Keeper is doing slow beer because it tastes better

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In the immortal words of Dan Andrews, Melbourne has been getting on the beers this past week with Pint of Origin taking over the taps at our favourite craft beer pubs. With each venue serving brews from a specific state or country, it gets pretty wild out there – after a few pints of Feijoa Crumble Sours at the Catfish and Tasmanian Milk Sweet Stouts at The Lincoln though, as delicious as they were, I was ready to get back to some beer minimalism. 

Keeper Brewing is a new addition to the buzzy Brunswick scene, taking over the old Temple Brewing space, and they’re keeping things simple – they focus on pilsner, and they do it really well. 

Pilsners are often misunderstood; there’s even a joke in Brooklyn 99 about how boring Amy’s boyfriend is because he has “the thrills for the pils.” But this pale lager is the most popular beer category in Australia, though often treated as an afterthought by craft breweries which allows large multinationals to dominate the market.

Keeper wants to shake this up. “ We're definitely independent, but we're not craft,” says Max Hart, head of hospitality at the brewery. “We want to try and challenge some of the big players.” 

“ 90 percent of all Australian beer consumed is lager. So we're making a pilsner and we're making it in the traditional style. It takes us about 12 weeks from brewing to the glass – with so many other beers they might be ready in about two and a half to three weeks. We like to call it slow beer. So we are doing it the correct way, focusing and trying to make a premium product,” honouring the care and time taken in traditional iterations of the style.

The team behind Keeper has excellent craft brewing pedigree. Phil Sexton is, in Max’s words, “a bit of a legend.” He is credited with kicking off craft brewing in Australia, having founded Matilda Bay Brewing in the 1980s before heading to the US and creating BridgePort’s IPA (a front runner in the hop wars to follow), and coming back home to help launch Little Creatures and White Rabbit. He returned to Matilda Bay before Asahi shuttered it last year. His son, Harry, has followed in his footsteps and spent time with his Dad at Matilda Bay, and will be heading up brewing at Keeper, while Andy Dunn is on the business side of things after having spent a long time working at one of the beer behemoths.

The last part of the puzzle was the venue side, which is where Max comes in. He has spent time at the Speakeasy group, Bodriggy and Three Ravens, and has come on as a partner through sweat equity and the option to buy in further (a smart move for smaller hospitality companies wanting to attract experienced staff). 

He wants the brewery to become a part of the community with accessible pricing (500ml of their beer in a beautiful tall pilsner glass will only set you back $10) and a rotary mixer with speaker stacks playing electronic music, and regular DJ nights attracting a younger generation – good beer isn’t just for the middle-aged.

“When you come to our venue, you can come in and you can get fed well, you can drink well, and it's not gonna break the bank. With our music offering you can come and have a bit of a boogie – in East Brunswick, there aren't too many places that can happen. So we’re really leaning into that, just having a space where parties can be had and that price point we think is really sharp.”

Of course, Keeper pilsner isn’t all you can drink there (although I’ll probably find it hard to move past to be honest). Having one key product means they can use their other taps to champion independent distilleries. “We just did a trade out with the guys at La Sirène so we got a couple of their wild and funkies,” says Max, and other local breweries like Bodriggy and Brick Lane are represented as well. And they have a Michelada, of course, as part of a short and fun cocktail list.

It’s the kind of venue I can see spending too many hours at as a couple of casual beers turns into a dance party, and that’s the point. Just remember kids – all pilsner is lager, but not all lager is pilsner.

Around the Bars

• You may have missed the official Pint of Origin festivities but plenty of venues are running through the rest of their kegs this week so it's worth checking out what your local still has on – I recommend the L&P Shandy at The Catfish.
• Pendant Public Bar had their soft opening night last night, and to stick with the beer theme my favourite cocktail of the evening was a Braulio and cucumber spiked Czech pilsner concoction who’s name I’ve forgotten but which I will definitely be returning for as soon as possible.
• It’s World Whisky Day on Saturday (which seems a little redundant as every day can be a whisky day in my eyes), and Casa de Vinos is holding a Mini Whisky Festival. Details and tickets here.