EP 19 - “If Not Now, Then When?” – The Story Behind Social Brewing

What happens when a corporate marketer decides to open a brewery in a part of Sydney with no craft beer scene? And what does it really take to keep it alive?

In this episode of Chat on Tap, Dave heads to Social Brewing in the St George area to sit down with founder and head brewer Beau Curtis. What starts as a conversation about beer quickly turns into a deeper chat about risk, resilience, and building something from scratch.

• The jump from corporate marketing into running a brewery
• Why opening in a “craft beer wasteland” was both a risk and an opportunity
• The reality of running a brewery - long hours, low margins, and constant pressure
• How a cardiac arrest reshaped Beau’s perspective on time and taking chances
• Marginal gains and why consistency beats luck in business
• Building a strong local community and loyal taproom culture

Chapters are auto generated

00:00 Intro – Social Brewing, St George
 01:10 Meeting Beau & early beer chat
 03:20 The St George craft beer scene
 05:10 Building a local brewery community
 06:10 From corporate marketing to brewing
 08:05 Starting the brewery journey
 09:30 The reality: “You’ll never work harder for less money”
 10:20 “If not now, then when?” mindset
 12:50 The daily grind of running a brewery
 14:00 Learning to brew & refining recipes
 15:00 Marginal gains & consistency
 16:30 Staying in the game
 17:45 The tough days in business
 19:00 The acid cloud disaster
 22:20 The moments that make it worth it

🍺 Tapped In — St George Edition

A look into the St George craft beer scene and surrounding breweries:

• Sunday Road Brewing (Kirrawee)
• Shark Island Brewing (Cronulla)
• Hairyman Brewery (Cronulla)
• Club Rivers (rotating craft taps)

Episode produced by: WHEN Studios
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Host: David A. Lennon – @davidalennon
Website: chatontap.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Welcome to Channel Tap. My name is David Lennon and this is the podcast about pubs and the people in them. We've gone to Sydney's South today. We're in the St. George area at a brewery called Social Brewing. We are here with the founder and head brewer, Bo Curtis. Bo, thank you so much for having us down here.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

No dramas, mate. Lovely to have you.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Thanks for making the journey. Oh, of course. No, it was great. I was really in enjoying the area, and I I'm I want to hear more about your love for the place that we're in at the moment. But we have met before. Once, briefly.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

We have.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Do you remember the academy?

SPEAKER_00 0:36

I was Gabs. You had a stupid shirt on. Which normally that's me, so it was delightful to see someone else with a stupid shirt on.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

So I put a shirt on that if you hadn't seen it, that's called uh the Chief Tasting Officer, and I was trying to get freebies at Gabs, not knowing how it would work, and it did not go well for me.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Did not work? Did it work on anyone? Or was it just me it didn't work on?

SPEAKER_01 0:57

No, no, there was one that it did work on, and there was one that on camera looks like it worked on, but I paid anyone.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Who did it work on?

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Uh Mountain Monk.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Oh yeah, okay. Fair enough. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Yeah, I can't remember the bloke's name, but he was lovely.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

Well, that's nicer than me, apparently.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

That's alright. It's better content when it doesn't work. Anyway, look, what have we what are we drinking?

SPEAKER_00 1:18

You've I've um mate, you've got a St. George Draft lager. Okay. Um not only draft because it comes on tap. Um something that I had always said I would never do is call a beer a draft and put it into cans, but I did. Uh because people seem to um respond to it.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

That to me is like this this is we're recording this on a Friday afternoon. It's 5 30. That's my first beer of of the weekend. Yeah, that's beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

Super smashable, um, easy drinking, 4% American light lager. Lots of dextrose in the in the mix, um, and super dry, just refreshing.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Um and real easy to drink.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

Yeah, yeah, it really is. And what what have you got there? That looks that looks more my usual.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

Yeah, so fit. So I'm uh I'm sipping on a triple two three American pale ale. So triple two three is the postcode here at Mortdale.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

Okay, yep.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

Um and it was brewed uh in collaboration with our local home brew club, which is the ESB or Extra Special Brewers. Uh and it's actually using hops grown in Mortdale. So there's a bit of Centennial hop in there that we used in the mash hop uh that is um yeah, grown right here in Mortale. So, you know, things that shouldn't happen, like hops growing in Sydney, um that's that yeah, it's a great example. So real classic uh American IPA, um if you if you love um Sierra Nevada pale, right up that alley.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

