SPOTLIGHT ON
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There’s no denying there’s been a shift in the beer-drinking culture in recent years. Instead of reaching for a can of VB, we’re more often sampling and sipping an array of craft ales created by small-batch brewers. Like everything we consume, people are paying more acute attention to where and who the product has come from.
Even the name Five Barrel has scientific meaning. “Barrel is measure of fluid. And in the beer brewing world a barrel is 120L,” Phil explains. “We brew 600L batches… which is five barrels.” In the Illawarra, we’re so lucky to have a few regional brewers doing their thing for our drinking pleasure – and one of them is Five Barrel Brewing. Owned by Phil O’Shea, who has lived in the Illawarra for more than 20 years, Five Barrel is a real family affair. If you head to the taproom, Phil or his dad, Mike, will pour you a beer and on Fridays and Saturdays Phil’s mum, Jane, will whip you up the likes of a polenta waffle bowl or delicious cheeseburger to accompany it. Phil’s siblings and wife are also heavily involved in the booming biz, “The focus of the brewery has always been to grow the business as a family,” Phil says. Tucked away at the southern part of Keira Street in the industrial area, the warehouse-style brewery is chilled out and completely unassuming. You can easily spend an hour chatting to Phil or Mike about the selection they have on tap and tasting the seasonal range, before walking away with a growler or six-pack in hand and a deeper appreciation for talented local makers like Phil and his family. For Phil, who is not a big drinker himself, the chemistry of the perfect brew is the driving force.
We sat down with Phil to talk all things beer (and, of course, have a couple of taste tests, too). When did your brewing career begin? My first journey with brewing was with a mate in high school in his shed, making home brew that we thought was amazing, but on reflection… we knew nothing! It was just creating alcohol for the sake of creating alcohol. More recently, it was after I left my job in the corporate world. I loved the culture around beer in Europe and America and I wanted to bring a little of that to Wollongong. I saw the scene was starting to develop in Wollongong about five years ago. That’s when I started brewing with the view to start a brewery. I didn’t treat it as a hobby from the start; it was home brewing with purpose. It was a different perspective to my first foray into brewing, because I focussed on the science behind it. It’s been a huge learning curve, but I found my feet pretty quickly, and it only took a couple of brews to be genuinely happy with the beers I was creating. But then it took a few years of remaking the recipes over and over to feel like I could replicate what I was doing on a small scale to a commercial scale. All my research was showing me that having a killer recipe isn’t the only thing you need, you need to be savvy in business as
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