Hello from the other side of the world. I’m drinking a beer right now in Fremantle, Western Australia, with the Indian Ocean in view, about 11,650 miles from New York City — about as close as you can get to the opposite side of the globe from our fair city. This is my final week down under and I begin the long journey home this weekend.
The area around Perth, the state’s largest city, is a fascinating place, largely fueled by oil and mining money that’s quite noticeable in shiny high-rise towers with logos from Chevron, Rio Tinto, and Woodside Petroleum on the them. Add to that the fact that it’s one of the most isolated cities on earth — the closest city of even 100,000 people is over 1,300 miles away — and that’s made it the most expensive city I’ve visited on this trip, with pints of beer averaging around $9-10 US even with the American-friendly exchange rate.
What’s most interesting from a beer perspective is that of the five breweries I’ve visited so far in this region, three of them have corporate ownership by either Asahi or Kirin. Hiding brewery ownership is alive and well in Australia, and the “illusion of choice” has been apparent at some of the bars I’ve visited here, with vast swaths of tap lists being dominated by one or both companies. The U.S. is not unique when it comes to corporate beer.
With a nod to a departed brewery, Schenker Beer Company launches
Back in October of 2021, the New York beer scene was shocked over the sudden closure of Folksbier, a brewery in Brooklyn that had an production space and taproom in a small space on a residential street in Carroll Gardens. At the time of its closure, brewer Joey Pepper-Mellusi was at the helm and had gained a reputation for simple, beautiful beers, and it left many wondering what he’d get up to next.
Now, for the first time since 2021, Joey’s beers are available in New York City with his new brand, Schenker Beer Company. The Schenker beers are being brewed at Twelve Percent Beer Project in North Haven, Connecticut, but the beers will feel quite familiar to those who drank in the Folksbier taproom. The first three beers in the lineup include Emerald Gardens, an IPA with New Zealand-grown Nelson Sauvin and Motueka hops; Hellbier, a German-style Helles with heirloom barley and Perle, Hersbrucker, and Saphir hops; and Mandarin Glow-Up, a Berliner-style Weisse with mandarin juice and zest. If the Glow-Up seems familiar, the latter was a popular beer in a series back at Folksbier, though all three beers are continuing in the tradition of what Joey brewed in Brooklyn.
Schenker Beer Company will host two launch events this week in New York City, at Proletariat in the East Village tonight starting at 5pm, and at Gold Star Beer Counter in Prospect Heights tomorrow at 3pm. Cans are already out in market at some of your favorite beer shops, too.
Brewery Tracker
Total brewery count: 3,070
Total breweries visited in 2023: 174
Total breweries visited in Australia: 49
Brewery Visit of the Week
Brewery #3,062, Gage Roads Brew Co., Fremantle, Western Australia, Australia (Visited 19-Apr-2023)
Considering that the vast majority of large breweries I’ve visited in Australia so far have been shrouded in corporate ownership, I was surprised, based on the sheer number of places I saw their beer on tap and the size of their space, that Gage Roads is independent (though, for a few years, Woolworths — which still exists in Australia as a large grocery conglomerate — had a stake in them before the brewery bought it back in 2016). Today, it’s one of Australia’s largest indie breweries. Their growth and popularity has led them to build a truly special production brewery and taproom in the Indian Ocean port of Fremantle, which opened early last year. The A Shed was an historic port building that Gage Roads turned into a massive 1500-capacity venue that overlooks the busy port (there’s even a screen that shows when ships are arriving to or leaving port and where they’re going or coming from). It’s a huge investment in both their future and in Fremantle, the city they’ve called home since their founding in 2002.
The highlight of my visit there was really the great views and comfortable seating areas enjoyed with friends, but the One Hop Wonder Extra Pale Ale with YQH-1320 was a standout, if only because I was drinking beer with an experimental hop from Washington State’s Yakima Valley. A WA beer with WA hops, if you will. Regardless, this was a special place, and also marks the westernmost brewery I’ll visit in Australia. It’s time to head back east from here. A long way back east.
Long Read of the Week
I have to give a lot of credit to the Aussie beer site The Crafty Pint for being a fantastic resource while I’ve been down under. In addition to having some great information about the country’s breweries, they also publish informative articles like this one from Jono Outred on Western Australia’s hop growers. Get to know what this region is doing — it helped me decide I’m coming back again sometime for hop harvest season down in Margaret River.
One More Thing
I’ve been out of the country for the entire time this idiotic Bud Light thing has been going on, and too much has been written about it already, but the one thing needs to be reiterated — the people calling for a boycott of a beer company that simply included a trans woman in some targeted marketing are showing their true colors. They’re hateful bigots, full stop. For them to waste money buying beer to performatively dump it down the drain, shoot up cans, and send death threats to a company over something as innocuous as this shows the lengths they’re willing to go to be vocal about their hate. These people’s concerns were never really about bathrooms or children or school sports if the simple inclusion of a trans person in a beer marketing campaign sets them off like this. It’s hatred showing its ugly face — hatred fueled by disinformation and increasingly disingenuous, soulless, performative politicians that don’t believe these hateful things themselves, but say them to rile up an extremist base to win votes.
That’s what makes the Anheuser-Busch CEO’s milquetoast response to the uproar from these hateful bigots even more frustrating. You cannot defeat hatred with weasel words and both-sides-ism. “We are in the business of bringing people together over a beer,” Brendan Whitworth wrote. You cannot “bring people together” when one side does not even see the other’s own humanity. You cannot pretend that this is an issue of “freedom, hard work and respect for one another” when one side is working hard to undo the freedoms of others to live their lives. It’s disheartening and utterly disappointing that even one of the country’s largest companies — largely a bully themselves when it comes to marketing and sales tactics — can’t even bother to take a stand against bigoted bullies in the face of pure, unabashed hatred.
Cheers,
Chris