Yeah, it has that colour about it, doesn't it? So tell me about the the area. So for anyone who doesn't know, we're uh I mean I think I came from Gladesville, it took me maybe 35 minutes. We're about about half an hour from the city.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

Yeah, look, I always say it's about 30 minutes from everywhere. Yeah, so we're about uh 15 minutes from Cranola. Yep. Uh just sort of right smack in between uh the guys down at Kirawee, so Sunday Road Shark Island, Harry Man in Cranola, um, and the breweries in Botany. So we are literally bang in the middle there.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

Yeah, so you're kind of on your own little little island.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

Um yeah, not necessarily intentionally. Um when when I started, I had sort of thought within a couple of years at least we'd have one or two others, uh other people emboldened by my stupidity, um, starting their own breweries, but um, it hasn't happened as yet. So if you're out there and you are thinking about doing it, um do it. I'm I'm super keen to have some other breweries in this area. Yeah, but yeah, we are at the moment, I used to call this the craft beer wasteland. Um the pretty much the only place you could get a decent craft beer on tap was Club Rivers. Um, the malt barrel bar down there do rotating taps, they do lots of indie beers, um lately lots of mountain culture, uh nothing wrong with that. But yeah, and and we've been on tap there quite a number of times, so yeah. But apart from that, um until we popped up, that was it.

SPEAKER_01 3:59

So, what are the advantages and disadvantages of having you being the only one in the area and having a few others?

SPEAKER_00 4:06

I think there's definitely some advantage, a lot of advantages to having um other breweries in the area. It brings in people who want to visit a couple of breweries in a day. Uh, you get that sort of culture that happens, the beer trail kind of culture, um, like the inner west have. Um you don't we don't get that. So we're a destination, people have to want to come to visit us, uh, which is great, it's lovely, uh, makes me feel very special. Um, but at the same time, we don't get that incidental sort of we were in the area doing breweries and heard you were here, so we'd pop in. So on the flip side, do you have a really great local culture then? Um yeah, we've got a really strong um local tap room community. We have loads of really great regulars. Um, you know, some sometimes they get upset when we do nights like we're doing tonight, which we've got a live band on, and we're yeah, not quite booked out, we're pretty close. Um yeah, they they kind of walk in and go, oh, where's my where's my usual spot? I can't sit where I always sit, and you're like, well, that's yeah, sorry, didn't mean to be popular. Um, but yeah, yeah. So, you know, it it does have a few benefits in that sense. Um, we do have a really tight little community around us who support us through thick and thin and and uh and we love them, they're great. Is there because there is something, there's a part of the you've got like a sort of membership. Yeah, look, we we have um the social club, which is our membership program, so we've got a couple of tiers in that. Basically, most of most of our locals are what what we call local members, um, which gives them 10% off at the tap room. Um we've this year we've actually taken that um discount online as well. Um, and that's that's kind of the big benefit of that level. And then once you step up into the social club membership, it's you know uh 15% off of the tap room, it's a t-shirt, uh, my eternal uh gratitude, uh the occasional hug. Um so not all benefits, but you know, some some benefits, some negatives. Who was who was Bo Curtis before Social Brilliance? Um that's a great question. I'd love to remember. Um so I've spent the last uh 25-ish years before I did this in marketing. So uh corporate marketing roles with the likes of Samsung, working with uh at agencies with the likes of uh Volkswagen, so big brands. Yeah. We bought our first house in Newtown, so um ex inner westie, uh, moved out to the burbs when we had kids, and essentially just decided, well, why doesn't this area have a brewery of its own? So you might say who I was before is who I am now, which is a bit of a dreamer and sometimes a little silly.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

Well, I've y you still are a marketer. When I got here, you were well, I don't want to reveal that to your boss, but you were on a meeting.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

Yeah, no, she's aware, she's aware. Um, I did say to her, so I work four days a week, yeah, in marketing. And uh yeah, fortunate I'm very fortunate that the the company that I work for is uh happy for me to do four days a week. Um so Fridays are spent uh in the tap room. Uh also do Thursday nights, so I work work from home on Thursdays, which is essentially up in the in the office here, and then uh Thursday nights work the tap room, uh oversee brewing. Uh our our brewer, he technically assistant brewer, but he's he does it all, so we'll call him our brewer, uh Mick, who is come along in leaps and bounds. Um no commercial brewing experience prior to starting with us back in September last year. Uh, and is you know that we just we packed off five different skews yesterday, um, and they were all beers that he brewed um and and had the lead hand in. So um, yeah, very happy.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

So this I guess this was not the original career plan. How do you go from being corporate to to I don't know, the the beard and tattoos of a beer?

