You’re lying on the couch and the doorbell rings. You sneak over to the window and peek through the curtain, hoping it’s not your weird neighbour or someone conducting a survey.
It’s not your neighbour. It’s not someone with a clipboard. It’s a courier, and they’re holding a box from Craft Cartel.
Get that door open.
Craft Cartel is an online beer store and subscription service. It’s a sizeable operation, sending thousands of boxes of beer around the country every month. Which can make it hard to believe it’s the brainchild of one beer-loving man: Ben Malouf, the Craft Cartel boss himself.
Ben started his first bottleshop more than twenty years ago. Even back then, he aimed to go above the standard bottlo offering, creating a combination bottleshop and delicatessen so people could build entire flavour experiences.
Since then, he’s operated bottleshops across Sydney, run a wine club, spent years writing about booze for the Daily Telegraph, and even had his own food and wine radio show. This is someone who enjoys sharing his love of good booze.
By the time 2016 ticked around, Ben wondered what the next step was. At the time, he had a bottleshop that ranged more than 500 craft beers, but he knew not everyone had access to it. What was the best way to share so much good beer with beer lovers?
“The next logical step was to go online” he says, succinctly.
That was the beginning of the beer club and online store that would become Craft Cartel.
No longer confined to Sydney, Craft Cartel grew. The customer base increased. The offering expanded. They ran a couple of fun one-off promotions, like sending out craft beer vending machines and keeping them topped up for a year, and putting together 100-can slabs in custom-made timber crates that claimed the gong for Australia’s biggest beer case.
Fast forward a few years, and Craft Cartel now showcases beers from more than 150 breweries, whether that’s exciting limited releases, beers sourced from off the beaten track, or cheap and cheerful fridge-fillers. There’s New Release Mixed Packs, the Brewery Series, Thirsty Thursday deals on fresh beers.
Ben sees his job as working with craft breweries to help them achieve their goals, showcasing their products to what he refers to as a “large number of craft beer drinkers” – his database of around 100,000 beer lovers Australia-wide.
“If we’re not the biggest database in the country, we’re pretty damn close,” he says.
He also says he’s on a mission is to keep craft beer accessible, which he believes is made easier by the size of the operation: around 2,000 subscribers including members of the Smart Craft Beer club they run on behalf of News Corp.
“We’re uniquely positioned to get craft to the masses,” Ben says. "We’re allowing people who don’t want to drink Tooheys or Carlton or VB to access good quality craft at a reasonable price.”
This can be accessed via Happy Hour Tuesday, whereby Craft Cartel source beers that breweries are happy to move at a low cost. The deals often hover around (or even below) the half price mark, which really doubles down on that idea of “affordable craft”; you can also check the best before date of the beers before you buy.
Other budget-conscious options include the Henchman subscription, which gives members $30 to spend for the cost of $25, plus member-only discounts, first priority on deals, and entry into weekly giveaways – all accessed via their own login.
Elsewhere there’s offerings such as the Hit Man subscription: a monthly curated mixed-pack of eight or 16 beers – you choose – with digital tasting notes, as well as the above member benefits, plus the monthly Pick-and-Mix Brewery Series and gift subscriptions that include free delivery anywhere in Australia.
With the goal of giving breweries access to drinkers they might not otherwise reach, and drinkers access to beers they might not otherwise get hold of, the beer offer is ever-changing. Which suits Ben just fine, as he doesn’t have a go-to style himself.
“Depends on the weather: in summer I’m loving a Berliner weisse, or any sour. During the colder months, I’m a bit of a sucker for a milk stout. But day to day, I’ll drink anything! Can’t go past a well-made lager or pale ale.”
As well as diversifying to include a wine offering, Ben has his eyes on further expansion to bring even more drinkers into the Craft Cartel fold. So watch this space. And while you’re watching, listen out: the doorbell could ring any second.
Mick Wüst
