Traditional pubs are spending millions to keep up with an explosion of brewpubs

No battle flags have been officially raised but this is the new front line in the fight for the drinker’s dollar in a city long renowned for its love of the liquid gold.

Sitting under one end of the iconic Story Bridge, a classic Queensland pub is quietly under siege but calmly holding its ground, as it has done for more than a century.

Meanwhile, at the other end, one of the city’s hippest new brewpubs is pouring beers as quickly as the notoriously strong current on this bend in the Brisbane River.

No battle flags have been officially raised but this is a new front line in the fight for the drinker’s dollar in a city long renowned for its love of the liquid gold.

On the southern side of the city’s landmark span of cantilevered steel, the beer taps of the Story Bridge Hotel have been flowing for 133 years.

Generations of beer drinkers from Brisbane and beyond have quenched their thirst here, even before the bridge existed, when it was known as the Kangaroo Point Hotel.

In recent times, however, patronage of the River City’s traditional pubs has been diluted by a rapidly rising tide of brewpubs that has flooded its hospitality landscape.

Richard and Jane Deery on the upper verandah at the historic Story Bridge Hotel.

“Too much of anything is never good,” says Richard Deery, whose family has owned and operated the Story Bridge Hotel for more than 40 years.

“But without a doubt the brewpubs have reinvigorated people’s interest in beer. Having the variety is fantastic and we certainly embrace quality beer.”

Change is a constant in the hotel industry and like the publicans of most of Brisbane’s other longstanding watering holes Deery is far from fazed by the city’s thriving craft brewery scene. “You’ve got to keep evolving and you’ve got to adapt to the market. It’s about what people are looking for and meeting their needs,” he says.

Across the muddy brown depths on the other side of the beer drinking divide – directly under the northern end of the Story Bridge – is Felons Brewing Co.

Part of the revived Howard Smith Wharves, it is arguably the most popular addition to the city’s fast growing band of brewpubs. Shortly after opening late last year, an entire month’s supply of beer was consumed by its patrons in just three days.

Not long after the beer started flowing at Felons, another new brewpub – Sea Legs Brewing Co – turned on its taps only a stone’s throw from the Story Bridge Hotel.

And according to Brisbane craft beer expert Matt Kirkegaard, it won’t be the last. “In a lot of ways it’s almost mirroring the change that we’ve seen with Uber versus taxis in some ways,” Kirkegaard says. “Hotel licences have traditionally been the only way that you create a place where people can go out and drink.”

That all changed in Queensland in 2009 when the state’s first ‘small bars’ liquor licence was introduced.

“Small bars started springing up and doing phenomenally well with beers from the few craft breweries that were around then and had been finding it difficult to get their beers on taps in the big hotels, which had contracts with the big breweries.

“That really accelerated the uptake of craft beer and made a market for all those people who had been dreaming of opening a craft brewery,” Kirkegaard says.

When the Queensland Government unveiled its Craft Brewing Strategy last year to support the expansion of the industry, it was estimated to be worth $62 million per year and the number of homegrown craft beer brands was already exceeding 80 and climbing.

Kirkegaard says the explosion of brewpubs feeds into a much broader social change. “The way people are drinking and the way people are socialising is changing,” he says. “And unless the pubs can remodel themselves around that they risk becoming the dinosaurs of the hospitality industry.”

Queensland Hotels Association chief executive Bernie Hogan says it is by no means the final nail in the coffin for traditional pubs, which also have been under pressure from increased regulations and the slow but steady decline in alcohol consumption.

“I don’t for one moment think traditional pubs will die off,” Hogan says

“They’ll reinvent themselves as they have done for decades. They’ve never been able to rest on their laurels, there has always been something new coming.”

At least a third of the beers on tap at many of the city’s pubs are now locally brewed craft beers.

Craig Singleton, the owner of The Pineapple Hotel. Picture: Mark Cranitch

The heritage-listed Pineapple Hotel at Kangaroo Point – owned and operated by the Singleton family for the past 31 years – has devoted a whole bar to serving craft beers from the growing army of independent brewers.

“They’re making some cracking beers and people are now more willing to try them,” says Craig Singleton.

“We could see the way the market was changing two years ago and wanted to be ahead of the curve. There’s eight pubs within two square kilometres of here so we dedicated a bar to it and change the beers weekly. It gives us a point of difference.”

Singleton says it has been a generational shift and there is no going back to the days when people either drank XXXX or VB. “Twenty years ago, you drank what your father drank and he drank what his father drank.

“But people now drink 50 different beers. They don’t drink the same beer regularly. They want to support the independent brewers and try all the different beers. So you’ve just got to adapt.”

He says Millennials have led the charge in the shift to craft beers and boutique spirits. “They’re not drinking as much but they’re certainly more knowledgeable about their produce.

“It’s breathing new life into the business. It makes you interact with your customers a bit more. They want to know what hops are in the beer, where it’s made. It’s not just like pouring another XXXX Gold.”

QBM - Craig Singleton, the owner of The Pineapple Hotel, for QBM cover story on changes and challenges of Qld pubs in the face of the brewpub/microbrewery boom. Pic Mark Cranitch.

James Power, the nephew of Bernie Power who took the fight to XXXX and CUB with his Power Brewing in the 1980s, agrees there is a “greater sophistication” among the drinking public. He bought the historic Norman Hotel at Woolloongabba back in 2015. “Craft beer bars have really been part of the scene now for about 10 years so most publicans have well and truly had to adjust to that,” he says.

“All we’re seeing now is that there are more of them and it’s more competitive than it has ever been.

“I don’t mind a craft beer myself from time to time. We’ve got lots of them on tap and have done so ever since I bought the business. If you’re a reasonably sized venue you’ve got to have a wide offering. Gone are the days when you had maybe three or four beers on tap – a couple of heavy beers, a mid-strength and a light beer. That’s completely changed now.

“Traditional pubs I think also have to have a strong brand and play to their strengths.

“Food is a major selling point for us now. We’ve got the quirky catch cry of ‘Brisbane’s worst vegetarian restaurant’ and are very much a gastro pub. Other pubs are heavily dependent on things like gaming and sports betting.

“It’s a very competitive marketplace and so you’ve got to do what you do and do it well. I suspect the whole craft brewery fad, for want of a better word, will wax and wane. The growth has been quite significant and I’m sure at some point that’s got to taper off.”

But Kirkegaard says Brisbane’s brewpub boom is certainly showing no signs of losing any of its fizz just yet.

“Beer had become incredibly boring and these small brewpubs are currently responding to something that people had been wanting.

“But how long people are going to want that, or whether there are going to be other pressures, we just don’t know.

“In the meantime, I’m sure the traditional pubs have got a lot of things up their sleeves. So it will be interesting to see how they adapt and what they bring to the party.”