SPEAKER_00 7:54

Well, no, so so I always say it was COVID. I already had a beard and tattoos. So the next logical step was to open a brewery. Um so look, you could say brewing runs in the family. My uh apparently my um great uncle owned a pub. Uh the story is that he drank all the profits. I think the rest of the family was jealous, if I'm brutally honest. Um my brother um was one of the OG craft brewers um in Australia. He started uh Four Hearts Brewing up in Brisbane, which then became uh the pump yard and is now I forget the name of the brewery now, but has changed names since. Um he he launched that that brand and that that uh particular brewery. He was instrumental in helping the Black Hops guys get a start in terms of sourcing equipment. And they're doing really well now. Yeah, yeah, they've they've turned a bit of a corner, which is great. So, yeah, so I had that sort of um example being shown to me of what could be done. Um, I was down here in Sydney kind of going, uh, wouldn't mind doing my own thing one day. What could I do? Nothing ever sort of felt right. And then I just basically, over a conversation with my brother, went, What if I opened a brewery in Sydney and you kind of had one up there and I had one down here and we shared recipes and brewed the same beer in different places and did little tweaks on stuff, that'd be quite a cool little story. Um, he went, Yeah, great idea, and subsequently got out of brewing. Um so don't know what to take from that. But um, although when I did say to him I want to open a brewery, he said to me, You'll never work as hard for as little in your entire life, and he was absolutely right. Um that said, uh it's been a great journey. So that was kind of how I came to it. Uh I had a cardiac arrest eight years ago.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 9:42

Um, from a heart condition I had no idea that I had a genetic condition. And went back to work after my recovery from that, after about six months, and just hated it. Absolutely hated being in the corporate world. Um, I won't say who I was working for at the time. Um, but you know, just sort of went, you know what? Something else has got to be better than this.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

Uh ended up getting um my role got made redundant there, and I just went, well, if not now, then when?

SPEAKER_01 10:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:12

Um there's actually a sign-up over the bar at the end of the bar, which is if not now, then when? And that's kind of our mantra here, is like, well, you know, do you want to turn around at the end of it all and go, oh geez, I should have tried that. Or I should have, you know, I should have done that, you know, I should have poured a little bit more into it. And that's kind of, yeah, it's it's that's the way I approach it.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Yeah, I really love that. I mean, I I feel the same with exactly this. This is my little creative project, my version of it. Um and you know, I almost also in COVID was fooling around with a bit of content and went, I just wish I'd stuck with it. And so I I that whole thing of if not now, then when. I was like, oh, could I have been doing this for five years and maybe be this much more further ahead? But actually I maybe I just wasn't in the you know frame of mind at that time and and now is good. So I I'm guessing there was a fair bit of I mean the the cardiac arrest and the staring down the barrel of health. Is that just is that time is now like does that change your perception of time?

SPEAKER_00 11:13

Look, I think everyone everyone wants uh everyone wants you to say when you talk about something that massive happening in your life, it's like, oh, it changed me. I don't I don't think it changed me. What I think it did is it made me very aware um that everything we've got is really temporary and it could change at any second. Like your life can change in an instant. Um you know, and and I've I've I'm now living with a with a heart condition. Well, I've always had the heart condition, but I'm now living with the awareness of a heart condition. It hasn't changed the way I approach life, but it certainly does bring things into in a pretty harsh perspective.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

Your brother had said you'll never work harder for less money or for no money or whatever it was. Um explain your last 24 hours.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

Um okay, so up at 5-ish yesterday, in here for 6 a.m. to do uh canning run, uh knowing we had to wrap it up by sort of lunchtime so we could get open. Um also working at the same time um for my day job. And uh and then So you're in the office here?

