Brewers leap into their communities
BEER MAKERS TAP INTO LOCAL PASSIONS TO ATTRACT AND ENTERTAIN THEIR TRIBES
With Australia now home to more than 700 breweries since the craft beer explosion of the past decade, many shrewd operators are going the extra mile to stand out from the crowd.
Taprooms, where curious drinkers can come to try limited and experimental releases are now par for the course, usually accompanied by carefully curated restaurants and food trucks. Some offer entertainment evenings to draw the crowds, including trivia and games nights, film screenings and comedy shows. Others have thought right outside the square, bringing together seemingly strange bedfellows such as beer and yoga.
The Burleigh Brewing Co, in beautiful Burleigh Heads towards the southern end of Queensland’s Gold Coast, has been serving its local community with fine beers since 2006 and 10 years later expanded and opened its tap house which has become home to live music, movies, comedy and more. But the jewel in the brewery’s crown has become the annual Burleigh Keg Jump skateboarding invitational, which kick-flipped off in 2019 and has (Covid interruptions aside) gone to even greater heights ever since.
According to Burleigh Brewing Co brand activations co-ordinator Dom Reisch, skateboarding was a natural fit for the company. Since it was established as one of the first craft breweries in the region and situated a short drive from one of the best beaches on the east coast, Burleigh Brewing Co has been involved and invested in many of the region’s beloved subcultures, including skateboarding, surfing and art.
“There’s a really big community aspect in linking with the local area and what everyone is passionate about and that comes through in what we are passionate about as well, obviously along with beer,” Reisch says. “We reach out to those subcultures and put on these sorts of events or reach out to external events and support them with beer to help celebrate that. So skateboarding is definitely ingrained – a lot of our brewers skateboard.”
The event, which hosts street skateboarders from around the country, is open to the public (over18s only) and there is a $9000 prize pool up for grabs. Skaters can compete in two categories – the first to see who can do the best trick over a stack of cartons of beer, supplemented by grind rails and other obstacles, and the second is what Reisch calls “the main event”.
“The Keg Jump is smack bang down the centre of the brewery,” he says. “We set up a massive roll-in ramp that leads into a kicker and we set up kegs lying flat, back-to-back. The skaters attempt to ollie as many as they can and land on the other side for their chance to win $2000 cash and beer for a year.
“We had Nixen Osborne, Dani Campbell, Sam Atkins with the current record of 11 kegs, which is just shy of 4m in length so it’s a huge gap that they jump.”
In the three events so far, Reisch confirms there have been some epic spills in the attempts for the biggest jump and most radical trick, but stresses that it’s strictly skating first and drinking second, with an afterparty and DJ following the event on June 24 (tickets go on sale today).
“The guys are pretty committed,” he says. “They go hard and give it their all – but these guys are all professionals and they know how to fall, so they can get themselves out of some tricky situations.”
But for all of Burleigh Brewing Co’s new initiatives and add-ons, Reisch says they never forget about their core mission as a company and they are constantly striving to reinvent and add to their range to keep up with an increasingly educated and demanding beerdrinking public.
In the quest for innovation, the company has introduced the Brewer’s Notebook program whereby experimental beers are introduced through the taproom and if they resonate with the public have a chance at a limited run in shops or even being added to their core range.
Right now, Reisch is particularly excited about Razzle Dazzle, a raspberry wheat beer that is selling out quickly in a few select venues and recent core addition Burleigh Sass, a Bright Ale with ginger. “First and foremost, it’s good quality beer,” he says. “And for us as an independent craft brewery that is certainly our focus, but we can’t forget everything else that we are passionate about around here in Burleigh. So that’s where these different layers come in and supporting them across all the different pillars and subcultures certainly makes us nice and unique.”