we put into the brewery, at the time there were things in there that were, you know, controversial and

uh even things like a tunnel pasteuriser, you know, was a pretty dirty word in two thousand and eighteen. But what the way we looked at it was it's about quality and if you're sending your beers nationally, you want quality and we've stuck to that year after year and yeah, finally this year we got Uh well we've always won lots of medals and awards, but this year twin champion uh large brewery was was huge for us.

Amazing to think that, you know, as recently as twenty eighteen pasteurization was w when you look at how drastically the the the market has evolved since that even as recently as five years ago

pasteurising was seen as, you know, non craft or a mark of shame and it would actually fire people up. Yeah, and I and that's that's right. And again if you look at All the the way we deployed and rolled out the brewery, uh, we obviously over invested up front, which was a clear part of the strategy to get scale and efficiencies.

But e even the tunnel pasteuriser and, you know, funnily enough, even things like we'd use robot palletising, you know, there was a lot of comments at the time you're you're taking jobs away from the industry. Really? Um there there was and you know, our our view is you know

All the people that we employ are using using their Smarts. Um they're they're training, they're getting an education. We don't need all those manual lifting jobs in the brewery. So we're we're unfairly lean in terms of staff, but the staff that we do have, they're actually really genuinely growing. They're not doing repetitive tasks and all this capital allowed us to do that. So for us that was a huge upside in two thousand

an eighteen, but it was a slightly different model to where everyone else was at at the time. That's fascinating I d I didn't realise that people had actually uh said that because to me it just seems like a no brainer and it it reminds me of d I'm gonna completely go down a rabbit hole here, but I remember reading a book about you know, Scott of the Antarctic and uh Rold Amundsen um and their famous race to the South Pole. And

you know, in our um English centered culture we celebrate the heroic failure of Robert Falcon Scott. Um, you know, and and all of the things that he endured and the ordeals and Amundsen was always

unfairly tainted because he used dogs. You know, he did it the easy way. Um and His achievement was somehow mired or less because he was actually smart and he planned his trip around survival and achievement as opposed to actually failing, whereas we celebrate heroic failure and I've actually but you know, hearing you say that crystallizes what I've seen about the craft brewing industry. uh a little bit where we've celebrated inefficiency as somehow being

A positive is coming back to bite a lot of businesses now. A little bit, but it probably all goes back to the strategy of what you're trying to build with your business and

There's still a there's still a place for manual, very hands-on brewing. Um and if your aim is to make different interesting beers constantly and serve'em over your bar, then that's awesome. You don't need high levels of automatic. Yeah. But it's a strategy question. So that may be your ultimate outcome is to make

awesome range of incredibly different beers and open up people's eyes and do it on a scale where you can serve them yourself over the bar. And that that's a fantastic strategy. That wasn't our strategy. Our strategy was to build a brand of national scale and really to give the Australian market a choice outside of just C U B and Lion or Sahih and Kieran, however you refer to it.

um but a genuine long term sustainable business. And to do that you need economies, you need efficiencies and you need a very tight strategy with capital backing.

The second of the three um prongs of arms of your strategy um that you mentioned was the partner brewing, um which, you know, I I could get myself into trouble here, but I'd I'd argue that Brick Lane are probably the leading partner brewing business in in the country, both for quality and, you know, the ability to pick and choose who who you work with. And

Um you've been incredibly successful at the brands that you've worked with and and and the way that you've done that. That was hearing you say that, that it was a way of you know ensuring that we were using our capital, I think it was your own uh Was the profile and the success of the partner brewing um part of the business? overshadow perhaps the Bricklane brand itself a a little bit in those early years.

Yeah, I'd I'd say that's probably right and it and it's a natural thing too. So when we launched it was a it was a new brand, completely new brand and as you know, brands take a long time to build up and to get like genuine brand equity in it. Um at the start when we first kicked off, uh we kicked off with our own brand and also probably four or five

partner brewing customers. So the majority of our business, and and it still is by volume, the majority of our business is partner brewing. And what we aimed to do when we set that up was to treat every single brand um as strong And as well as we tr as we treated our own brand. And what that meant is we didn't shy away from who we make beer for. Um and, you know, it's very well known we make beer for Coles and we make beer for Endeavour Group.