SPEAKER_01 12:21

Yep, yeah. So you're kind of getting at 6 a.m. you're getting it going.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

Yep, yeah. Head up to the office meetings and stuff, uh, emails and the boring stuff, the boring usual stuff. Down back here at uh at five, ran the tap room till what I thought was going to be seven, because that's kind of normally the time it gets quiet and I can sneak off and no one notices. Uh although we do open till nine, so if there's people coming in, please come in. Um and we had a few customers turning up, sort of eight-ish, and I ended up working here till 9:30, jumped in the car, drove four kegs, uh, two of ours and two of the guys at Merinos, down to Canberra. Um, shout out to the guys at uh two of my friends, the old Canberra Inn uh and uh Bru Nation who got their keg deliveries at about 1am this morning. Wow. And then headed back to Sydney. So um, yeah, drove back a couple of little naps on the way so I could make it. Got home at 5, uh, got up at about 7:30, little physio appointment, took my son to get his driver's license, and then back in here for lunchtime to open.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

Wow, that is a big day. But most importantly, did your son get his license?

SPEAKER_00 13:29

Uh he did, yeah. So now we now have an extra driver in the house, which will uh make getting picked up when I've had a few beers much as we have. See your son, you're off to Canberra next week.

SPEAKER_01 13:38

Um great idea. When you started the brewery, uh, so you started the recipes. Um, I'm guessing that you took a few of those from your brother before he pissed off out of the industry. When was the moment you went, something's something's here, something's working?

SPEAKER_00 13:52

So the conversation with my brother was a little um deeper than I alluded to. So we we did have a conversation about if I was going to open a brewery, make sure the product was excellent. Um and our our sort of um, I suppose tagline here is great beer, better shared. We played around with that for a while. Originally it was good beer, and I just decided that good beer is not enough. Um it had to be great beer. And better shared. And better shared, absolutely. So we I I I actually said to him, well, okay, how do I first of all know if I can do this? Second of all, get really good at it. And his advice was buy a dinky 35-litre home brew kit and brew as much beer as you can and focus on the process. Uh so I I actually brewed four of the beers that are on tap, um three are on tap now, um from the get-go. And that was just at home in the shed, 35-litre batches, um, and just worked on those recipes from day one. So I started brewing as a home brewer with the intention of opening a brewery, and I started working on my recipes from the first day that I started brewing. Wow. And and what's the timeline? What's that sort of how long's that process? Uh so it's probably over about five or six years that I did that. Um, the first couple were just sort of mucking around, doing it, doing it every now and then. The last couple of years were when I decided I want to do this, and that was when I got real serious and started just going right batch after batch after batch of the same three or four beers, uh, just aiming for you know marginal improvement every time. And that's something that I've I've tried to take into even today when we're brewing, is it's about marginal improvement. What am I going to do today that's gonna make this beer better than it was the last time we brewed it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

I mean, I th there's so much in the way that you speak that I I find like is parallel to say, like sporting stars or musicians or whatnot, that it's like the one percenters, yeah, because it, you know, that people go, oh, geez, I must be so lucky to have a brewery. And it's like, no, like if you didn't do that part, it may not have got out of the gates.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

Yeah, there's no no luck, no luck involved. Um, it's it's very, very hard work. You know, there there are elements of good fortune along the way. I think um I listen to a lot of business podcasts and stuff, and a lot of entrepreneurs talk about part of it is just staying in the game, and it's it's having the ability to know how to stay in the game.

SPEAKER_02 16:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

You know, we're we're it's our fourth birthday this weekend, so um we're we're very fortunate to have been here for four years, hopefully a number of years more. I don't know how many. I'll take as many as I can get.

SPEAKER_01 16:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

Um, but you know, we're we're doing things um to make sure that we stay relevant, to make, you know, people always look at me and go, uh you're you're always doing something. The brewery's always doing something. There's always a new project or a new thing you've got. And I'm like, yeah, you you have to. You know, you've got to be constantly evaluating, re-evaluating, and um reinventing to make sure we're relevant for our consumers and our customers and our locals today and tomorrow. Is that just in your makeup as a person? Wow, getting deep now. Um That's what we do over a beer, isn't it? Yeah, wow, I know, I know, solving the world's problems. Um look, I think some of it is innate, some of it is just the person that I am. I'm never I don't ever settle. I like symbolism. I like symbolism. Um my my family crest is uh on my dad's side is a bird with there's birds in it, and they're martlets, and martlets are birds that have no feet, so they never rest. That is probably what it comes to. You know, it's just that that tenacity, that that refusal to let you know, we we've had really, really tough um weeks, months, years, you know, in the last four, and I think um I just haven't I've refused to let it beat me. You know, um some days I don't. Some days I just go, I'd I'm done, I give up.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

What what are some of those moments where you go, you know what, this would be better if this wasn't happening?

