SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi, I'm Gary Megan, and welcome to my podcast series, the Gary Megan Show. I've never been one to complicate things, and that includes this title. If you're tuning in, you probably know me, but for those that don't, you have to know that I absolutely love food and travel. And also the opportunity of just talking way too much. In this podcast, we're going to look beyond the world of food and talk to people, whether they're celebrities or sports people, politicians or professionals who trigger my curiosity and interest and have something to share. It's all about their careers, their passions, their beliefs, and maybe some life lessons. So without further ado, let's crack on. Jane Lewis, you're one half of Two Birds Brewing. Danielle Allen is the other half. Where did this all start?

SPEAKER_01 0:50

So it all started, uh, I guess the genesis of it all is a trip that Danielle and I did um to the US a number of years ago, so seven years ago now. My husband and I were actually eloping, but she was unaware of this at this point in time and actually asked to come along on the holiday.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

So was she an uncomfortable third wheel?

SPEAKER_01 1:09

No, no, it was excellent. It was very great. Uh yeah, so I got this email saying, Hey, look, I want to come on this trip with you. I've wanted to go to the US for ages, but my husband's not interested. Then we're like, Yep, cool, no worries, great, that'd be wonderful. And then husband decided that he wanted to come along as well. So we went on this lovely trip to the US with with the four of us. Okay. Um and husband's names, what's what's your uh so my husband's name is Lewis and Danielle's husband is uh Johnny or J A as we call him. Okay. Um and yeah, so the four of us went on this awesome trip to the US. Um, you know, starting San Francisco, doing Napa Valley, um, you know, eating in lots of great restaurants. We ate at French Laundry and um did all sorts of great stuff like that, and then uh bit of time in LA and then across to to Vegas where my husband and I oh so I was just about to ask uncomfortably, was it a Vegas wedding for us? Oh, we no, no Elvis, but it was a drive-thru wedding.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

It was a drive-thru wedding.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

So see, I thought that was going to be a joke, but it's not. So can you can you describe this drive-thru wedding? I know it's not on beer, but it sounds quite funny. Yeah, no. So you deliberately eloped to the US to go to Vegas to do a drive-thru wedding. This is correct. Why was that a dream? Uh just curious.

SPEAKER_01 2:16

Yeah, well, uh look, we would never been that keen on um weddings. No issue with marriage, just not that massively keen on weddings. So we'd my husband and I had always joked that um if we were going to get married, it was always gonna be in Vegas. We got in actually got invited to a wedding there, and so we were like, well, we're going, so should we do this thing while we're there? Uh and then it was like, okay, well, what's the funnest kind of way that we can think of? And drive-through seemed like a pretty, pretty good idea.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

What were we driving through it? What was the case?

SPEAKER_01 2:45

We got a we got a big stupid limousine and uh did all of it.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

Did it did it, you know. And how does that work? Does the celebrant jump in the car with you or is it out of a hatch? No, like delivering a burger, that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

We actually got out of the car, but yes, they're inside the uh the building at the the window, and then you stand outside and uh, you know, and they deliver you your um marriage certificate and uh some fast food and fast marriage.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

So set how long ago was that?

SPEAKER_01 3:09

So that was uh we're about to have our seventh wedding uh wedding anniversary next month.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

So at any time, this is not about beer either. At any time, have you thought oh we should get married properly now? Like and have a you don't want a marshmallow wedding with a No, I'm good. It'll only cost you 40,000.

SPEAKER_01 3:25

No, I'm good. We had a celebration with all our family and friends when we got home and and that was that was perfect. That was exactly what we wanted to do, and it removed all of the the stresses that I think can come along with weddings.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

Right. So rewinding for that trip then. Sure. Which is interesting in itself. I love that. Danielle and yourself, you do how far do you go back? Like how do you where did you meet?

SPEAKER_01 3:45

We are both Perth born and bred. Um we actually met via our and our husbands who were housemates um back in Perth during their their uni days. So we met our husbands when we were sort of 1920, and then we met through through them effectively.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

Okay. What were you doing? What were you two doing at the time?

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Uh I was at uni, I was studying winemaking, so that's kind of where everything started for me.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

Um you said that as if it was a bit of a downer. No, no, I love. I was at uni and studying winemaking. No, no, you can be because I'm gonna cotton onto it and go, so you're at uni studying winemaking. Why were you at uni studying winemaking?