We make lots of the no alc, we make trade that's just launched. Um, our strategy is always if we make the beer we stand behind it and we don't hide from the fact that it's been made at brick lane. So rather than putting those in a black box and just talking about our brand, people knew us both for this new brand and what is it,'cause it's brand new, but also for the for the larger customers that we brewed for. And it was deliberate and to this day

Um as as you would know, mate, you can walk around our brewery, you can see the brands we make for. They're not behind a curtain and our brewers are proud of every single beer that comes off the line. And and and so yeah, it certainly wasn't um an observation about who you were brewing for or anything like that, but

You were a highly visible, very successful, you know, very successful in in terms of the the the people you're working for. You were the um partner of choice um for for a lot of them. And a lot of those brands were actually successful brands as well. Which I I you know, again draws a focus to that element of the business um in in the broader marketplace. Everyone knew Bricklane, you know uh there there were two major contract brewers. You've got Tribe, um, and Tribe never actually operated under

its own brands, like it had stockade or it had um you know, brands that it made, but the tribe was the the brewing business. Um whereas Bricklane is both the partner brewer and the brand. Did you know d does that B was the success of Bricklane as a partner brewery, um, to some extent at the early success of Bricklane as a proprietary brand?

Uh it it's a difficult question to answer, I guess, is'cause it's hard to know. Um If you go into the customer and consumer mind, um, particularly in the early years, if they're associating BrickLane with the Bricklane brand or the work they're doing for others. Um, I think what's happened over time and the strategy and again why we've always been completely transparent about it, is that first and foremost Bricklane produces fantastic quality beer on a consistent scale.

And whether that's our own brand or the beers that we make for others, that's our philosophy. So what we would hope is when people see a bricklane branded product, they go, that's a fantastic quality beer. Or if they see you know Tinnies or Heaps Normal or Trady, whatever it is, and if anyone knows that that's a Bricklane beer, they go, Well, that's going to be an awesome quality beer. And that's that's been our goal. And if you know if that has caused some

like different views in the market, whether, you know, we're a a brand or a partner brewer, then I guess so be it. Um but ultimately over time I think what's transpired is people recognize

that we produce great beer and it almost doesn't matter what labels on it, the beer speaks for itself. Again, um just my own opinion. I th I think that's undeniable and you know the the the quality um equivalence between the the partner brands and your own brands is uh undeniable and that's why I started off talking about the the the wins. But

You know, th there is it it it's funny. You walk into Aldi and I'm not sure if you make any beers for Aldi, but uh Yeah we do. Oh y oh yeah okay, so but a number of um uh I I didn't know that. Um but a number of y y you see Audi brands and people said, Oh, I wonder who makes it for them when it comes out because Audi has a strategy about the the the way that they do it and

knowing that LD is always quality focused, but then it's also price conscious. Um it does leave at least for me, um wondering well I'm never gonna pay more if if I can get the same beer from the same brewery at Aldi, why would I go go to uh you know a craft bottle shop or a another venue and pay the premium that I actually think the quality deserves? Um and do you then frame the value for the proprietary, your own proprietary brands based on the

the the the price that your partners charge for it? Uh i in a sense, I mean I guess part of the reason we've probably been successful in the partner brewing space is that we add value in multiple different levels. So we can work with a partner from an in innovation perspective, um, through to even branding, um, liquid, obviously packaging.

We manage warehousing logistics, the entire chain. So if a if a partner comes to us um from scratch, maybe from outside the industry and wants the whole package, we can do that. And what we'll do is we'll actually design a beard that's fit for purpose for their customer and their consumer. Um, and that may mean that it needs to hit a certain price point, and we'll design a beer that is sustainable at that price point. So every every beer we've made.

did the numbers the other day, something like four or five hundred different beers through the brewery. Every every recipe's different and it's all designed for a specific purpose. So it's not a common Liquid that just goes under a different brand. There's a lot more to it. But unf yeah and and I uh I um I take all of that as one hundred percent uh true. The funny thing in uh about brand though is brand is an emotion is an irrational emotional appeal um of

the words or the design that's not actually the the the the liquid and I could point to some of the best liquid in the market that probably doesn't get the price that it deserves. Um for for for whatever reason. And uh you know, I'm I'm minded to walking the the aisles of supermarkets in the late seventies showing my age. Um, you know, going for the branded tinned peaches, um, and my mother sort of slapping my hand and sort of getting the black and gold and just winking, sort of saying,

it comes from the same factory. Um and so buying the cheaper one that you know, it may or may not have been true. You y you know that the black and gold came from a high quality factory.

