New home, owner for brew business
CHANGE is brewing at Geelong’s historic home of home brew.
The fax machine has finally gone; the old-school ‘click-clack’ credit card machine, too.
And after more than half a century of being able to find everything needed to make your own liquor from the tiny corner store on Bellerine St, that is also in for a change.
Geelong Home Brewing Supplies is on the move.
The new era is being charted by 23year-old Zac Sirgiannis, who has taken over the business from his grandparents Kevin and Suzanne Riches.
Mr Riches said a stipulation in the property’s lease meant access to a separate storage area was not going to be transferred to any new lessee of the store, which had made a sale of the business difficult.
“I could have closed the thing down, but Zac showed an interest in taking it on,” he said.
Mr Riches said the history of the store could be traced back to almost 1900 and was originally known as Winstanley Home Delivery and Groceries.
“Even when they had groceries … they had grains and hops and stuff to make your beer,” he said.
It went through a couple of incarnations as a home brewing store before Mr Riches bought it in 1997, with the store’s rustic familiarity reinforced by his own resistance to change. “I just refused to come up to the times,” he said.
Until only recently, with the handover to his grandson, suppliers were still communicating by fax and electronic point of sale has only just been introduced to replace the ‘clickclack’ of the old-fashioned credit card imprinter.
“The suppliers were trying to get rid of me as far as the fax machine was concerned,” Mr Riches said. “I am the only bugger they would have to send a manual order to.”
Having worked in the store from ages 14 to 19, Mr Sirgiannis knows that running the business also requires sharing knowledge and advice on brewing and distilling. “You can’t just be a shop assistant,” he said.
Home brewers come in a variety of forms, from the newbies to the diehards.
“Some people do it for the price, some people for the hobby and, for some, beer is their life,” he said.
Mr Sirgiannis expects the move to Church St in Hamlyn Heights, opposite the new lawn bowls club, will open opportunities to grow the business.
It will certainly provide better vehicle access than the old store on the busy corner of Bellarine and McKillop streets.