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From Teaching History To Brewing It
In the early years of The Crafty Pint, I was lucky enough to spend time with and absorb knowledge from some of the titans of modern craft beer: the founders and key figures at places such as Feral, Mountain Goat, Stone & Wood, The Wheaty.
Among the people willing to give this recent arrival from the UK and his idea for a beer website a go was Shawn Sherlock. At the time, he was head brewer at Murray's Brewing, creating some of the best and most innovative beers found anywhere in Australia in Bobs Farm, about a 45 minute drive from Newcastle.
Alongside Ian Watson – who we most recently featured as he launched La Petit Rocher with partner Rocky Reed – he was releasing double IPAs at a time when hardly anyone in Australia had heard of any sort of IPA, as well as big, beautiful stouts, all manner of Belgian style beers – even barrel-aged American barleywines featuring Brettanomyces presented in 750ml bottles with corks and cages, specially imported by brewery founder Murray Howe.
A decade ago, he moved on from Murray's to launch FogHorn, the first brewery of the modern era in Newcastle, where it has since been joined by many more, as evidenced by the launch this week of the Brewcastle brewery trail.
Prior to starting out as a brewer at Murray's original home in the Pub With No Beer of Slim Dusty fame, in the tiny regional NSW village of Taylors Arms (population: 133), he was a homebrewing lecturer in Australian history in his hometown of Newcastle; indeed, we can probably thank the Howard administration's swingeing cuts to Arts funding for kickstarting one of the finest brewing careers of the current era.
As we were preparing to launch The Crafty Pint Podcast, Shawn was taking full control of FogHorn from Mighty Craft, the "craft beer accelerator" no longer involved in craft beer, which had bought into the business when his original partner was moving on. It meant we were keen to bring him onto the show to chat about his experiences working within different brewery ownership models – which he does.
Over the course of the episode, we also trace his career from its very start through the creation of many beers that were ahead of their time to his position today as a much-respected figure in the local beer community. He offers thoughts on the sort of business models that can succeed, what matters if you want to survive in brewing, and even shares some insight into creating great stouts, something he knows plenty about – he's got a few trophies as proof.
Will and I also reflect on the week's news in the intro, as well as the manner in which the once-ubiquitous Brettanomyces seems to have almost disappeared from brewers' weapons of choice. If you just want to hear from Shawn, however, you can skip straight to the 14 minute mark.
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