Sydney 2.0 - during uncertain times and also due to the sheer amount of awesome Indie craft breweries at our fingertips, we are doing another journey through Sydney - Enjoy as we bring some old, some new, all equally as individual and producing fantastic beers!
Staves Brewery
4-8 Grose St, Glebe, NSW 2037
We are so excited to have Staves onboard! Earlier last year we sat in their brewpub with a good mate and every single beer we had (a few!) was on point in terms of style and flavour - we said to ourselves “these are the kinds of breweries we want to showcase, if only they canned their beer!” And now here they are!
Evan has a chat to Steve Drissell, Owner & Founder of Staves Brewery..
Evan: Your hand has been forced into canning by current circumstances – was canning ever a part of the plan for Staves and is it exciting to be getting your beers a bit further afield and into peoples homes?
Steve: Canning was something we were going to do at some point, but COVID made it a top priority. It’s very exciting for us to finally get so many of our beers into can and let people experience what we’re doing in our little brewery.
Evan: You hold an annual dark beer tap takeover “Winter Solstice” and have a few really interesting dark beers in your range – are dark beers a bit of a passion spot for the brewers, and if so, Why?
Steve: We love a dark beer and mid winter is the perfect time to drink them. It’s an event we really enjoy brewing for and the day is always a great hit. There are so many styles we can play with. We generally brew a few dark beers that we’ve brewed before and want to bring back, then experiment with a few new ones.
Evan: If you could brew a beer with no regards to cost, production or sales, what would it be and why?
Steve: Ha ha, we do that all the time! That’s how our Pale Ale won Sydney Royal Beer Competition ‘NSW Best in Show' last year. We make our beer the best it can be, not to a price point.
Lord Nelson Brewery
19 Kent St, The Rocks, NSW 2000
This is our cellar door and so a nod to the new an ever changing seasonal selection is available - these brews are seen as trial brews or testing for future releases outside of the brewery, we gather the team and discuss each brew and gauge the feedback.
Kristian: We have grandfathers that brought their son for his first ale, sitting together with his son now for his first ale, along with a pork pie or our ploughman's. Timeless
Kristian: That's how we brew every day! Gets the best results for the ales served over the bar.
Wayward Brewing Co
1 Gehrig Lane, Annandale, NSW 2050
Wayward Brewing Co is a must visit for anyone in or visiting Sydney - their cellar door is housed in what used to be a winery, it is cavernous yet cosy and the vibe is, in our view, matched by very few. They always have a huge range of beers on tap, both their own and from guest breweries.
We were lucky enough to steal some time from Head Brewer Shaun Blissett:
Evan: We are a little wayward and all about discovery here – Tell us about your discovery series?
Shaun: Discovery Series was created to give us an outlet to show off some interesting beers that may be high abv, barrel aged, fermented with unique bacteria or yeast strains or just too good to put in cans. We bottle condition all these beers which we find really enhances the drinking experience for these styles
Evan: You started as Gypsy brewers before setting down roots in your amazing location – tell us about this way of life as a brewer in the early days before being able to have a home of your own - pro’s, con’s and lessons learnt?
Shaun: Its awful. Never having a true place to call home and being at the mercy of already extremely busy brewers is not a situation you want to be in for long if you can avoid it. Though with everything you do in the brewing industry, you get to spend a lot of time in different breweries, meet and chat with (annoy haha) some really good people and learn from each other constantly.
Evan: If you could brew a beer with no regards to cost, production or sales, what would it be and why?
Shaun: I like to think that your best beers should never really be held back by cost, but some styles just don't sell as well as others. The brewers here at Wayward, we really love Belgian and classical German styles which can be a real hard sell at the moment. They will be back though!!
Frenchies Brewery
6/61-71 Mentmore Ave, Rosebery, NSW 2018
Sausage Queen Brewing
380 New Canterbury Rd, Dulwich Hill, NSW 2203
