The first time we caught up with the guys behind Rocks Brewing at their spiritual home, Harts Pub, they talked excitedly about plans for their own brewery. While they hoped to open one in The Rocks, they accepted that was unlikely given the nature of the area, but were confident they’d secure a site fairly soon and bring the brewing of Rocks beers under their own roof.
That was three years ago. And still no Rocks brewery.
Thankfully, last time we sat down with Mark Fethers – in a rare quiet moment during the Australian Hotel Beer Festival / Sydney Craft Beer Week mayhem of last weekend – things had taken a significant step forward. Such a significant step forward, in fact, that if the brewery, bar and kitchen under construction in Alexandria isn’t open and brewing by mid-December Mark will have to embark on a rather embarrassing “punishment”, as he’ll have lost a bet with 4 Pines owner Jaron Mitchell.
“We’ve taken a 30-year lease on a big warehouse that’s now being done up,” he says. “We were looking at The Rocks but it’s the worst place to put in a brewery.
“We’ve been around the world looking at breweries and seeing why people fail and often the problems are that people can’t keep up and don’t have enough room. Our place gives us plenty of room to expand.”
Their newly arrived brewhouse should allow them to increase production with ease too, as Mark claims the 2,000 litre HEBS brewing system from IDD in California can push through a dozen or more brews a day. Ever the big thinker, he says they could hit around 7.5 million litres a year at maxed out capacity. Just as well there’s a $500,000 bottling line going in too.
It’s not the only thing that’s big about the new site either. The beer garden alone will measure 800 square metres and will be filled with benches, trees, heating and fairy lights – essentially whatever it takes to make it look like anything but the industrial site that it currently is. Inside the warehouse, the brewery will tower over the bar, there’s a full commercial kitchen and there are plans to have bands playing live.
Mark enjoys a celebratory pint with daughter Charlie
When the move occurs it will bring welcome respite for the brewing team headed by Scotty Morgan. As the popularity of beers such as The Boxer has grown, they have been forced to brew at an ever greater number of breweries with spare capacity – Illawarra Brewing Company, Australian Brewery, Riverside Brewery, Six String Brewing – and deal with the vagaries in outcomes that comes with trying to make the same beer on different setups. Now, in something of a switcheroo, they will be offering their setup to other brewers looking for contract beers.
“This month marked our fifth anniversary since we launched the beers at The Australian Hotel, so it’s been long enough,” says Mark.
And now that the long term goal is about to be realised?
“It’s scary,” he says. “It’s actually happening!
“We’ve been talking about this for five years – ‘We’re going to build a brewery. We’re going to build a brewery.’ – and now it’s turned up.”
And just to add to the workload for the coming weeks, he says they’ve just taken on a second venue too. Look out for the reopening of the Lord Raglan in Redfern soon – 16 taps, no CUB, no Lion. Rock on.