SPEAKER_00 18:03

It's not major, it's never major things. It's always um it's always that that moment. You know, when you're here on a Sunday, you've had no customers for four hours, and then the heavens open and it pisses down with rain for 20 minutes, and you know, there's rain blowing in the roller door, and you're just like, maybe maybe maybe this wasn't a great idea. Maybe I should have done something, you know. So it's not, it's not, you know, like, oh I we had an ex- like I mean, there are a couple, like the first year we were open, um, I took the family away for Christmas because I was like, you know what, working hard, deserve a bit of a break. So we went away for seven days, a whole seven days, right? To the Gold Coast. Um, went and saw my family who were all in Brisbane. Came back, and I'd been using the wrong acid in our uh our water treatment um plant, which is indoor inside.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

It was the acid you used at the hippie festivals, right?

SPEAKER_00 19:01

No, no, not that kind of acid. That weren't fun. Um I mean, don't do drugs, obviously. Uh everything, no, uh no, I I was using um pool acid, hydrochloric, in our in our water treatment facility, which is inside, and we'd had I had drums of HCL just sort of sitting there waiting to be used, sealed, um, arguably not dangerous, and we had a couple of 40, 45 degree, well, 40 odd degree days outside would have been probably 50 inside, and those bottles of acid vaporized. Wow, and there was an acid cloud in the whole brewery. And um, if you look at our tanks, they're a little dull because they they've actually oxidized from the acid cloud. So we came in and there was oxidation over every metal surface in the whole place, year one. Wow. I gotta say ya, that year I did kind of go what the fuck have I done? But you know what, man, we we we pulled together. I had um some awesome staff. Uh a lot of my staff, my casuals for the bar, have been with us from pretty much day one. The first few months we ran just on family and friends. Uh free free labour. Uh oh, they they got paid in beer. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:16

I mean, that's that's how I get paid for this thing.

SPEAKER_00 20:19

Well, funnily enough, me too. Um but uh mate, you know, it there was a couple of weeks we we literally all just came in and did a mass clean of the place. We cleaned every tank, we cleaned every surface, um, and we got stuff looking better. Like it's not it's not never gonna be perfect, but it was good as good as it'll be. So that was one of the moments where I I probably kind of went, maybe I'm not cut out for this, but at the same time, I think you come through it, you you get it done, and you just roll on and you kind of go, well, you know, if we close tomorrow, I've got to pay the lease out, and that's a lot of money. So we may as well try and make it work.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

And did you find you go, right? I've just got to get to the lease, and then by then, you know, something something there's a breakthrough, and you go, Oh, we'll just keep going then. We'll go with other lease.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

Yeah, I mean we we did we did a pretty short initial lease period. So I did two years as our first lease period. The first year of that we spent in fit out, didn't get any rent-free periods. Uh so I I burnt a lot of cash on rent. Um so fit out and approvals. And then the second, so we only we'd only been running literally a year uh when that first lease period ended. Uh we're dog friendly too, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

Uh yeah, yeah. The band's starting up, the dog's going. I know, I know. So the thing is, I mean, everyone always talks about perfect um perfect audio for a podcast. Yeah. Whereas I'm like, no, I want to be in the brewery. Like I want all this.

SPEAKER_00 21:48

Oh you got everything today. Um Yeah, so it's um it's a collection of stuff that sort of weighs on top of you and you just gotta push through it.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

Yeah. And then on the contrary, what are the moments where you go Fuck yeah, I am doing the right thing.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

When we go to a beer festival and sell out, when we uh when when someone looks at me after taking the sip of their schooner and just goes, fuck, that's really nice. Um when when we're full, when I when I look out at the room, like tonight we've got 60, 70 odd bookings um to come and see a band, you know, we've sold out a couple of comedy shows. Well, those nights when you look out and you're like, yeah, okay. Uh when when people talk about like they'll they'll mention our products. I'll just be randomly at a kid's cricket game or something and they'll be like, I had this great beer on the weekend. I, you know, have you heard of the social brewers? And I'm like, oh really, really before I show you who I am, tell me more about it. Yeah, do tell me more. So, you know, stuff like that. Like that that's the payoff. That is the payoff. If I was doing this for money, um, I would have stopped a long time ago. Um, but at the same time, you know, it we're just we're doing okay, we're um we're making ends meet, we're we're paying the bills. So to me, a little local space like this, um, when when we see our locals appreciating what we do, um, and you know, the few times that I have shared those moments of like, not sure, you know, not sure if we can keep keep doing this. And people just look at me across the bar and be like, oh, I don't know what I'd do. Like, please don't. I don't know what I'd do if you if you weren't here, and it's like, wow, okay. This joint means something to people, and that that's that's the real kind of payoff.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

In terms from um being, you know, a privilege to a responsibility in a sense.

