This weekend marks a decade since a small brewery called Modus Operandi, based in Mona Vale in the Northern Beaches, launched their first beers, complete with a logo featuring a silhouette of a hatted man with a cane between a pair of rhinoceros. As they celebrate ten years of beers with friends, family and fans, founders Jaz and Grant Wearin do so having come rather a long way, and having followed a path that's very much their own.
The gent and his rhinos are long gone, replaced early on by the sharper, contemporary MO branding that's evolved little since. They now call a schmick brewery venue in the Newcastle suburb of Merewether their home, after opening a second site there in 2021. And while they've released a limited edition anniversary version of the beer that helped bring them to the attention of many a beer geek back in the mid-2010s, Former Tenant, these days much of their focus is on them Mexican-inspired range kick-started by their biggest seller, Modus Cerveza.
Along the way, there have been awards aplenty: the story of their sweep at the Craft Beer Awards, the forerunner for the Indies, just three months after launching has become part of modern Australian beer folklore. They've been pioneers in many areas too: one of the early adopter of cans (and CANimals), as well as testing the country's appetite for beer in 500ml cans; one of the first indies to create a non-alc range (NORT); among the loudest advocates for the "fresh is best" message once they had beer lovers' ears; and today they're using their Cerveza to push the environmental benefits of supporting local brewers using local rather than imported ingredients,
Even if you've never tried one of their beers, there's a good chance you've had something excellent brewed by one of their former brewers. When they launched they did so with DJ McCready at the helm – you might have heard of the brewery he's since launched with wife Harriet in the Blue Mountains – who was followed into the head brewer hot seat by Dennis de Boer, who went on to become the joint head brewer with his wife Jess at White Bay in Balmain.
Other Modus alumni can be found doing great things elsewhere in the beer world too, both close to the OG Modus home in the Northern Beaches (Jonny Bucknall at Freshwater Brewing Co) and further afield (Amanda Baker at Lost Palms on the Gold Coast) to name just two.
But why rely on us to tell the tale of their first ten years when you can get it straight from the Wearins themselves. Given their path to today is unlike any of the hundreds of other brewing companies that have operated in Australia over the same period, we were pretty sure they'd have plenty of reflections and insights to share, so we invited them to feature in our Ten Lessons From Ten Years series.
Jaz & Grant Wearin
1. If you're going to dedicate your life and savings into what was a hobby then make sure you fucking love it – Grant
You pour your savings, sweat and tears and a good chunk of your life and working career into this challenge so you need to find ways to continue to love it: evolve and entertain your love of this game. Whilst new beer days continue to keep us engaged, there are more grown-up things that keep us motivated nowadays, and they carry a lot of weight.
Career acceleration is a continuing theme in our industry; we have helped accelerate so many careers and seeing someone or a whole team face that challenge and grow into it is immeasurably rewarding.
Having a mum and dad and a cute family walk in with their son or daughter who works here for a meal and a meet and great and a yarn is incredibly rewarding. I had one dad with tears in his eyes come up to me quietly one day and just thank us for giving his son, who had no experience, "a chance". Stuff like that makes you love it beyond the products you create, and the broader impact within the communities you operate in is where we find additional love for the game.
Take our Modus Cerveza and Rural Aid partnership – giving back to rural communities in need by buying locally owned and brewed lager – in clear glass! – and reducing our carbon footprint along the way; Our Ten Men "Can It" brewing collab where we collaborated with a Ukrainian Brewery called Ten Men, tipped the hat to the futility of the War on Ukraine and helped start Ten Men on a global quest to collaborate with breweries worldwide to rebuild their brewery. It's purposeful stuff like this that ensures we continue to fucking love it.
2. Being innovative is way cooler than following the pack – Jaz
We have all seen it in beer: someone comes out with something really cool and then, in six months, the same or very similar vision is recreated. We thrive on innovation and it is a huge factor for why we love doing what we do.
To go that extra mile and create something unique and then see something very similar in the market six months later used to really get our goat, especially when they were a multinational brewery with more budget and would smother us! But, now, we recognise we played an important role in the last decade from CANimals, 500ml cans, stickered labels on cans, really big tap decals, a prolific limited program, gradient coloured cans, a big fuckin' beer bus, non-alcoholic bottled beer, bottled cerveza etc – it's been a privilege to be bring some of these things first to market and see them live on.
Innovation and creativity has been a key for our longevity – it keeps us excited to poke our heads around the next corner.
3. Working with your better half is actually a lifesaver – Jaz (after winning rock paper scissors)
"How do you work with your husband?"
