There are more than 120 breweries currently operating around Australia, most of them fitting into the “craft brewery” model which basically means a small business run by a handful of passionate and hard-working employees.

Typically, they are driven by a head brewer who is probably also a part-owner, or a couple who’ve moved to a regional area as a lifestyle choice. Indeed, the brewing career pathway has been transformed to an entirely different level since Max Burslem started out as a junior brewer at Hobart’s Cascade Brewery some 40 years ago.

These days brewers can study their chosen craft at university or by distance education, or simply roll up their sleeves and get stuck in. Some are entirely self-taught or progress from being enthusiastic home-brewers, and the sheer variety of some of their previous careers shows how refreshing this brash and burgeoning niche industry really is.

There are classically-trained musicians, former ambulance officers, travel agents, builders, winemakers, engineers, managers, bankers, graphic designers and hospitality workers, among many more besides. Few of them enter the industry with expectations of a comfortable living and, for the vast majority, it’s a hard slog driven by love and the hope of making their mark in what – at the small-scale level - is an emerging craft.

Of course, there’s something immeasurably satisfying about being able to enjoy the fruits of your labour at the end of the day and, more importantly, to see punters pay for the same experience. And these craft brewers aren’t just knocking out beers to quench a thirst, most of them are seriously pushing the boundaries of flavour and beer style parameters. Cheers!

MAX BURSLEM, CASCADE BREWERY (HOBART)

When Max Burslem started work at the Cascade Brewery man hadn’t walked on the moon, the Sydney Opera House hadn’t been built and the historic Hobart brewery was wholly Tasmanian-owned. In fact, the same company also owned Boag’s Brewery in the north of the state and this is where Burslem was supposed to kick off his brewing career in March 1969, until a last-minute change in management plans saw him re-directed to Cascade.

For the young man raised in southern Tasmania, it was a happy outcome which allowed him to rise through the ranks and, ultimately, to become Cascade’s head brewer. Over four decades he’s seen plenty of changes, including the fact that the Hobart brewery is now owned by the Foster’s group.

In the early days, the brewery produced a fairly standard range of beers. “There was lager, bitter, green [pale ale], stout and draught in kegs,” recalls Burslem, and drinkers were fiercely loyal to their chosen brands. “You could tell the area by what was on the truck when it left the brewery.” 

In more recent years, Cascade has become something of a boutique arm of the Foster’s empire.

While Cascade Premium Lager remains the brewery’s flagship in mainland markets, developing First Harvest Ale provided Burslem with perhaps his biggest challenge. First brewed in 2002, the annual limited-edition ale is a joint celebration of fresh, local ingredients, employing the first of the new season’s malted barley and green, unkilned hop flowers picked on the first morning of the hop harvest.

Each year Burslem selects a new trio of hop varieties to give the brew a distinctive “vintage” character.

PHIL JONES & ALISTAIR TURNBULL (ADELAIDE HILL CRAFT BREWING)

From high-flying bankers to hands-on craft brewers, it’s been quite a mid-life career change for good mates Alistair Turnbull and Phil Jones.

“I’ve got a wardrobe full of suits and ties which I never want to wear again,” says Turnbull, whose specialist area used to be “distressed debt and equity – basically, things that have gone wrong for banks”.

After parallel careers which took them from Adelaide to the USA and Europe, the pair landed back in their home state separately in 2001 and started looking at lifestyle options.

Five years on they had completed an intensive brewing course through the American Brewers Guild, commissioned a Canadian-manufactured microbrewery and leased space in the former Onkaparinga woollen mill complex at Lobethal, in the Adelaide Hills.

 “Phil’s probably more business-orientated and I’m more passionate about beer,” says Turnbull. Their solid background in finance undoubtedly helped them develop a sound business plan and they realized operating a combined brewery and hospitality outlet offers a better bottom line.

The Lobethal Bierhaus opened its doors in May 2007, with the restaurant and bar exclusively serving house beers which Jones and Turnbull knock out of the 1200-litre microbrewery which sits behind a glass wall.

“Both of us get an absolute thrill standing in our room and seeing lots of people drinking our beer,” says Turnbull. In just their second year of operation, the pair collected a gold medal and four silvers at the annual Australian International Beer Awards. 

BEN KRAUS, BRIDGE ROAD BREWERS (BEECHWORTH)

After initially training as a winemaker, Ben Kraus had his head turned in the direction of craft beer during a stint working in Western Australia’s Margaret River region. Sampling the wares of the handful of microbreweries in the area soon led him to studying brewing at the University of Ballarat.

Returning to his hometown of Beechworth, Kraus set up a second-hand brewing system in his father’s shed in 2005, then later re-located to a former coach house. He soon announced his presence as an emerging craft brewer, winning a swag of medals at the 2007 AIBA, including a gold for his Beechworth Australian Ale.

Not only did the latter top the Australian-style pale ale category, it’s also the most popular house beer at his brewery-door café/bar.