SPEAKER_01 4:25

Um well I I guess when I left school, I I've got this really sciencey brain, but I don't like um, you know, not so much with the sitting down. So wanted to do something that was kind of a practical application of science. So winemaking seemed interesting, and and so I thought I'd give that um a shot. So yep, studied that at your own.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Why did it seem interesting? I mean, can I kind of tap into why winemaking seemed interesting? I mean, you'd been one of those cheeky kids that was sipping homemade wine at age ten out of a little fermenting bottle or um it's not homemade.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

No one else in my family drinks. Um so yet I've gone the whole gamut, I've done wine, cider, and beer and um so dabbled in that whole side of things. I don't know, I just really like the I guess expressive element of of those kind of things. And yeah, having a having a product, having a thing at the end of it all. Um, you know, I sort of looked at all different stu parts of science, like um a lot of the crime-based kind of things was quite interesting to me as well.

SPEAKER_00 5:26

But um So when you were 14 or 15, yeah. Had you sipped your first wine and thought, oh like that, that's something I might want to do? Or were you sipping your first wine dreaming of being a criminologist or something?

SPEAKER_01 5:37

No, look, I think uh I think early on it was a lot of you know sweet stuff. In my era, it was lemon ruskies and all that kind of a royal rubbish. Oh yeah, so classic. I drank a lot of passion pop and uh uh pleasant value.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

So everything you try and teach your kids not to drink you were drinking.

SPEAKER_01 5:55

I did all of it, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

Setting your palate up for break. Is that what it was?

SPEAKER_01 5:58

Yep, totally. So I started off on the sweet stuff, but I really quickly moved away from that um into yeah, mm, I really loved flavour. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

So that was before you went to uni? Before I went to uni. Can you remember a moment where you tasted something and thought, oh, that was delicious?

SPEAKER_01 6:14

Not especially. There's no kind of light bulb moment uh at that point in time. But yeah, I just I quite liked that whole um yeah, just like the idea of wine and and taking and expressing something that was being grown in the vineyard and then being able to sort of show that in a way.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

Um So what course what what did the course teach specifically? Is it viticulture or is it a broad-based?

SPEAKER_01 6:38

Yeah, it was a Bachelor of Science in viticulture and analogy, so wine making, grape growing. Um and so yeah, we learnt the whole the whole thing from start to finish.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

So year in, what were you thinking? Year into the course, what were you thinking? Where was your brain going? What were you looking forward to?

SPEAKER_01 6:54

Yeah, oh look, I was really loving it. I um definitely felt early on that I was, you know, because obviously there's sort of a almost a split when when a lot of people do these classes, and you either go into the to the viticulture, the grape growing side of it, or you go into winemaking, and winemaking was definitely the the part of it that interested me. I was not so much with the agricultural side of things, I was more with the manufacturing side of things, which I guess is sort of part of where I've ended up now. Um yeah, so yeah, that part of it, being able to take something, do, you know, process it, go through the go through the different motions, and then come out with something at the other end that expressed, you know, where that had come from.

SPEAKER_00 7:35

Yeah. Well did it what excited you about it at the time, making it wine? How did it develop?

SPEAKER_01 7:40

Didn't do any actual work in it until I'd finished my degree. I worked in cellador um during uni as my you know, kind of my weekend job and the thing that kept food on my plate and wine in my in my belly. Yeah. Um so and I'd been quite hospitality-minded prior to that. So um that kind of made sense to me at that at that point in time and didn't get in the way of what I and my study times. Um so it wasn't actually until I had finished that I actually started doing the work, which I think was a bit of a uh not a rude shock, but you know, everyone has these grand romantic notions of what something like winemaking is, and in essence, it's black hands that are never clean. It's you know, chapping, it's um long, sticky days working the press, i it's a whole lot of stuff that I had never really.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

How long's the course? Just out of curiosity. Three years. And you didn't want to go, you did you hadn't worked on a vineyard in that three years?

SPEAKER_01 8:41

Oh, I worked on a vineyard. I did some did some pruning and realized that that was it was cold and wet and my hands were so sore by the end of the day.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

So when when did this light bulb moment was there a light bulb moment, or has this just been a progression into brewing beer and starting your own company, which is two birds brewing?