But it may not have been the the the brandy one that I was reaching for or whatever, but it was seventy five cents a can cheaper. Um and you do get that feeling of, well I'm not gonna pay more for the same thing, regardless of the actual quality, but which is very hard thing to say in the marketplace that, you know, well out W five hundred beers are all different, they're all made slightly differently because beer is just seen as a thing and then it's the brand that commands the value.

It comes down to really what what the consumer's buying. Um and they're buying what's in the can, clearly. Um but that's only one part of it. Um they're buying a lot more than that. So if I take take the Breclaim brand, um, they're buying a great quality beer that they can trust that's reliable, that's consistent and you know, is always going to be fresh or relatively fresh because of our process controls. Um but they're also buying a sustainability message, you know, where

We're a B Corp company, we've invested heavily in that. We've invested heavily in innovation. You know, our brewery runs a hundred percent during a summer day on solar, so they're buying a sustainability overlay. Um they're buying great design. Uh and now they're also buying an interactive experience where they can come in and See our staff, have a beer served by the staff, educated about our staff.

And I hear what you're saying and those are all things that Bricklane has done very successfully. But do you think that consumers are conscious of all of those add ons that they're getting when they walk into a bottle shop and grab a you know, six pack. Um Uh four pack, six four four pack. Um Uh mainly seeks. Consumers value as well, Matt.

Um, but are they are they aware of the solar story and the B Corp story um when they buy it or are they buying it because they just know, well, hey, these guys just make really good beer and look at the price? I I think it's a combination all all of them and

Um, it takes time to get to that point. Like to build a brand that people immediately resonate with and all those things come through, even if you don't directly say it takes time. And you mentioned stone and wood at the front. I mean, people are still paying. seventy dollars plus for a case of Pacific ale. And we'll see how much longer that goes. But we'll but I mean they've they've built this incredibly strong brand that even today is incredibly strong and

people aren't just buying the liquid, they're buying the feel that they get from being part of that community, from the greenness. Again, I a hundred percent agree with you on that. But that's probably where I'm coming from for for for the story is that um you know Bricklane was best known at the start, not for its own brands, but for its successes, a partner brewery. Stone and Wood, um, you know, Jamie Cook was a next level mythmaker, um, you know, storyteller that

Yeah, that story changed, um and you know, we all got gaslit by a a number of things. Um, but we all believed Oh yeah, yeah, they never said that they were a craft brewery, did they? Mm, yeah. Maybe but anyway. But each of those stories that they told along the way, um, were very, very powerful and locked in that brand value that we still see, right down to

up up until five minutes before the sale. Oh, we would never contract brew because we want to control our quality and and and they were all of the stories that they told us. Some some were true, some were just great stories, but that's what locked in the brand. And so that's why I think it's interesting you brought that up because I think

Bricklane hasn't had that myth making y you've got very powerful stories to tell. But deliberately. So our our strategy around building our brand was We're we're here for the long term. Like we're not here to build a brand and move it on. Not even for a half a billion dollars. Well, you know I think those da we all know those days are gone. One thing we've learned from so would never say never pull back.

Um but no that but our actual strategy was to build a long term sustainable business. Like we had a ten year time horizon and our strategy around our brand was not to create a myth, it was to back it up with hard evidence and and that was to produce a brand that was always bang on quality, gave value to the consumer, um, and was also inclusive, so working across a number of different styles at price points

that allowed everyone to come into the occasion. So we've got, you know, draft for fifty bucks a case, we've got um a no carb for fifty five, we've got a pay all for sixty-five. Anyone can come into Bricklane and get a high quality product. anywhere nationally at a really good price and our viewers if we just have a product that you can get seventy five dollars a carton for um like like Pacific Ale? Yeah well not not in mainstream national distribution so our our one love pale ale which is

line ball our biggest seller now. Um something's nipping at its heels um or just taking over it. But that that's sort of your sixty five to seventy dollar a case of really nice soft Pale ale, Australian style pale ale and that's that was our first beer and still Just our biggest seller. Hi Fi is coming high. Okay. One live is still super strong in keg, but Hi Fi impact volume.