It's a question we get asked a lot. I am not going to lie, it is not all beer and skittles, especially when you are growing fast and you are all up in each others grill, BUT, ten years later, I feel so grateful to have Grant by my side. He still pisses me off, and there are some meetings where our team slides down in their meeting chairs when we disagree on something, but we have learnt to work really respectfully with each other. We have our own lanes and trust each other on what decisions are made in those lanes. We can bounce ideas off each other without ego or judgement and we really are on the same side and want the best for each other and the business.
This has been particularly pertinent in the last few years whilst the industry has taken some tumbles. It's harder to lead when times are tough, but to have someone by your side during these periods is a lifesaver. I do not feel alone in the business, ever.
The one thing we are very firm on, however, is that there is no work talk when we get home, and we don't go to as many breweries on holidays because we inevitably start talking about Modus. But the most rewarding element of working with your worse half is that we share drop-offs / pick-ups / school holidays with our little man Arch, and can be really present with him because we can share the workload around and understand where each other is at. Luv ya, Wearin – thanks for doing this crazy arse business with me for the last ten years x
4. You can always be better: Tough times grow you into better leaders – Grant
The trading headwinds began on the east coast with the bushfires in summer 2019. They stretched nationally through COVID into November 2022 with the added supply chain aftermath and rampant cost push inflation into the current day today.
That's four years of unimaginable headwinds and it's an amazing achievement to see small breweries still standing today; it's important to separate your energies into what you can control and what you cannot.
Much of the above is beyond your control but your staffing, operational and financial decisions are within your control. For example, Modus made the decision during COVID not to lay off a single employee. We stuck to that, perhaps somewhat over-heroically from a numbers point of view, and, yeah, we were partially subsidised by the Australian Government with the Jobkeeper program. But the longer term impact of that empathy driven decision goes far beyond the numbers in this instance.
The upside to Modus from that decision has grown today's team into one of the leading teams in Australian brewing today, across all aspects of our business. Those headwinds forced us to make a decision, lead in a way that spread decisions further across the business and to others, but the payoff is clear today – our team is best in class and we are proud to have them alongside us running this business across multiple brewing and venue operations.
The lesson here being that empathy and your own moral compass in times of need can drive your best decisions.
5. Not letting ego drive your decisions – Jaz
Egos. They are dangerous things in a business. We learnt years ago that brewing from ego limits your customer base and stifles your team creativity and culture.
When we got into brewing, we were passionate about high ABV IPAs, bitter hoppy pales and spicy saisons. But those people that enjoyed those brews with us have evolved. Yep, the hipster in all of us in the early 10s (you remember: Mumford & Sons, checkered shirts, lots of facial hair and, of course, high ABV beers) has evolved. And that's OK.
We still enjoy those same beers – all hail a limited program! – but we also enjoy some lighter styles to go with our evolved lifestyles. We didn't think we would have a non-alcoholic brand (NORT) or brew Modus Cerveza in clear bottles when we started, but we let our egos get out of the way and listened to our customers. I can't wait to see how this evolves again in the next ten years!
Bring it on. Ego be gone.
6. Having your own brewpub is a mighty good stress relief – Grant
Self-explanatory. Cold, tank-fresh beer at the end of a shift. Enough said.
It also gives you immediate and direct feedback on all that you’re doing in your operations to the two most important elements of your business: your customers and your staff.
7. Budget for everything then triple it – Grant
You've heard it before in brewing, we've lived it: building our 3,000m2, 10 million litre capacity per annum Newcastle facility through COVID from the ground up. Maybe not triple but, if you triple it, you'll at least have a buffer for times like we see now.
I am so grateful we do not have to build another one in a hurry – although see Jaz's comments on enjoying the journey below, ha!
8. Brewing your beer in your own facility is a great luxury – Jaz
We have always been passionate about owning our own equipment, our own facility, and having complete control over our production. It is what has made us champion small, medium and large brewery in our ten years, and what continues to propel us forward. We know not everyone has that same opportunity but, somehow, we have bloody done it.
We have also had experience on the opposite side of the glass: we did have a contract brewing period when we released NORT into the market and it was a great lesson for us. Short version, we much prefer to be at the helm. Long version, we were reliant on another party and giving over that kind of control can be terrifying, especially if you aren't given 100 percent visibility and things have the potential to go south. Massive headache, as you can imagine.