SPEAKER_01 8:59

I think uh part of it is progression. So the the time when I decided that I wanted to get into beer was I was sitting at Little Creatures in Fremantle, which you know yeah, just sitting there drinking a beer, looking around. The other thing, obviously, with Little Creatures is that the brewery is right there, so it's a whole lot of stainless steel, and I love industrial stuff. It's you know, it gets me going. So I was sitting there looking at all of this, just going, Yeah, this this has got me written all over it. I I I at some stage I'm I remember saying it out loud to whoever I was with, saying, I will work in this company at some point in time. And I think uh that was probably about 12 to 18 months or so before I ended up um actually working there. So I had been, you know, at this time my now husband was living in Perth and I was living in Margaret River, and we'd done that for three years and had been sort of going back and forward and had decided that yeah, maybe moving to the city would be something that I had wanted to do. Um job came up in the newspaper. Literally, they advertise it in the the West Australian and job for a brewer at Little Creatures, and I applied and they gave it to me. I lied in my interview.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

You lied in your interview. Oh, we want to know about it.

SPEAKER_01 10:13

They're well aware of this.

SPEAKER_00 10:14

I had uh subsequently they found out.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

I had said that I was home uh I had homebrewed before, which was an absolute lie. Um turned out that that was not the reason they hired me anyway, so it was so it was okay. Um and but yeah, I walked in with literally zero idea how the brewing process operated. I hadn't even I didn't even I feel bad now that's disgrace. I know, isn't it? I just didn't even didn't even bother to do any research.

SPEAKER_00 10:43

So all of a sudden all these memories of interviewing chefs and being deceived are flooding back as you described it. So you hadn't even swatted and you would have been a rap you could wrap off the process and tell them you were passionate about particular thing.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

No, no, I didn't know anything about it to be honest. I I think I had a vague idea about what might have gone into it, but and I knew about how to I guess the processing side of it, I was like, I can use pumps, I can do things, I can clean stuff, I'm you know, have it from the winemaking background. I had all of that. So um I think that's quite funny. Yeah. So I walked in. Who interviewed you? Green as hell. Um the Do you remember? Yeah, oh absolutely. Yeah, I remember because I stupidly they asked me if I wanted a coffee, and I said, No, I'll have a tea, and the um palava that ensued was just like, oh, you so have not got this job. You are an idiot.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

Somebody's running around trying to find a tea bag. Yeah, trying to find a team. Did you drill down on that? Did you ask for a lemongrass and ginger, for example? Because that's always another way of taking it out a level.

SPEAKER_01 11:41

Yeah, no, it was the worst. I was like, oh, that's not happening even slightly. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

Why did you get the job?

SPEAKER_01 11:46

Uh I believe the winemaking background was uh in my favour because effectively at that time there were m pretty much no one had experience in brewing. Um so at least to have experience in a related industry gave me a real um I guess a leg up uh from a lot of other people. Um and apparently actually the home brewing was not uh people who had home brewing experience were were not necessarily viewed in the most favorable fashion. And why is that? Um I think it's very difficult to to go from home brewing to commercial brewing. I think that there's some some.

SPEAKER_00 12:21

So there's really no connection. It's a bit like as a chef, it's a bit like doing home ec at school. You know, I remember going to college and they said, no, no, you don't need to have done home ec. Like baking scones for four is not going to set you up for a career in hospitality. Yes. The fact that you didn't home brew didn't make any difference. There's obviously a massive difference between home brewing and commercial brewing, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:41

Absolutely. Yeah, there is there is a um there's a definite difference between brewing at home and then brewing on a commercial scale. Obviously, there's the the equipment is is quite different from a scale perspective and then also just from an operational perspective as well.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

Yeah, though, I I'm gonna say this though, it's interesting. I think the commercial world uh viewed MasterChef in a very cynical way when it started off. But what they've realized over the years is that the amateurs bring a certain level of interest, obsession, yes, and creativity. Do you reckon there's any evidence of that in home brewing?

SPEAKER_01 13:09

Yeah, look, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 13:10

And I Because they'd be crazy obsessed. They're not doing it for money. No, no, absolutely to have a nice drink.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

Yeah, exactly. There is there is a level of passion there that is um yeah unsurpassed in to an extent. So the people who are homebrewing are obviously really engaged and and just really love what they do and love the experimentation and and then also a lot of the sharing process as well.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

What do they say about your beer?

SPEAKER_01 13:33

Um, look, we've had a lot of great support. We've there's actually a home brewing competition that we have offered a prize for. So um, you know, one of the the people who've who've won that competition can come in, do a brew day with us and and hang out and sort of learn what how the difference is between between what they're doing and and on a commercial scale and how all of that fits the side.

