DRAUGHT PRODUCTS: TAPPING INTO TRENDS

Tapping into trends

The owners of the Carringbush Hotel in Melbourne had several reasons to host a significant draught offering, and locals are reaping the rewards of those philosophies.

OVER THE last four years, The Carringbush Hotel in inner-city Melbourne has built up a devout following of locals who know that they can rely on the pub to serve up a pot of a dependable brew or some quirky little microbrew that they might never get to try anywhere else. This mix of recognisable, entry-level beers as well as quirky, adventurous drops, keeps many Abbotsford locals popping into the pub on a weekly basis.

The tap offering at The Carringbush Hotel is significant, with 22 taps serving up a wide range of beer, plus a cider and a seltzer; as well as eight taps pouring a variety of local wines. The extensive tap offering is the result of a mix of fortuitous circumstances and the new owners’ philosophy for their venue.

Liam Matthews and his business partner took over the lease of the pub in 2018. They immediately discovered that the cellar was quite substantial and located directly under the pub’s central bar. Such a short route from cellar to bar really allowed the two partners to maximise the potential of the pub’s draught offering. It also aligned with their concerns about wastage and recycling, so they decided to do something quite special with the pub’s beer offer – make it entirely on tap.

The Carringbush Hotel houses 30 taps, covering beer and wine.

“I realised that the cellar was absolutely enormous but also directly under the bar, which gave us great scope to do something quite special here. We know that there is a lot of issues with recycling in this country, so what if we were able to almost rule it out by having our entire beer offering on tap?” explains Matthews.

Getting the balance right

The pair started locking in contracts with both the bigger brewers and several independent breweries so they had all the bases covered as well as getting a financial boost for their renovations of the pub.

“We signed contracts with brewers and they contributed money to the renovation, and we signed a timeline or literage contract depending on what they wanted to do. So we put together our wishlist of brewers we wanted to work with and what we wanted to see as an outcome, and then we just started calling those breweries,” states Matthews.

The pub’s first 16 taps now cover the breadth of beer drinkers’ tastes, with a mainstream beer like XXXX in tap, as well as a couple of midstrength beers; a lot of major Victorian independent brewers also get a couple of taps, and all the main beer styles are covered – everything from a pale ale to a stout. There’s also a cider and seltzer on tap.

The last six taps – the pub’s rotator taps – Matthews has kept for local small brewers and microbreweries doing small-batch experimental brews. It’s one of the main reasons for repeat visits to the Carringbush Hotel.

“That’s where we get the stuff that’s really outside of the box. We try to stick to pretty local with those six rotators, as there’s so many brewers in the country now, it’s almost impossible to make everyone happy. So we’ve formed relationships and we’re basically working with a core group of people with those taps.

“It’s a lot of fun and it keeps the locals interested because we get small volumes for those rotators taps, just one or two kegs. So if you come in once a week you’re guaranteed to see new beers on tap. The locals love it,” states Matthews.

Wine not?

Carringbush Hotel also has eight dedicated ambient taps for draught wine – three whites, four reds and a Rosé. Again, the layout of the venue afforded Carringbush Hotel the opportunity to give wine on tap a decent standing.

“We’ve done wine on tap before, and it’s difficult when you’re pulling it a long distance, and its difficult to keep it pouring well and cool. For the white wines, they freeze or titrate crystals form in them if you leave it in a chilled python. So having it directly underneath the bar is really easy.”

Matthews began chatting to the owners of Noisy Ritual, a local wine producer, about kegging their wines for the venue. They ha dnever done it before, but between the two businesses they settled on KeyKegs. It effectively works like a goon bag within a plastic keg, with gas pressure squeezing the liquid out of the keg. The system means that the wine stays fresh significantly longer. Meaning hardly any wine is wasted, as compared to pouring by the glass from bottles.

“ You open a bottle of wine in Summer and you really don’t want to be pouring wine that’s been opened for a day or two. But because no oxygen or gas actually touches the wine in these KeyKegs, it doesn’t matter how long those kegs sit there for.

“We learnt this firsthand during covid, because we brought Alex [from Noisy Ritual] out towards the end of the first lockdown, which was a few months, and I said these kegs have been sitting in the cellar which is steady ambient temp, but they’ve still been sitting there the whole time. And we drank some of it and it was as fresh as the day we opened that keg. That’s the beauty of kegged wine,” states Matthews.

Sustainability of materials was another reason for the decision to stock wine on tap, with Matthews estimating that if their wine offer was solely from bottles, they’d be going through 10 cases of Sauvignon Blanc a week alone.

“We’re trying to create the smallest footprint that we can, while running a successful business.”

While customers were at first a little wary of the wine on tap offer, some tasters of the wines quickly changed people’s minds.

“At the start we really had to convince people it was the right way to go. It didn’t take long though. The locals took to it really well because they just knew they were always getting fresh wines.”

The next frontier

There’s one caveat to the Carringbush Hotel’s entire beer offering being on tap, and that’s non-alc beers. As yet, non-alc beers have not been produced in draught format, as through normal beer lines they freeze without the alcohol. They do work perfectly in ambient taps, though Matthews says he is yet to convince a producer to make a draught format. So for now, the pub offers two or three different non-alc beers in cans.

“Non-alc beer is huge. But a lot of these guys aren’t investing in the kegging infrastructure because nine out of 10 pubs can’t pour it. But we actually have ambient taps because of the wine. So I would kill to get my hands on some NOLO beer in kegs, I just can’t convince anyone to do it for me at the moment.

One of the non-alc beers the Carringbush Hotel stocks is Stomping Ground’s non-alc pale ale, which Matthews swears tastes like the real deal. As a nearby brewer, the publican says he tries once a month to convince them to keg it.

“It would be huge for us to have a nonalc beer on tap. We’re selling probably 10-15 cases a week and that’s only because our fridges aren’t very visible from the bar because we don’t sell packs. So to be selling that volume with it out of sight is big.”

Make it a mid

Mid-strength beers have become increasingly popular in pubs as sessionability and moderation become corner stones of a lot of consumer behavior within the on-premise. The midstrength beer category has enjoyed rapid growth in Australia over the past three decades, with its share rising from 10 per cent of the market in the 1990s to 17 per cent in the 2000s to more than 25 per cent in recent years.

“If this drinker represents more than a quarter of the market, it just makes sense to offer them more options. Supplying a premium option on tap, also results in better returns for the venue,” stated Patrick Coulson, brand manager for Stone & Wood.

Stone & Wood has had a lot of success with its mid-strength beer, Green Coast Crisp lager, since it launched.

The 3.5% ABV beer is particularly popular in destination pubs where at least one person per group has to drive to and from the venue. Green Coast Crisp allows even a designated driver to share in a round, making it a firm favourite among many pubs.