This propelled us to install a new bottling line in our new facility in Merewether and we haven't looked back. There are some attractive elements to contract brewing, like not having to look after your line when there are mechanical failures, staffing resources etc, but to be the master of your own destiny is priceless. We actually now offer contract brewing at our Merewether facility and it is something we take very seriously after our experience. We have learned some valuable lessons and applied that to our partner brewing process to the benefit of the customer.
9. Enjoy the journey – Jaz
You read this in those inspirational entrepreneur books you read a few times in your life. And I have to be honest, we are not good at this all the time. But when we do remind ourselves, wow, what an achievement and a privilege.
We made a conscious decision to get out of our cushy day jobs, throw caution to the wind, sell our apartment and put everything into this business and, you know what, even during those tough times, I wouldn't change it. I mean, when you list it out sometimes, it's seriously a dream job. You get to taste new beers all the time, go to pubs and chat to good people, come up with any beverage that tickles your fancy, make funny videos and take the piss out of yourself, dream big and create a flagship brewery, head to surf, marathon, music, footy, beer festivals etc on high rotation and work with awesome legends that don't have an ego.
We have loved living a life outside the norm and this business has been the catalyst for that.
10. People make a brewery not any individual – Grant
There is no I in Team.
It's taken time and growing maturity to find balance and realise the importance of the whole team in your journey as opposed to one or two individuals. Even from the get go, we had a close knit team that relied wholly on each other to balance strengths and weaknesses. What started out as a handful of people dreaming together, creating together, brewing together and succeeding together has fruited into so many incredible breweries.
Huge lesson here is on how immeasurably rewarding it is to see how many new breweries have been started off the back of working at Modus. All of them – six by my last count! – both individuals and breweries they've moved on to lead or create, are extremely successful in various ways.
I’d love to ask the same question of Stone & Wood or 4 Pines? How many breweries did ex-staff create? I bet the number is mind-blowing.
The greatest mistake you can make is turning any one person into a hero or personally having an ego yourself. Doing that gives you no room for team recognition or to make your brewery better. Pedestalling owners or brewers into the sole source of success in a brewery's journey – we’ve learnt it's always the team that drives and leads success, never one individual making all the decisions. Another huge lesson for us as we grow into the future...
You can read other entries in the Ten Lessons From Ten Years here.
James Smith launched The Crafty Pint in 2010, two years after moving to Australia from the UK. He was taken to Mountain Goat within weeks of landing in Melbourne, joined their indoor cricket team, and is still navigating the rabbit hole that is craft beer to this day.
The beers that turned you on to good beer:
- Watching pints of McEwan's 80 Shilling settle when visiting family in Edinburgh.
- Pints of flat Bass from the jug at the Cap & Stocking in Kegworth.
- A first Paulaner Hefeweizen when working in Munich in 1998: “This smells of bananas!”
- Castle Rock Harvest Pale – how could a 3.8 percent ABV beer be so good? (It turns out it was an early example of the three Cs – Cascade, Centennial and Columbus – in an English bitter).
- Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA poured through hops at the Sunset Grill in Cambridge, MA, in the company of a man who turned out to be the Beer Nut (while we were both covering a double murder case at the time).
- Ordering a Mountain Goat Hightail on my first day as an Aussie resident as it was local and I’d never heard of it; “A dark Australian beer; well I never…”
- Murray’s Icon 2IPA at Beer DeLuxe Fed Square, recommended by a guy I’d not long known who's now the main man at Fixation, served by Mik Halse, now head of sales at Hawkers. How could an Australian beer smell as good as that?!?
You've got three beers to turn someone else on to good beer; what are they and why?
- Any really good, fresh and balanced West Coast style IPA. Punchy hop aromatics are the most obvious way to capture someone's attention and these IPAs, done well, present the key components in beer (if you're sticking to just water, malt, hops and yeast) in harmony yet with the volume turned up.
- Saison Dupont. Arguably a selfish choice here as I bloody love the broad saison style and dearly hope it will finally take hold in Australia one day. Given a choice, I'd probably crack one enlivened with Brettanomyces like Molly Rose Matilde for myself but, when it comes to turning on someone new, you've got to go with the classic.
- Rodenbach Caractère Rouge. Because if you don't enjoy or can't appreciate this beer, I'll never win you over. And because Filip, the fruit and wood specialist at Rodenbach that designed it, is a beautiful human.
The last beer you enjoyed:
Fixation IPA at The Incubator.
Three things that represent you:
- The Soft Bulletin by The Flaming Lips
- Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
- Golden Plains
NB All articles written by James in the first eight years of the site appear as By Crafty Pint. Today, that's used for collaborative efforts by the wider team.