SPEAKER_00 13:53

What's that competition cool? Do you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_01 13:55

Uh it was the Westgate Brewers, um and they had a stout competition, so the the the award-winning stout gets to come and brew with us.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

I love it. Sounds great. And all these and now I know that there's a Westgate Brewers Association somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

I don't know what that means to me.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Many, many, many home brew clubs around the place who do these kind of things, and there's some amazing um beers coming out of coming out of these um homebrewing clubs.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

How did how did you start? Because we're jumping forward a bit. Yep. So Danielle and yourself have decided to do this. I mean, would did we say was it a light bulb moment, or did you kind of you've got I know where we haven't we haven't really got sideways. So you're working at um you're working at Little Creatures in in WA. How long were you there?

SPEAKER_01 14:37

I was there for about three and a half years.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 14:41

And then I got um a phone call from my husband saying, Hey, I've got g been given this opportunity to set up the Melbourne um base of my company. I said, When are we going? Um and then so we moved to moved to Melbourne ten years ago now.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

So on the beer making at Little Creatures, did did you f did you fall in love with the process? Like you s you've obviously gone, I can do this. I love the industrial side of it. How did how did you enjoy that? How did it how did you develop as a beer maker in at Little Creatures?

SPEAKER_01 15:10

Yeah, well obviously I went from zero. Um, so it was a massive learning curve, um, but one that I really got a massive kick out of, just sort of working out how all of the um ingredients can fit together and how everything works. It was, I mean, there wasn't a lot of uh, you know, everything was set, the recipes were set, it was just here you go, do your thing, execute this over and over and over again. So from a commercial sense.

SPEAKER_00 15:37

Yeah, so from a commercial sense, you you're working to very strict parameters and it's about quality control, I suppose.

SPEAKER_01 15:44

Absolutely. So I learnt uh I got such a good grounding in process and just execution and consistency and just doing it right every single damn day. Um so uh they're some of the the fussiest, most intense um brewers that I've met in a very positive way, and it was such a good, yeah, such a good thing for me to build my career on. And I see some of the brewers out there who've worked at Little Creatures, and they without fail always go on to do amazing stuff because of everything that we learnt in that space.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

Um so yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

Did you ever get to play? Did you ever because in Little Creatures you've got Rogers beer. I mean, there's a they've they're now producing a number of different beers, haven't they? But ownership's changed and things have changed, I presume.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

Yeah, so no, there was there was that was just not one of the things that we got to do. It was uh these are the recipes and this is what you do, and and um but yeah, that wasn't necessarily the worst thing for where I was at in my career as well. I was pretty much happy to to uh just be a sponge, literally just take in as much information as I could. I absolutely loved the process. It was a really um it was a very intense period of my life. I worked, I mean, I worked vintages and I thought they were intense, and this was more than that because it was every single day of my life. Um you know, we used to look we w worked a lot of long hours. Um but I think on top of that, it really bonded me with the people that I was working with at that point in time. I think you know, sometimes hardships can um bring people together.

SPEAKER_00 17:14

But it's the better and sweet, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 17:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

Is it a delicate process? I mean, you risk you know, uh it's a living thing, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 17:22

Beer? Definitely. Yeah, look, I think it is a delicate process, and I guess what I've always had to hold it up against is um is wine. And with beer, you've got these conditions of um a pH and kind of low alcohol that are really susceptible to, you know, microbial um contamination. Whereas with wine, it's got super low pH and the alcohol is through the roof. Nothing wants to live in it, really. Uh so it kind of protects itself. You can be quite I'm gonna use the word dirty here as a winemaker, um, because you don't necessarily need to to protect the wine as much as you do with something like beer. So beer, you've got to be just scrupulously clean in everything that you do. And yeah, you're pretty much uh you're like a gatekeeper for the beer. Your job is to to kind of not mole-codle it, but just guide it through this process and and everything else away.

SPEAKER_00 18:19

Yes, other yeast bacteria, bacteria, all that sort of stuff. So I thought it would be the opposite. I thought it would be something that's kind of living and doing its own thing and you'd encourage all sorts of kind of stuff and there's definitely bubbly things.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

There's definitely parts of that that there is. So there's a lot of people, especially these days, and I guess as um people become more aware of the different um the different beers and the different flavours, there's a lot more people who are doing the wild, sour, all of that kind of stuff, where you can embrace a bit more of the the native flora, so to speak. But um, yeah, in the to m to me, in the kind of commercial beers, the the sort of the things that that we're making, we're trying to do it the same every single time, and that remain that means we just have to we have to be in control of the process. We can't let something else control the process.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

Can you break the process down? Because I think probably everybody thinks they know how you make a beer, but how do you essentially make a beer?