um is on a very rapid rise. Are you still making red? The The Red Hoppy. Yeah, absolutely. Again, c i it it's one of the beers that I Absolutely remember trying for the first time, you know, uh getting sent two, three hundred new beers a year. There are very few that I actually remember. It was one and I had it on tap. four years ago, five years ago, and uh still distinctly remember not just the flavour. Um

D the beers like that'cause I mean that that was a beer that was right in the craft space. Beautiful beer. Red ailes are never gonna have a huge market in i in Australia, but i i is that a beer that You can command a good price on. We do, but it's not about um

uh it's not about making like dollar margin on those type of beers. The reason we do things like Red Hobby, well first of all, like the Brills love it. I love it. Uh so we're gonna continue to make it. But it's really if you go back to what we're about, we're about quality, inclusivity and giving people at different entry points into the brick range of Bricklane beers and that that red ale, um, for a lot of people that

funnily enough, even though it is you can call it craft, but it's a very easy transition for a lot of people to try a more full flavoured beer just because of the yeah like the peachy tropical ripeness of it and the smooth palette, a little bit of bitterness. It goes really well for people who may not have experienced those sort of beers before. So it's there for a purpose. Um it's not to make money out of it. It's never going to go scale. Like we know that and um our

core strategies having a core range of beers that are at national scale. And that's how we make a sustainable business.

You started to talk a little bit about the um the the new venue. Well'cause you you've got an open venue, um, that's in the Queen Victoria Markets uh that's just called Bricklane. The brickline shed? The the brickline shed. Um and you're about to open a new uh venue. Talk talk us through the the the the venues and we'll sort of talk a little bit about the strategy behind them. Yeah, absolutely. So well speaking of the red ale, um it was the first first beer actually to come out of the brewery.

And I remember when we opened it like literally just came out on the afternoon. But uh the next day the kegs went into the Quenvic Market, which we'd just won the contract um to provide all the beer for the night market as exclusive beer. So from the very start of Brick Lane, we've always been selling beer at the market. It's always been our biggest home base in terms of volume and our I guess our our marketing strategy has been built around that city environment.

We opened a little bar there, an eighty person bar under the markets about three years ago, just before COVID, and then About 18 months ago, an opportunity came up to tender for the old Mercat Cross Hotel, and we're fortunate that we won that tender. Um, so we've now got A home basically. Yeah, a lot of a lot of breweries went for that. Um And ultimately, you know, everyone has a different proposition. Our proposition was, you know, we can't afford to

pay you enough a fortune to take this venue on. But what we will do is the same thing we did at the night market, which is we will be there every week. We will support it with our actual staff, not contract staff. This is the beating heart of the brand. We've made collaboration beers with the markets for the last five years. It's our it really is the soul of our brand. And that was what the markets were after. So it's a 350 person venue. We've built it from a concrete shell.

uh from plumbing, wiring, bathrooms, the whole thing. And it opens uh on Wednesday next week. Wednesday next week. I'm looking forward to getting down. So what is the a again and and and this is why it it fascinates me as one, you know, I I

I haven't seen your financials or anything like that, but just sort of the all of the information that I pick up is that it's one of the more successful breweries, um, that's that's operating in the country at the moment. And that's where questions of brand and strategy and you know all all of the things we've already touched on Where does a venue play for a a a brand like Bricklane? Um in in the marketplace.

It ad adds a lot, but more in the sense that it adds a lot to our our customer and consumer because we can actually genuinely interact and bring them into the Bricklane brand and everything we've got to offer. So w when you come into the venue, we've got 36 taps. Um we'll have a wide vr wide variety of beers. All your own taps? Uh all our own taps, but that's not to say we won't do um special occasions and whether they're

you know, lager days or whatever it might be. We'll we'll do those. There'll be um replication. Replication, yeah, okay. At at any point in time we've probably got about sixteen different beers more'cause we're pumping things out of the pilot brewery every week. Uh but for us this was really about um giving people a proper brick lane experience. And also our our home is around the Queen Victoria Market and what we also want to showcase is how beer can be

An important part of produce, um, of how you prepare produce, um, occasions. So when you come into the bar, we've got We've got a couple of uh different bars in there. We've got a raw bar, so we'll get the You know, the the oyster oyster seller from the market's over, freshly shucked oysters and we'll match them with beers. Um most of the food is coming from the market. Um so the chefs are going over every day, bringing it back from the market.

