It’s all change at one of Australia’s champion breweries as Feral undergoes a facelift. After the start of their occasional Brewpub series of limited bottled releases comes a new permanent beer, Sly Fox, followed now by a complete and radical overhaul of the Swan Valley company’s look. Out goes the existing branding and in comes something vaguely reminiscent of Ralph Steadman’s work for Hunter S Thompson – or maybe the scribblings of a pig-obsessed madman on Death Row.
According to the brewery, it’s a look that takes inspiration “mainly from the mixed media punk artwork of the 1970s and 80s” when there was “no Photoshop or Illustrator, posters were hand crafted using what you had laying around, often a pencil case with some mixed colours, scissors, a glue stick and a bunch of magazines”. And it’s an approach that they hope reflects their approach to brewing: a simple, natural, uncomplicated process that produces beers that can become “more complex and thought provoking” as they go down.
The new look replaces one created 11 years ago by a school friend of head brewer Brendan Varis (pictured above) for $200 and has been driven by a desire to appeal to a far wider audience since they moved into a large production facility with Nail Brewing last year. And it is, according to Block, the WA design agency behind the redesign, the “antithesis of the minimalist or âye olde’ beer brands that are cluttering the market.â
What hasn’t and won’t be changing is the beers. The core range will remain at four – Hop Hog, White, Smoked Porter and Sly Fox – and they will aim for four Brewpub releases a year. We say “aim for” as, despite upgrading from their original brewpub setup to the 5,000 litre BrewCorp facility, they’re still flat out.
“The brewery is getting busier by the day and is quickly being filled with more tanks, kegs and other bits of brewing gear,” says Feral’s Steve Finney. “We’re sniffing around for more storage space as the place is just about full up.
“Beer quality is better than ever with brighter worts and better boils coming from the bigger brewery. John [Stallwood of Nail] and Brendan are incredibly tight but could not tackle the same tasks more differently. They’re like an old couple that’s been married for 50 years who never start off agreeing on anything but somehow reach consensus and get an amazing amount of stuff done together.”
What this has meant is that the old brewery isn’t getting used as much as hoped, but still cranks out specialties for the Swan Valley brewpub and loyal craft beer venues around Australia. That said, new gear has been purchased with the intention of ramping up the sour beer program.
As we wrote in a Guardian article last week, it seems remarkable that it’s only three years since the first kegs of Feral beer made it to the eastern states. In 2014, expect to see much more of it nationwide, although not overseas. While a number of Australian micros have begun exploring export markets, Steve says: “We aim on getting the freshest, best tasting beer we possibly can into Australian hands. We have a tight distribution chain that sees us transporting and warehousing all of our beer cold until the time that it is sold to the customer.
“There is a flood of imported beers into Australia at the moment that are transported ‘cold’ and ‘fresh’. However, as the craft beer market matures in Australia, people are going to wise up to unwanted flavours and hopefully fall back to local examples of these beers. We don’t want to be in the same situation in overseas markets and lose control of the quality of our beer.
“I think there is a revolution brewing in Australia towards the little guy, seeking provenance, experience, consistency and trust. Australia is producing some of the best beer in the world and with such diversity. The local breweries are part of the community, they create jobs, infrastructure, support for local arts, music, groups and offer people an experience they are unlikely find anywhere else. We are all real people making and selling beer that we love to drink.”
Makes you come over all warm and gooey inside, doesn’t it? Although if it doesn’t, this promise from Feral might…
“This year has been pretty full on but watch this space next year for some new gems to come out of the Swan Valley.”