“We’re in a small regional area and I wanted something moderate but well-balanced that would open people’s minds to our other beers,” Kraus says.

Those other beers cover an impressive range including a red ale, robust porter, Bavarian wheat beer and India pale ale, plus more extreme styles like saison and biere de garde, which Kraus packages in 750ml sparkling wine bottle. And he’s having plenty of fun with some seasonal brews like his Chestnut Ale (brewed with local chestnuts), an oak-aged Imperial Stout and The Harvest – a flavour-packed ale made with fresh, green hop flowers harvested from the nearby Rostrevor hop gardens.

 BRAD ROGERS, STONE & WOOD BREWING (BYRON BAY)

“I always wanted to make beer but there were no proper brewing courses around back in the late ‘80s,” says Brad Rogers. “Basically, you had study food science or wine-making to get into brewing – so I did wine-making.”

After graduating from Roseworthy College, Rogers worked for various wineries including Mountadam in the Eden Valley, from where he was recruited by Carlton & United Breweries in 1994.

He spent time running their Fijian brewery and distillery, Masthead Brewery (Sanctuary Cove, Queensland) and, ultimately, Matilda Bay Brewing. The latter was Australia’s original craft brewery and was acquired by CUB in 1990; under Roger’s watch, foundation brands like Redback and Dogbolter were re-vitalised and new ones launched, including Beez Neez (a honey wheat ale) and Barking Duck (a Belgian saison style).

In early 2008, Rogers left the Foster’s fold to set up Stone & Wood Brewing in Byron Bay, along with another pair of ex-Fosters employees in Jamie Cook and Ross Jurisich. For the trio, it represented a move away from big city living, combined with the opportunity to do their own thing. 

“We’ve left some pretty good jobs and we’re in this for the lifestyle,” Rogers says. “I’m not moving again.”  

Stone & Wood Draught Ale – a cloudy, golden tap-only ale packed with fresh hop flavours – was rolled out in late 2008, and joined later by a bottled product (Stone & Wood Pale Lager).

BRENDAN VARIS, FERAL BREWING COMPANY (WESTERN AUSTRALIA)

Seldom has a single brewery dominated the Australian International Beer Awards to the extent the Feral Brewing Company did earlier this year. Apart from carrying off trophies for four separate beer style categories, the West Australian craft brewer was named champion small brewer and overall champion exhibitor.

For co-founder and head brewer Brendan Varis, it was a glittering achievement in a room full of his peers.

“We always wanted to push the boundaries in developing great tasting, flavoursome beers,” he says. “Unlike bigger breweries, we don’t have the economies of scale in production, so we made a conscious decision to go for uncompromising flavour.”

Before leaping into his own venture, Varis worked as a consultant for a Canadian-based manufacturer of microbreweries, helping to design and install 14 breweries in Australia and New Zealand. The experience allowed him to design his own locally-built 1200-litre system which was installed in a new restaurant complex in the Swan Valley which opened in late 2007.

While Feral Brewing was the first fully-fledged microbrewery in the popular wine touring region outside Perth, it’s now part of a cluster of six such operations. Most other breweries have a flagship lager or ale but, unusually, Varis’s nationally-distributed standard bearer is Feral White – a Belgian white or witbier, flavoured with dried orange peel and coriander seeds.  

But it was never part of any deliberate plan, according to Varis. “It happened by natural selection,” he says. “It was our most popular beer by far right from the start.”

RICHARD WATKINS, WIG & PEN BREWERY/TAVERN (CANBERRA)

Fresh out of university and a year spent working in an underground gold mine, Richard Watkins wandered into Canberra’s Wig & Pen brew-pub in 1995 and scored a job as a kitchen-hand. But it was the in-house brewery which caught his interest and after a short spell as assistant brewer he was thrown in the deep-end and hasn’t looked back.

More than 13 years spent running the same microbrewery is something of a record in local craft beers circles and during that time Watkins has knocked out countless different beers styles. The quartet of hand-pumped real ales are the jewel in the crown of this bustling inner-city brew-pub but the ever-changing seasonal brews are where Watkins has really made his mark.

A vermilion-hued Elderberry Berliner Weiss, a tarry annual Russian Imperial Stout and a wood-aged Flanders Red are just a few of the more extreme beer styles to pop up on tap there. To celebrate the annual hop harvest, Watkins crams fresh hop flowers into a see-through glass device he’s tagged “modus hoperandus”, and through which beer is pumped en route from keg to tap.

On other occasions, he’s used everything from spices, coffee beans and shaved truffles in the bar-top gizmo to give an extra flavour hit to his house brews.

The Wig & Pen epitomizes a successful pub-brewery, where production has struggled in recent times to keep pace with drinkers’ thirsts at the outlet. In an effort to match demand, larger tanks  have been installed recently and a bottled product – Kembery Regional Ale – has been rolled for the first time.