We've got a a private dining room which we we use for education and training in beer. So all these different things are really about promoting beer and showing how beer can be part of any occasion, goes well with food, and also giving people an actual brick lane experience because we haven't had at MassCale that opportunity to interact.

Is it styled different vices differently to the shed to to the bar that has been open for a couple of years? Uh they're all they all have a common theme. Um and one of the key things and you'll see it in the design of all of them, it's all about um inclusivity and

community in the sense that it's not us and them. It's um the downstairs bar for instance. It's got a central bar that customers can walk around, consumers can walk around, everything's there, it's exposed, it's almost like it feels like your place. Which is a little bit confusing. But it it is actually a little bit I I I can when you explain it like that. I see exactly the the logic behind that. Um, but when you walk in without having the managing director explain it to you.

it was really confusing. You know, do I go to the fr'cause th for for those who haven't been there, there's what, five fridge doors, five facings of Fridge is all beautifully lined with brick lane, but it looks like a bottle shop and you f your first Thought is do I go in and help myself or because it is so so open in in in your own house? It is, and we've always been super open and inclusive and even within the bar downstairs.

'Cause I love sitting up at a bar and uh at one end there's a high bar you can sit around. At the other end there's the same bar but it's lower, so if you've got a stroll or you're in a wheelchair, you can still sit up at the bar. Um and what we wanted to do was create an experience. It's not about being a bar a pub or a bar. It's really about how can you best experience brick lane. And one of the key things for us is you need to be able to interact

With our team. And that doesn't happen as well when it's a big bar separating the two of you. So we looked at a whole bunch of sort of retail ideas and thought, What's really successful at the moment is people can go into a store and wander around with no division between the staff.

and the customer or the consumer and we try we're trying to apply that to our brand home. Now it takes some explanation, but we'll get there. Yeah. Again, when when I hear that, I think okay th th that that that's a I I can follow the logical progression, but once you layer

the l the slight loss of judgment that comes with selling alcohol over toothpaste or or something like that. Um uh you know, on a in a crowded bar on a night when people have been having three or four drinks, um and their judgment may not be as uh sound as it was earlier in the day.

I uh i it it sounds like the recipe for chaos. No, it's it's almost the opposite. Okay. I think we've not had one person try and grab a tap and pour a beer. And I think what happens is you build that sort of environment and Ninety nine percent of the people in there are like, okay, I'm trusted to walk around this place and I'm going to respect it. And we also have a lot of local traffic, um, from the new apartment buildings, the hotel and we've got regulars in who are you.

Becoming a third place kind of thing where i it's regular. Who know the know the air and and Once you learn the language of the bar, like the the flow of the bar and things like that, then it becomes a place you're familiar with. It it is. And it's it sort of picks up on the whole philosophy of the markets as well. I mean the beauty of any markets anywhere in the world, particularly city markets.

is you can wander around and you can interact with the people that that make the beer or work for the place selling the beer or the carrots or the potatoes and you're there, you're part of them, you're touching them. And we wanted to translate that market environment into the bar as well with a little bit less chaos.

But not having seen a bar like that, th there's there's always a risk of being too far ahead of the market or too different from the market because picking up on your the the the use of the word inclusive, it's almost um confusing and you know, it it it i if if you don't understand straight away then you feel excluded or you feel you see, well these people obviously know what's going on but

Do you know I d I don't know, I'm I f I'm just feeling uncomfortable. Yeah, we haven't had that feedback too much and our staff are incredibly good at as soon as anyone comes through the door, like they make them welcome, they have a bit of a chat to them. I mean, we've always got a reasonable amount of staff in there. They're all super keen people, they're all full time staff, you know, and they're people who

a lot of them at the moment who've been with us for a while, new people coming on board. Uh but we haven't had that that issue. And, you know, the other the other factor which, you know, is ever everyone sees in the market, it's tough at the moment and particularly on premise is super tough. Things are getting expensive.

you know, you go out for a shower beers and it's seventy bucks for four beers. We need to give we need to give people something more. Like we need to give back. We can't just say, here's a beer, give me your money. We need to give them a genuine experience, a place that feels interesting, it feels new, it feels innovative, and people go, Okay, I get it. I I'm prepared to pay for that because I'm getting this really good experience. If I want a simple beer at a pub.

