Good things are brewing in craft beer market
BREWING other people’s beers was not the catalyst for Jamie Roydhouse when the home-brew enthusiast established his own brewery less than three years ago.
But these days contract brewing is about half of his business as Mr Roydhouse, pictured, continues to grow his Cockies Beer brand from an unlikely set-up in South Geelong’s Balliang St.
“The business plan has changed,” he said. “I thought my beer would take off quicker and my distributor would sell more than they have been.
“The long-term intention is to grow the Cockies name and grow the Cockies label so that I don’t need to do contract brewing.”
Mr Roydhouse became serious about developing his brewing skills after running Camera House in Moorabool St for about 40 years.
“Forty years is too long to stay in one business, brewing was the opportunity to do something different,” he said.
After getting further insight into a growing craft beer industry, he initially produced his Cockies beers at Cavalier Brewery in Melbourne.
“I brewed there for six months, which taught me how to brew on a large scale, which is different,” Mr Roydhouse said.
Brewing good beer is one thing, getting it to market is another.
“I searched around for a distributor and found a wine distributor, Sante Wines. I presented my beer and my label and the name Cockies Beer and they liked it,” he said.
“They didn’t have a beer and they were prepared to take me on.”
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At Cavalier, he produced six 3000-litre brews, with each producing about 350 cartons of Cockies beer, before he decided to “take the plunge” and create his own brewery.
Getting a complete brewing system installed was costprohibitive, so he imported what he needed to brew from China and an automatic bottling system from the US, with the brewery taking about three months to set up in the South Geelong warehouse in 2015.
His only mistake was not going big enough, which forced him to find new fermenters after a year
“At the start I did about 20,000 litres a year, which is not very much for a commercial brewery,” , Mr Roydhouse said..
“To subsidise the cost of equipment and the leasing and everything else, I did contract brewing. There is a fair demand for contract brewing, which is brewing for people who don’t have a brewery but they have a label.”
After investing more than $400,000 on equipment, he has the capacity to produce about 150,000 litres a year.
Mr Roydhouse said Cockies was about 50 per cent brewing capacity, explaining that to be at full capacity would not give him time to package the beers and run the rest of his business.
He produces four types of beer — Cockies Surf Coast Blonde, Cockies Ocean Road Pale Ale, Cockies IPA and Cockies The Dark Light — and believes that the brand recognition is continuing to build.
Cracking into the tap beer market in hotels, though, is difficult with limited taps available and tough competition from the industry heavyweights as well as other craft beer producers.
The search for a market has unexpectedly taken him to Singapore, which he described as a great, all-year around beer market to which he supplies a container full of Cockies Beer every quarter.
“There are so many expats and they love the name . . . and it has got into some high places over there,” he said.
Helping to spread the word are the brewery’s Friday night sessions, which feature live music as he and wife Lizzie serve the drinks and nibbles from 4pm to 7pm.
“The Friday nights came around because I had two musicians who came here who said, `We like this place, can we play here?’ ” he said.
He said the commitment and preparation required made it a bit of a bind at the end of the week but he still enjoyed getting behind the bar and pouring his brews.
“People love it. We get new people every week, they say, `This is the best kept secret’,” he said.
“It’s all promotion and we are happy to keep going with it, especially when we get new customers.”