He’s loved beer, sold beer, cooked with beer, taken beer onto national television and opened a restaurant with more of a focus on beer than any in Australia. So, really, it had to come to this: Boneyard Brewing, the beer brand launched by Chris Badenoch. The Josie Bones founder has teamed up with the restaurant’s beer sommelier Brendan Sullivan (above right), an award-winning brewer and beer judge who moved to Melbourne from WA’s Gage Roads last year, to brew Boneyard’s beers at 3 Ravens. The first release, a highly hopped Golden Ale, is already out, with the second – a Grapefruit IPA – going into tanks this week.
The idea, like many craft brewers, is to create beers the pair want to drink themselves and believe are missing from the local market, but also to devise beers they believe are food friendly and can play a role in Chris' mission to see beer treated with equal respect to wine on the dinner table. As much as anything, however, it seems Boneyard came about because every time Brendan brought one of his home brews into the restaurant in Collingwood the staff were blown away.
“Every one that came in, I said, ‘This needs to get to market’,” says Chris. “Then when Masterchef All Stars came up, I said, ‘Fuck it. Lets’ get a beer out. Let’s launch it and see how we go.‘” So we did and we’ve been getting really good feedback from people.
“It was an opportunity to have a play with styles that we like, to put our own spin on things.”
For Brendan, a brewer to his very core, it was a welcome return to making beer on a bigger scale, particularly as it’s in a situation where he’s responsible for the entirety of the process.
“It’s good to have a project and that it’s my project,” he says. “It’s more satisfying when you’re responsible for pulling the whole thing together – a lot more enjoyable. I’m a brewer and I’m passionate about brewing – it’s what makes me happy. It’s nice to be part of the recipe formulation, buying ingredients, bottles and labels – it makes it more intimate.
“I want to brew beers that we think are missing from the market. I like pale ales with a lot of hop flavour and find many too sweet. I want something massively hoppy but sessionable.”
And that’s what they’ve striven for with their first release. The Golden Ale, inspired in part by Kiwi brewers Three Boys' Golden Ale, was their attempt to produce a truly hoppy take on the style for a market in which many golden ales tend to rein in the hops. In fact, the trial batch was so hoppy and bitter that it was toned down for its official release. The trial batch went on tap at Josie Bones as the Hop Junkie, while its successor remains a highly aromatic and substantially bitter, bitey beer for one of its relatively low alcohol content (something Chris insisted upon), one that’s full of citrus, kiwi and grapefruit punch even in its restrained form.
As for beer number two, the brew started in the kitchen at Josie Bones, where a stack of grapefruits were turned into several kilos of zest and multiple boxes of fresh juice that are being added at various points in the boil, fermentation and conditioning process.
“The idea came from Geoff Hanson [Victorian rep for Phoenix Beers] who wanted to brew a grapefruit IPA,” says Brendan.
“As well as the grapefruit zest and juice, we’re using hops with grapefruit characteristics: Cascade, Centennial, some Falconer’s Flight and a bit of Zythos for bitterness. It’s a little bit under-bittered to let the pithy character of the grapefruit come through.”
Having enjoyed a return to TV screens for the Masterchef All Stars series, it’s been a return to reality for Chris. Aside from his involvement in the recipe design, he’s responsible for the branding and labels – in more ways than one.
“We spent three days labeling the bottles,” he says, which perhaps explains why they’re exploring printed bottles for future releases… “I like being involved in the process from start to finish. If you’re establishing a brand, you have got to do it all yourself.”
With batch two of the Golden Ale hitting shelves in Victoria and WA very soon and the Grapefruit IPA fermenting now, discussions about beer three are well advanced and should be out early in 2013.
Beyond that, Brendan has just one simple request.
“I’m still trying to find someone who will let me brew a sour beer,” he says.
Anyone?
For more information, head to the Boneyard Brewing website.