On a stool, I can go and do that. If I want something a little bit elevated, nice glassware, nice interaction with staff, a new different sort of environment, then you can get that with a I I always worry that I'm sound critical because I'm I'm not. I'm I'm trying to rationalise, you know and and understand the logic behind it because it's a it was a beautiful space. You you you walk in and you can see all of the things that you're saying, but they're not

instinctive because we've all learned the um you know the the the the flow of most of of a pub. So, you know, the the first time you walk into a pub you have to sort of work out do I, you know, um is it

bar service or do I sit down or do I scan and things like that and it's there is something very, very different about it and it's understanding the logic behind it. Um but I wanted to pick up on y you've said a couple of times about the brick lane experience because you walk in, it's a beautifully styled space. Um it's got all of the the the features that we've sort of talked on the the the varying levels of bar, the the food, um it is some of the nicest food um direct from the market.

um beautifully presented. The staff talk you through um what's there. Um I I think I even might have said to you that it would be nice if there was just a little card that sort of said, Here is what the cheese is because it's a movable feast of um every day that there's something different. Um Does what is the Bricklane brand that th that this lovely hospitality experience is the Bricklane experience? So the Bricklane experience for us um is bringing

beer into different occasions. Um so if you go back to our core strategy, it's to have a brand of national scale um and producing beers of high quality that anyone can come in and enjoy. And it doesn't matter if you're new to beer, if you've been in beer forever, if you're experimenting with beer, there's something that we have which will always be bang on quality and really good value. And we wanted to

bring that essence into the market. And the way we do that is by looking at all the different occasions where people drink beer. And if you came into our downstairs in our shed bar, you could be out shopping and you want a break for thirty minutes, you can pull up a nice chair, have a chat to the guy at the bar or the girl at the bar, have a beer and be on your way quickly. If you come into the bar downstairs, um there's different communal tables, you can sit at a bar and speak to the staff.

You can have a snack, you can try a bit of a beer and cheese pairing, tasting, you can have a an elevated experience. Then if you go upstairs and all these pairs venues follow a theme. Then if you go upstairs you can have a proper full on dining experience.

You can interact with one of the providors from the market at any point. They'll they'll be rolling through. Um you can try lots of fresh produce straight from the market that day. And you can try it with any number of different beers and great wines and it really showcases, I guess, food and beer together. But also occasions, sit on the deck, sit in a private dining room. Beer should be part of pretty much any any facet of your life if you want it to be, because there's a beer to fit that.

Can't disagree with any of that, um, as a hospitality experience that i i is offered at the venue. Um but just stepping back to for example, Stone and Wood w what you said, um there was something about the Stone and Wood experience, whether it was their their original brewery or the the the new brewery that they opened.

there was always something about the venues that spoke to that central brand that they'd built around Stonewood and I I would argue that Bolter's the same, you know a lot of people want to dismiss Bolter about just being about the surfers, but there was something surfing in the brand, but it was never about the surfers and it I'd there there was always a you know, whether it was just a little smile that was on the can that

that radiates through everything that they did. There was just something that when you walk into the the the the tap room, um or anything that they did, it had a a consistency with the the Balter brand. Um with the Brick Lane brand, I'm trying to understand where that beautiful hospitality experience that you enunciated very well and beer should be all of those things. But when I walk into a bottle shop or I walk into a music venue, um, and you guys have a big uh you know, involvement in music.

I don't I'm not sure that I see the consistency with the beer brand and the excellence and hospitality service that you were talking about. Yeah, I I think they're pretty closely aligned. I mean our our core strategies are, you know, as I've said, over uh over around quality um and inclusivity. So bringing beer to more people and giving them a great beer experience. And every part of that hospitality is designed to give people a great beer experience.

If we wanted to take a different path we could have just done a straight up and down tap room with wooden tables and a long bar. Um, but to us that doesn't give people a new and different experience. This is about immersing people in different occasions, whether small groups, large groups, having it with produce, having it with fresh oysters, um having great food, being part of a market bustling environment, including everyone. So I think inclusivity and quality of both our beer

the fit out, the produce is what the brand is about. And when you go to a festival or event, uh hopefully you'll see Bricklane there and you'll go, I know I'm gonna get a great quality beer experience if I have that. Uh it's a beer for everyone. I don't need to be scared of it.

