When COVID threw the Australian beer world the twistiest curveball imaginable, people reacted in myriad ways. Some reinvented their businesses overnight, others doubled down on what they already did well, all did whatever they could to make it through to the other side.
In the case of Wicked Elf, it was more a case of bunkering down, reining things in, working on their brewery home, and calculating out how best to start again once it blew over. You might even argue it was something of a blessing in disguise for a brewery that had been through a fair few changes â significant ones at that â over the prior years.
For newcomers to the brand, itâs actually an evolution of The Little Brewing Company, which had been brewing award-winning beers in Port Macquarie since 2008. New owners took over from the founders in 2017, before choosing to name the brewery after the Wicked Elf range of beers, all while retaining many of the recipes upon which the breweryâs reputation had been built.
When the pandemic forced them to hit the pause button, they took the opportunity to enhance the offering at their home on the edge of the coastal town. While the brewery warehouse had long featured a small tasting bar, they upped the stakes considerably, creating a genuine taproom and beer garden by building out into the carpark to create a space capable of holding 150 people. A kitchen was added, ready to serve guests with epic burgers and beer-friendly snacks, while live music was added to the menu on Fridays and Saturdays too.
Indeed, such was the overhaul, itâs less an expansion than a complete reimagining of the hospo offering. Itâs given the town a stylish yet warm and family-friendly venue where you can enjoy beers next to the tanks in which they took shape, or pull up seats in the beer garden to watch your kids scamper around the play area as you catch up with mates.
While the brewery has rebranded from its first decade, and moved into colour-coded cans since installing a canning line in July 2021, longer-in-the-tooth craft beer fans will recognise visual nods to its origins. Theyâll also spot some familiar faces within the beers: the classic American pale ale; a cracking pilsner; the Fastidious Bastard IPA; a kolsch now called Endless Summer; a rare core range porter. To those have been added the Easy Bastard mid-strength.
Outside that core lineup, thereâs been plenty of other changes too, not least since they brought in Ryan Nilsson-Linne as head brewer: a familiar face in the WA brewing scene whoâd started out behind the bar at Cowaramup before brewing at Bootleg and Margaret River Brewhouse. Ryan â or Pizey as heâs better known in the industry â is a born and bred Margs boy and was keen to give his family a change of scenery. Fortuitously, his plans to move to the East Coast aligned with Wicked Elfâs hunt for a new head brewer.
Since moving in, heâs introduced the Mischief offshoot brand (mischief being the collective term for elves), which acts a place for him to play around in different parts of the beer spectrum and inject a shot of breezy fun into proceedings. At time of writing, a number of oat cream IPAs and fruit sours had made their way into the world.
If you head to their taproom, thereâs a good chance there will be even more beers to tuck into thanks to Ryan giving the tiny pilot kit a regular workout. Thereâs talk that some of the revered Mad Abbot Belgian ale recipes might be revisited at some point too.
His arrival in Port Macquarie on Anzac Day 2021 coincided with Wicked Elfâs reemergence from their pandemic-enforced hibernation; call into pretty much any indie retailer between their hometown and Coffs Harbour now and youâll find their cans on shelves and in fridges, while theyâre ranged in local Danâs and BWS stores too. Closer to home, theyâve been looking to entice more locals to the taproom, with Ryan discovering there are still some among the 50,000 population unaware theyâve had an award-winning brewery in their midst for more than a decade.
It presents the team at Wicked Elf with a tantalising prospect. Given their heritage, theyâre the longest-established of the growing number of breweries on the NSW North Coast, yet with new faces, new beers, a new brand, and a new taproom, they now have the chance to build a new audience too.
James Smith