SPEAKER_01 19:14

Yeah, okay. Uh so it starts out with malted barley. Uh so what does molting mean? Yeah, so um going back a step from that, um, you know, barley, you've seen it out there growing. Do any country drive and you'll come across it in Australia. Um it goes to the moltings whereby they actually allow it to start to germinate. So it starts to grow a little um shoot, starts to put out some roots. Uh, and then what they actually do is they effectively dry it, put it into like a state of suspended animation. Um they can also, so you know, there's there's base malt, which is just standard stuff that you use in in a brew, and then there's a whole lot of different specialty malts that are available as well, from these kind of crystal malts that effectively when they they go through like a stewing process right at the end that turns the sugar inside it into like a sugar crystal, so that when you bite into one of these grains, you you know take it away. It's like a demerira sugar kind of kernel inside the malt. And then there's there's also roast malt as well, which is you know, just like I guess with coffee, it's gone through a big roasting drum and it's black and it's acrid, and uh you only need a really small percentage of it in order to actually give it a really intense flavour and also that you know black colour that you get from things like stouts. So barley. Malted barley, there's also malted wheat and some other lots of other grains, just like everything that's happening. There's rye, there's spelt, there's you know, you name it, there's uh there's a lot of oats as well. Um so malted barley, um, we effectively mix that with water at a really specific temperature, and then what's happening is inside the barley, back in the malting process, there's a whole lot of starch. And then once you mix it with the water, what you're doing is you're causing an enzymatic reaction to take place. And then that's going through breaking up all the starches, turning them into sugar, because sugar is what we want later on, because that's the basis for all of our alcohol production. Yep. So getting all this sugar forming, we extract all of the sh all of the liquid phase from the solid phase, effectively, put that into a kettle. It's called a kettle. So you strain it. Yeah, yeah. As good as and then put it into this kettle, boil it away with so this is where we add the hops. Right. Um, so very specific ingredient to beer, um responsible for all of the bitter compounds, and then also responsible for a lot of the flavour and aroma um that people would associate with beer. This, you know, when I talked about Little Creature's Pale before, it um had all of these fruity characters that that you know we were unaccustomed. Them to, but so hops can throw anything from tropical fruit, citrus, grassy, berries, you kind of name it, a lot of these very fruity kind of characters.

SPEAKER_00 22:11

Um are they coming from uh because we're growing a lot of hops in Australia, Tasmania?

SPEAKER_01 22:16

Yes, absolutely. Tasmania up near Bright as well. Um New South Wales. They're actually kind of popping up all over the place at the moment.

SPEAKER_00 22:24

Yeah, it's great. So hops, just finish that. So what characteristics do the hops give? So these are a really crucial part of the beer making process. When I think of beer, I think of hops.

SPEAKER_01 22:32

Absolutely, because they are specific for beer. You know, in order to be labelled as beer, you have to have a percentage of hops being used in it. So uh yeah, so they yeah, can give the really fruity, tropical, passion fruit, um, grassy berries, there's a whole kind of range, a whole spectrum.

SPEAKER_00 22:49

And is that based on the recipe you're using or how you treat it, like the way you're extracting the flavours, or is it where you get your hops from or the typo hop?

SPEAKER_01 22:57

All of the above, yeah, exactly. So um the hops themselves have a general uh general characters that they will throw, and then it also depends on how you utilize them. So when I'm talking about using in the kettle, if you use the hops at the beginning of the um the boil, so you boil for 60 minutes, if you put the hops in at the beginning, then they you'll get a lot of the bitterness extracted if you're adding the hops towards the end because all of the the flavour and aroma compounds are effectively essential oils, so they will disappear up the stack, they're volatile, they'll they'll disappear into the atmosphere if you put too much heat on them, right? Same thing with cooking. Yeah. Uh so if you add them towards the end, then you get that flavour and aroma compounds extracted into the beer and then they they stay there. Um and then we also add a stack of hops um actually into the fermenter as well. So when the beer is is cold um and that has a quite a different character to it.