I can buy one, I can buy one for whoever I'm with and they're gonna have a great experience too. Mm-hmm. I don't know whether that's w gonna happen or not, but again I just sort of uh you know looking at excellence in and then the hospital but he hearing you describe the hospitality service and all of the things, like it's it's Cicero level thinking and it's you know, it really is almost a

Um brand or one having heard the podcast, you know I bang on about brand and who's elevating the beer experience. to make beer aspirational and everything you're talking about is exactly that um for beer and making, you know, beer something you can have in a beautiful environment with great quality food that's fresh from the markets and things.

But that sounds uh it it sounds like a hospitality professional talking through as opposed to a uh brewery brand o owners of saying This is why we're going to do it.

It's it's directly reflective of uh your strategy from when we started was to build a brand that was of high quality, accessible in terms of price point and inclusive. So everyone could enter into the Bricklane brand and have a great beer experience. And we haven't to date had a hospitality venue to back that up because our strategy has been let's build the brewery and get things to scale and make sure we're a sustainable business.

And then once we can prove that we're sustainable, then we can then start investing in that brand experience. And that was our strategy and that's what we've done. And this new venue, hopefully if people come down and have a look, they'll say that that directly reflects what we set out to do five years ago.

W with a national brand like Brick Lane and and y you would have some of the widest distribution of any brand I would imagine uh out outside of those the majors. Um Having uh a central Melbourne venue is only going to be a fairly small touch point um w when you look at your your your broader brand footprint. Are are we going to see these sorts of venues rolled out? You know, are are you going to look at a more of a national hospitality strategy or is it

just very much your spiritual home? Yeah, it's more of a spiritual home. And again, going back to the three pillars of the business, there's our brand, uh there's our partner brewing and there's a hospitality side. um hospitality and events and experiences is really there to support the brand. So that's its its goal and if we can do other things to support the brand, we will.

saying that the Bricklane brand, it's a national brand but its heart is in the C B D of Melbourne, in in the markets. That's where it was born. That's where its home is. So for us that's a complete focus and there would have to be a really good reason to believe that we could take that brand and put it into another environment and say

for that local community, here come, this is why Brick Lane is home here. I'm not saying it won't happen, but it's not part of our strategy to roll out bars everywhere. It's just we're not hospitality operators.

We're we're about our brand and our partner brewing and then hospitality supports that. It's interesting you say that because I I and I think I've mentioned this both times we've spoken previously, is that when we first met, uh, having lunch at the Alliance Hotel in Brisbane, you were sort of outlining the um Bricklane brand and you know, I I was asking you very similar questions, you know, but what about but what about?

my stock in trade. Um but one of the things that really let s stuck with me um when you're talking about Brick Lane And I think you said, you know, it's relevant because every city has a brick lane, you know, uh ev it can relate w wherever you go and you're born in the laneways of Melbourne, but you know, Brisbane has built brick lanes just so it can have its own brick lane.

That doesn't sound like that's the thinking that that has continued um through the business. Uh no, it still absolutely has and I guess well, stone and wood it's the the the topic of the day by by the sound of it, but Stone and wood. Um, you know, and I appreciate that it's made in different places now, but

It is still born and bred Byron Bay. Um, and all the detail you can take out of it, but that's where it's born and bred and that's its home. Um, if you look at other brands, uh Brooklyn, you know, that that's where its home is, that's where it was born and bred.

uh Camden in the UK, um, and for Bricklane, Melbourne is where it's born and bred. We don't necessarily need to have venues in those other places, but the brand essence is about that city inc inclusive environment and that that applies still to

cities all around the world, it doesn't mean we need to have a an actual bar in those in those cities as well. So'cause I I I'm just picturing, you know, Fish Lane in Brisbane, for example, which is a little lane way that's got some you know having a brick lane in Fish Lane kind of thing, just that Um, yeah, I mean, if there was a

If there was a great opportunity to do it, but it it's just not it's not our focus. I mean our focus is really about building the brand, continuing to build the physical brewery itself and we're continuing to invest in Capex in that. Um and all these things are about just making sure we can have a long term business that

can be independent and sustain itself. We don't need to be bought. We don't need to raise capital. We don't need to do anything else. We can exist in our own right. And that that's our pure focus. Now opportunistically if There's another venue somewhere that makes sense, we'd look at it, but it's not on the planning or the cards.

