3 minute read
Mick Cameron & Red Proudfoot from Pirate
SMOOTH SAILING AT PIRATE LIFE
explore DRINKS caught up with Mick Cameron, CEO, and Red Proudfoot, co-founder and Brewer of South Australia’s Pirate Life Brewing for a chat about how they started, all things beer, and what’s on the horizon for one of Australia’s fastest growing craft breweries.
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explore DRINKS. Tell us a little bit about how Pirate Life Brewing started? Mick Cameron. Jack is my son, both him and Red who are brewers met up at BrewDog around six to seven years ago and worked there together. After two years over at BrewDog, Jack came back and worked for Little Creatures and Red worked for Cheeky Monkey in Margaret River. Red is initially from Western Australia, while Jack and I are Tasmanian. We spent a period of time in WA in addition to spending some time in America, where I was looking after the importation for Coopers and BrewDog. I spent around four years doing that, looking after 42 different states in the US, working with 87 distributors, which is where I got my understanding of sales and distribution from. ED. You’ve gone from the original core range of three beers to include more like the IPA and Hopco NZ Pale Ale, and now the barrel-aged series in collaboration with Tomfoolery Wines. Are there plans to expand the core range? Red Proudfoot. The core range will grow every now and then. We’ve got the IPA in the core range now, but we’ve also got two long-term additions, the Golden Era Golden Ale and the Hopco NZ Pale Ale. Hopco is our hops supplier, they supply a lot of Aussie brewers, and they wanted to use some different hops to get more attention around them. We also want to start doing some sours and a few more barrel aged beers. MC. The other thing we’re looking at for next year is bringing our 3.2% ABV Porter (Baby Porter) and Stout out in cans for next winter. Red is also working on an Imperial Red Ale. Those are some things you might see for next year.
ED. How has the reception been to the barrel-aged series with Tomfoolery? MC. It’s what I call a divisive type of beer. Which is part of the reason why we like making those types of beers, because some people like it and some people don’t. With barrel-ageing, you have to let the barrel do the work; you don’t have a lot of control of what comes from the barrel. We’ve had some very good ratings on it, some people love it and some people don’t like it, but that’s the nature of it.
ED. The Pirate Life can design is so clean and simple yet stands out. How did you decide on the design for the can? R. We worked with a designer in Melbourne who took us on very early on and she got to know us well and we came up with the design. Having a clean design has a lot more attention to detail than it might look. We worked with her closely. I’d be telling her, “Move the logo up 1ml, 2ml, 3ml,” to get it exactly where it should be and make sure it was right.
ED. What’s your favourite part of being a brewer on a daily basis? RP. I love creating something that not only I enjoy, but other people enjoy as well. Beer is fun. Back in the day, I loved being on the tools and loved being in a brewhouse, I don’t get to do that as much anymore.
ED. Do you have a personal favourite from the Pirate Life range that’s your go-to? MC. My go-to is the Pale Ale, only because I don’t drink a lot these days. It’s always consistent and it’s just about the right ABV for me at 5.4%, so it’s pretty steady.
RP. The Imperial Red Ale we have coming out, I’ve been dying to make this beer for a few years now. It’s designed around one particular hop that hasn’t been available to us for a while. It comes in at 7.1% ABV. It’s sharp with good malt character, more than we usually go for.