SPEAKER_00 23:46

Making a sauce. It sounds like it's like an alchemy of flavours, isn't it? And flavour compounds. It's lovely. Yeah, there's so so you play around with that to get the result you want.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

Exactly. Multiple and different hops have different effects at different times, and so there's certain hops that we don't put anywhere near the kettle because we don't like the character that they throw. We only ever add them to the fermenter, um, because we think that's the way it the way it works best. And we're also a lot of what we do is um a lot of the the beers that we make in our limited release range, so the things that we just do small batches of, we use a lot of the the things from cooking, so we we use a lot of strange ingredients and we'll often use them the way you would in cooking. So for example, we have you know, one of our the beers that we actually have ongoing is called taco. So it's Mexican-inspired, it's got we actually add um flaked corn to the mash, and then we add lime peel, some of it in the kettle, and then also some of it in the dry hop, and we actually wash up whole bunches of fresh coriander and they get added into the fermenter, so they actually extract that really fresh, zesty coriander note.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

Interesting. Whose idea was that? Well, you've just been playing around and you've done I'm gonna start chucking fresh ingredients in. Pretty much and you put your hand up. No one can see that.

SPEAKER_01 25:04

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 25:05

So you moved to Melbourne, worked for Mountain Goat. How long did you work for Mountain Goat for?

SPEAKER_01 25:09

About three and a half years. So I was head brewer there.

SPEAKER_00 25:12

Had you started to properly fall in love with beer at this point?

SPEAKER_01 25:15

Yes. I had honestly fallen out of love with beer at the end of Little Creatures, and I had actually studied uh was had enrolled to study vet science when I got a call from Mountain Goat saying, Hey, we want you to to Oh, so you were gonna do a career change. I was gonna do a career change. I was almost lost to the brewing industry.

SPEAKER_00 25:31

But uh why was that?

SPEAKER_01 25:33

Um I was I was burnt out, to be honest. Um just a a bit done with it all and and just hadn't uh wasn't inspired.

SPEAKER_00 25:40

What was it about Mountain Goat that re-inspired you?

SPEAKER_01 25:43

Uh look, they've got a it's an amazing company. I love Cam and Dave, um, who were the owners. They yeah, just kind of drew me back in and and made me remember why I loved beer. So um yeah, completely reinvigorated me um and then yeah, inspired me to go and start my own business.

SPEAKER_00 26:01

So how do you go from working because pretty much everybody knows Mountain Goat. How do you go from working at Mountain Goat to having an idea of opening a beer brewing business yourself? Where does this come from?

SPEAKER_01 26:14

It came from a desire to be, I guess, a part of the entire process. So obviously brewing, I was sort of you know leading that part of the operation within the company, but I wanted to be a part of all of it. I wanted to be a part of the marketing, I wanted to be a part of, I just wanted to be across it all, which was sort of the realization that I was never going to get that working for for anyone else. So the only way for that was to actually start my own business. And I had been saying this to Danielle, and then she had said, Hey, well, I think I can be that other part, and I believe in you, so let's do this thing. Let's let's start let's start this brewery. And the night Two Birds Brewing, Australia's first female-owned brewing company.

SPEAKER_00 26:55

That's a great tagline. Who came up with that?

SPEAKER_01 26:59

We probably didn't even realize oh no, we definitely realised at the time. It was uh yeah, it was to me at the time it was crazy that it was 2011 and we didn't have, you know, an all-female-owned brewing company. It just seemed it seemed nuts. Why why was that? Why is that? Uh I guess beer's traditionally I guess everything about beer has been very male dominated. Um, you know, probably myself growing up, all of the um the advertising around beer, you know, hard-earned thirsts, all that kind of stuff. I think that informed a lot of people's um I guess ideas about beer in this country. Um and so it informs who drinks beer, and then if you don't drink beer, then you're certainly not going to go on to make it. So I think that yeah, it's still strange to people when I tell them that I'm a that I'm a brewer.

SPEAKER_00 27:52

Um I find that amazing. Yeah, really do. I know. Because actually, when you look back in history, they used to have what they call gin street, because everyone was drinking gin gin in London because no one could drink the water. Yes. They either drank gin or beer, and then everybody was just basically drunk. And so I believe, and I may be wrong, there was almost a government campaign to get people off gin because they were drinking so much gin, because it was the only safe way of consuming liquid, to drinking beer. Yes. Because it had less alcohol in it. So people could if you're on gin street, you were washed up and you were close to the devil. If you're on beer street, you're in a much better place. Yeah, sure. So and that was a few hundred years ago. That's four hundred years ago or something. So why do we end up with a a drink that's only seen as something that you've got to have a Ute, wear a pair of shorts and a pair of work boots to to enjoy?