SPEAKER_00 23:37

Yeah, I've never felt as a responsibility, I've never felt weighed down by it um or any weight of that. I I do think it's a it's a privilege. Sometimes I have to remind myself it's a privilege. Uh when you know, Hospital is an interesting game, you get some fun people, but yeah, it's it's you just gotta kinda go, you know what? They choose to come here and they choose to spend their money, and particularly in a time like we're in now where every dollar, like every single dollar people spend is considered that that's I've gotta I've gotta feel you know happy and proud of that.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

Yeah. I mean it's it like we see a lot of what's going on around the world, and it's it's hard not to think that things are really, really bad, but they still have a chance to go out and have a beer, and these are the places that we get to do that, you know.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

Well mate, I think that's that's what places like this give people is the opportunity and the um the space to go and socialise, to go and you know, wash off the troubles of the week or the day or whatever. You know, whether it's someone coming in here on a Thursday night who stands by the bar and chats to me and you know tells me about the shitty day they've had or the great day they've had. You know, I I've I've listened to people tell me about redundancies, pregnancies, engagements, all sorts of stuff. Like and and it is genuinely an honor to be able to do that and and to have created that for the local area. I you know, you don't get that at most pubs these days. I think that's that's what we're trying to do here. That's that's what we're trying to bring to this area is that sense of community, that um somewhere to come where, you know, without sounding like you know, Ted dancing on cheers, it's it's somewhere to walk in and people go, Oh hey, Dave, how you doing? Yeah, you know, we we know him. We we're you know, probably stretch to say we're mates, but it kind of feels like that way sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 25:33

I really like going for a solo beer. And it might just be like that's my moment to go sit by myself, but I still need those like micro interactions there. So like sitting by myself in amongst everyone is to me is still spending time alone. Yep but it's the like being able to I don't know, wax lyrical with with the bartender at that moment or whatever. On the flip side, you also see people who go, I'm genuinely starved of some kind of connection and just being able to talk to someone, I see you every week, I feel more comfortable with you than other people.

SPEAKER_00 26:06

Yeah, I mean we we historically, and not necessarily even in my lifetime, but certainly, you know, talking to my uncles and my dad and and my mum and people like that, that's that's what the role of the pub is supposed to be. And and I think, you know, we we call ourselves craft breweries. I I don't love the term craft, but you know, independent breweries or whatever you want to call it. But I think we're we're really the public house of the of this day. You know, we we are the place you come where you pull up a chair and you sit next to someone and you end up with a new friend or or someone that you didn't know lived around the corner from you, or something like that. And I think there's a lot of value in that from a societal point of view. I don't think there's enough of it. Um I think the more of that we can have, the better off we're all gonna be.

SPEAKER_01 26:56

We're really getting into some deep territory. I know, I love it. This is what I've this is what I'm grateful for. Because I because uh to exactly that point. First beer, too. I I call it the um you know, I call this a podcast about pubs and the people in them, and I've predominantly spoken to breweries. So I feel like breweries still just fall under the term pubs. And also, and I've I used to be like, oh hey, I do a beer podcast. I don't really want it to be a beer podcast, I want to talk, I want to talk about this stuff. I want to talk about the stories behind getting these places or the stories we hear in these places. So on that, after this, we might do a little bonus episode where you can run us through the beers for the beer nerds.

SPEAKER_00 27:34

That sounds great.

SPEAKER_01 27:35

That sounds crazy.

SPEAKER_00 27:36

You've got to remember all the hops that are in stuff. I might pull out might pull out my brewfather for that.

SPEAKER_01 27:40

So look out for that bonus episode. Um uh, but before you go, we always do tapped in. Love to hear the recommendations of the people. I mean, other than coming to social brewing. Where should we go in the Mortdale St. George area?

SPEAKER_00 27:54

Mortdale St. George. So I'll go a little a little wider than that and add um add Bankstown into that as well. Sure. Because I think there's uh an opportunity people don't necessarily know about. So um Bankstown Sports Club has the basement brew house. Uh they've got some insane. I'm gonna get the number wrong, so I'm not gonna tell you how many taps, but they've got some insane number of taps down there. They've got a brew kit of their own, they brew their own beers, but they also have a bunch of indie beers on tap. Um the other one is Club Rivers malt barrel bar, uh lots of rotating indies on there. In in this area, that's probably the the key uh from that point of view.