How many patrons could could a venue so y you said it was a three hundred fifty seat or hundred fifty seat? So what what are the projections for patrons through over you know twelve months, for example? Uh it it's sort of

It's it's difficult with hospitality venue because you just don't know. Yeah. Um it might strike a court, it might not. The advantage that we've got, the the Queen Vic markets gets about ten million visitors a year. Okay. Um it's uh one of the biggest obviously um population of people, whether locals, tourists, interstate, international in the country.

Um it's C B D based. So we've got this great flow of traffic. We've also got we're in a rapidly expanding area. And it's not just locals. You y you would be hoping to be bringing people from Brisbane, Sydney, Absolutely.

Passing through the markets and having a good thing. Absolutely. And we've got like a brand new hotel um attached to the brewery. We've got a five hundred apartment building next door. Um, it really is a bit of a a buzzy place. What we do know having done the night market for the last five years as an exclusive beer um provider.

That they'll get anywhere between sort of twenty five thousand and forty thousand people on a Wednesday night. So we know the population are there. We know for five years all they've been drinking is Bricklane. So we know we have in that environment, a lot of passionate supporters of ours. So the hope is that they'll see what we've done there and they'll come across and support it.

Just last questions. It it's been an interesting year for for for b and not so much Brickline, just the the market generally. Um Where do you see the the the beer market? You know, we we recently saw it and in America the chief economists say we're in a mature market. Um My response to that is kind of like, duh. You know, it has been for a while and they've suddenly gone from being

Growth, growth, growth, growth too. Come on guys, it's a mature market. Didn't you realise that? Um where do you see the the the beer market? You know, what what do you where do you see the elements for growth? Um do you s think that craft is is dead. Uh for me I like I see huge opportunities in beer. Like I'm really excited about out about where beer can go.

Uh the challenges I think are coming from uh maybe there's some breweries out there that you know entered the market when there was this view that there was this perpetual premium in what they could charge for their product. Um

small segment of the market would continue to grow constantly. Now anything in business doesn't work that way. Everything comes back to the mean, premiums get diminished, and if you don't change your business model, then the market will move and leave you behind. So that's the part of the market that gets a lot of I guess a lot of press and publicity and and rightly so there's a lot of people being impacted at the moment through some challenges that some businesses have.

But the way I look at it, the beer market is enormous in Australia and people are open to be open to drinking beer. They always have been. You just need to give them interesting things. You need to give them quality, new experiences. great looking branding, um, new innovative products. You know, and that could be, you know, for us zero carb.

Brand didn't exist for us twelve months ago and it's now our biggest seller. Uh and you need to constantly be looking at what does the customer as in your retailer and the consumer actually want. And you can't keep dishing up the same thing year after year and expect growth because that

doesn't work in any business and it doesn't work in beer. So for me there's still huge amount of opportunities. I look at our, you know, new product development pipeline. Um I look at some of the existing products and they're in growth and I see that continuing.

Paul Bauker, always fun to chat. And uh thank you very much for being part of this conversation. We'll uh touch base again in what, eighteen months, two years. Sounds good, Matt. And see you out see you down at the venue. Hope you don't get too confused while we're there. I don't want to sound too much of a gong, but it was again it's i it's it's a very different design and When you when you learn the um

the the the language of a venue, you know, and the flow of a venue, you know, like walking to a bar in America, um, you get yelled at because you're standing at the bar waiting for service when you're actually meant to be sitting down. This is the opposite. It's all it almost forces um

consumers and our our staff to engage with each other and take them through it. So it's a really good touch point and it breaks down we think it breaks down barriers and you don't walk in and sit in a corner in this bar, you've got no choice. You have to interact. And for us that works. So make a round bar so there are no corners. You should be an architect, Matt. Paul Balkett, thanks very much. Cheers, mate. Bye.

And that was Paul Balker. As always, I appreciate his willingness to engage very generously with my uh unique way of looking at things in such an open-ended conversation. We'll be back again this Thursday with our look at all of the news of the week. In the meantime, thanks for listening.