SPEAKER_01 28:33

Yeah, and I honestly believe it's a it's a marketing thing because you I mean luckily lucky enough with what we do to get to travel a lot. And you go somewhere like Belgium and you sit in a square in Belgium and there are women of all ages just casually enjoying a beer because it's part of what they do and and it's no one's ever told them that it's a man's thing. There's none of this expectation. Whereas, you know, it's it's it is uh still a fairly firmly held belief that, yeah, beer is what men drink.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

So what was the response like when you started the company?

SPEAKER_01 29:08

Yeah, uh the response has been amazing. Um everyone's been incredibly supportive from the industry. Um, you know, I guess when I started out when I was 15 years ago, there was myself and one other I was aware of one other female brewer in the entire country. Um but it's been nothing but you know, warm. It's it's never it's just never really been a thing. It's never factored in within the actual brewing industry. It's it's definitely more a sort of a public perception um thing that has been, yeah, people find it a bit um novelty's not the right word, but yeah, have found it to be quite an interesting point.

SPEAKER_00 29:43

So if you knew of only one other female in the brewing industry at the time, are there now more females in the brewing industry?

SPEAKER_01 29:50

Yeah, look, there's been a a massive increase in in the number of females actually related to the brewing industry. And um part of that has been I have I've been president of a um society called the Pink Boot Society, which was just about um, I guess creating a sort of a networking platform and connecting all of the female, the females involved in beer, not necessarily brewers, but who sort of gain any income from beer, so if they're in sales or or whatever else. Um and we do a lot of scholarships and and just provide some support, you know. It's not like anyone's had anything horrible go wrong. It's just uh it's nice for us to be able to kind of put all of these people together and they're all incredibly like-minded and and wonderful people. But yeah, it's amazing to me, even since 2011, um, when we started how many, how much the the the female's presence has grown, both in the female drinkers and also um, you know, actually within the industry.

SPEAKER_00 30:43

Yeah. And so for example, now at uni, are there women at uni that are going, yeah, I want to go into brewing?

SPEAKER_01 30:49

Yeah, look, it's uh we only have one course here in in Australia, but I believe there is definitely more females coming in through that and then yeah, through other avenues as well.

SPEAKER_00 30:59

And what's changing the rules in terms of uh women drinking beer?

SPEAKER_01 31:03

Uh I think again, uh people are just kind of connecting with flavour, and I think less of the I think the perceptions about um who drinks beer are changing. And I I like to think that we kind of helped with that a little bit, that um you know being out there and and pushing our our company and and then showing people that it's not necessarily what you expect it is. And women are amazing when you when you actually give them a beer and they're so great with identifying flavours and um uh quite open-minded about stuff as well. So um, and especially you give them things like a dark beer where they think they're gonna hate it because they just think it's not what it's gonna be, and then it can be really sweet and rich, and it plays into a lot of characters that that can be quite familiar and and um quite enjoyable.

SPEAKER_00 31:48

Yeah, well it goes back to that uh session, you know, what we call in the industry a session beers, you know. So that male-dominated, you know, I'm drinking a VB and slamming, you know, seven, eight, nine beers. It's not a great place to be. And actually, beer drinking's changed, hasn't it? Not just for women, but for men too. I enjoy a couple of really beautiful beers and also pairing beer with food. So the whole dynamic of beer drinking, totally different to what it was, say, 15 years ago, right?

SPEAKER_01 32:14

Absolutely. And I mean I honestly believe that there is any dish you can make, I guarantee you I can find a beer that will pair with it better than any wine.

SPEAKER_00 32:23

Ooh. That's bold, isn't it? There's now thousands of winemakers getting upset. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

Well, because there's so many flavours that you that that that beer can kind of cross over. That I guarantee that anything that you can put into a dish, I can draw out that character through a beer so that it will pair better than than anyone.

SPEAKER_00 32:41

And looking at the beers that you make now? Because you make a number of different beers.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 32:45

Give me an example.

SPEAKER_01 32:46

Yeah, well, so look, I mean, I guess we like to play around with with flavours and um you know, we've done we've done beers inspired by red velvet cupcakes. So we've done um things with cacao and vanilla.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

Well, hang on a minute, stick with the red velvet cupcakes. How do you get a beer to reflect a red velvet cupcake?