SPEAKER_01 28:31

But there's Banksdown Sports Club, that's also got like the arcade and it's massive, like it's it's hectic up there, and that wasn't a reference to anyway, um it's hectic.

SPEAKER_00 28:43

Um, it's it there's a lot going on out there from the other so going south from here. I mean, you got Sunday Road in Kirawee uh doing amazing things. Uh Harry Man, I think's one that people don't necessarily know about. They're in Crenola. They do this insane pop ale, which is like uh I don't even know how to describe it, like a um kind of a soft drink tasting beer. Okay. Weird as hell gives you a slick hangover. Uh so I would recommend maximum two or three.

SPEAKER_01 29:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:16

Uh, and then go on to their others. And also, if you're after packaged, uh bottle cake can down at Ginelli, Unreal, not a lot of indie bottle shops in this particular little area. Uh, but you know, check out uh Cogra Clubhouse is another one that often have a number of indie taps on. Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:34

Great. There's all your recommendations from Bo of the area. Well, mate, thank you so much for for having us for this lager, which is unbelievable. Um and for sharing your story. Yeah, we'll do it, we'll do a bit of a deep dive for the beeries. Sounds good. Otherwise, um I yeah, I'm just gonna say thank you. And I just really like your vibe and your passion for not only this area, but more so for the community and for people, and uh it sounds very much like you're someone who puts the community first, and um that's right. We need more of that. So thanks, mate. Mate, thank you so much. Thank you for joining us. I'm just gonna finish off this episode because um Bo and this beer he's very proud of, uh, the Death Valley Double IPA. Um which if you haven't seen yet, check out the bonus episode to this interview. Uh Bo talks about this beer and you know what it means to the brewery, it's their birthday beer. It's also this is Wednesday night before release night, and I've got to get this video finished, but I needed to add this little extra bit in, and I don't think this is gonna help because it is 2.4 standard drinks in a normal can, and I think it's about 8.2, 8.4%. Anyway, um 8.2%. There you go. ABV 375, Death Valley double IPA. Um, if you watch this video soon enough, try and get yourself some cans. Um, because I had a little taste in the brewery. I didn't taste it after that because I had to drive. Wow, wow. Anyway, I wanted to jump on. It's been a little while since we've said um uh make sure you send us your um you know questions, info, recommendations, any of those things uh for the pod if you want us to read something out, um do so. Hello at chat on tap.com if you're the old email style, or you can follow us on the Instagram page at chat on tap. Um subscribe on YouTube, which also I keep forgetting to say that is actually on tap chat. At on tap chat, not chat on tap, on tap chat. Um because I couldn't get that, but I'm working on it. So Fennessey Deeks, uh get involved in the pod. Love to hear from you. Um it's been a little while since we've done a little kind of chat about the things that you guys are saying. Um so do all of that. But I did just want to finish um because I think what really rams out this episode with Bo is um so I I left, you know, we came, we interviewed, I had a beer, but I was driving, so I left. He was setting up for a really busy night, so I didn't hang around for too long. Um and I sent him just a picture message saying, Hey, I'm having your beer. Having the um I can't remember what it was at the time, but uh whatever the first beer was, and I said, Great beer, you should be proud of your operation, whatever. Anyway, a couple hours later, unprompted, Bo sends me this text message, and I just wanted to read it out because I think this is really puts a full stop on the whole story. These are the nights I was talking about. This is the payoff. It's not about the dollars, it's not about fame or rewards, it's about community. And uh he has this beautiful picture of his his brewery full, full of people, and the lights are on, the bands playing, and it just kind of you know, you you you heard him talk in the interview, and he just loves what he does, loves the um the community aspect. So it was just I thought it was really nice. I really wanted to highlight the fact that several hours after our interview, after we'd spoken about the brewery and what was important or whatever, he he thought enough to send me a photo and say this is what it's actually all about because he wanted to kind of I guess kind of make that point. Um and so I know that was a private message, Bo, but I just felt like it was worth being shared. So, anyway, thank you once again, um Bo. I'm gonna enjoy this Death Valley double IPA on a Wednesday night. Probably won't enjoy my Thursday morning. Um, but as I said, get in touch with the podcast at any time. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you next week.