SPEAKER_01 33:04

So the great thing that we got, we've got the ability to obviously play with with colour and a little bit of we don't have texture necessarily, which is something obviously that that chefs use a lot of. Um so but you know, using the cacao, using the vanilla, we made a red ale so that it has the colour, and then we also nitrogenated it as well so that it has nitrogenated. Yeah, so like when you pour a s pour a uh a Guinness, right?

SPEAKER_00 33:24

You know how it has the the the different smooth kind of head on it.

SPEAKER_01 33:28

Exactly. So we then use nitrogen to kind of mm I guess mimic that icing that you would get.

SPEAKER_00 33:36

Okay, so you get a very fine, smooth, creamy top on it. Exactly. It's clever, I like that.

SPEAKER_01 33:42

So a lot of that kind of stuff. So I just think there's such a there's such a range of flavours in beer that that it's just always going to go with.

SPEAKER_00 33:48

So something but so something based on a red velvet cupcake. And I cut you off because I drilled down onto the detail. Give me a couple of others.

SPEAKER_01 33:54

Uh so obviously we've talked about taco. Um one of the we love Vietnamese food, you know, in the Western suburbs with just down the road from um Foot Scray Markets. So, you know, one of the beers we did was Rice Rice Baby, and it had Vietnamese mint, it had lemongrass, it had um, you know, some lemon peel and um yeah, just all of these really lovely fresh fresh.

SPEAKER_00 34:16

And didn't you do you then use, say, rice or roasted rice or things like that as part of the fermenting process?

SPEAKER_01 34:21

Absolutely. So we use rice in the uh in the mash ton as well. And and the thing that rice does, it's actually traditionally used by the large brewers, like so a sahi's got a really large um proportion of rice in and it what it does, it makes it super dry. Um so we've used used that in the mash tun as well.

SPEAKER_00 34:36

So two birds brewing, where do where do people go to taste your beer, try your beer?

SPEAKER_01 34:39

Uh so we've got a stack of tap points around the country and obviously around Melbourne, but uh people can come down to our uh brewery and tasting room in Spotswood.

SPEAKER_00 34:48

So we're in Spotswood.

SPEAKER_01 34:49

Just over the Westgate. What's the address? It is 136 Hall Street in Spotswood.

SPEAKER_00 34:54

You always got to give things a plug when given the opportunity. Danielle would be rapping at the back of the knife. I know, I know. You know that, don't you? She's going you missed an opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 35:01

Slow on the update.

SPEAKER_00 35:02

Yeah. And and website is?

SPEAKER_01 35:03

Uh website, twobirdsbrewing.com.au.

SPEAKER_00 35:05

It's got the story on, it's got the beers that you produce.

SPEAKER_01 35:08

Absolutely. Everything you could want to know and more, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_00 35:11

And didn't you produce a beer for George?

SPEAKER_01 35:13

I did, absolutely. Yeah, we had Hellenic Alex.

SPEAKER_00 35:15

George Colin Barris at Hellenic. Exactly. Williamstown. Is that right?

SPEAKER_01 35:18

So we had Hellenic Ale, which um was we actually used the Greek mountain tea, um, and we used Zeus Hops because, you know, obviously named after a Greek god. Why would you not?

SPEAKER_00 35:28

Sounds great, doesn't it? I tried it, it was good. I loved it. Excellent. Yeah, and I thought it was really nice that he'd approach you or you'd approach him and connected the dots. It's really lovely. The future of Two Birds Brewing?

SPEAKER_01 35:38

Um, look, obviously, more beer out into the world, more beer in people's hands. We've um just installed our own bottling line and and just done a bit of a refresh of the brand. So yeah, just pushing forward and getting it out into to more places.

SPEAKER_00 35:50

Is there strife in big business brewing? I'm only asking that because and I know it's a bit political, but obviously the big breweries have lost some of their traction in recent years. And if you said Melbourne, everybody would go CUB. But you say Melbourne now, and often people go to Birds Brewing or um you know Mountain Coat, they say different things.

SPEAKER_01 36:08

Absolutely. There's so many new people coming on board, there's so many new brewing companies opening, and um yeah, there's so many options out there that's you know Mind blowing. Yeah, exactly. It's on everybody to get out there and try something new and and support the small guys.

SPEAKER_00 36:23

I hope you enjoyed that chat. Don't forget to let me know who you'd love me to talk to. I'll call anybody. Make sure you subscribe to my podcast so you can keep updated with new episodes as they launch.