Stone & Wood brewery: Inside newly opened Fortitude Valley venue

In news that will have Brisbane beer lovers frothing, Northern Rivers’ Stone & Wood has opened a brewery in the River City.

A heritage-listed iceworks on Fortitude Valley’s Bridge St is now a stylish bar and microbrewery – a veritable home-away-from-home for beer lovers – thanks to the recent arrival of award-winning Byron Bay beer company Stone & Wood.

Stone & Wood Brisbane brewery, Fortitude Valley.

A Brisbane outpost had not been high on the agenda for Stone & Wood, which still has its original Byron brewery and a larger facility at Murwillumbah, but that all changed when the team stumbled across the grand old Trails ice factory and cold storage building.

Chief executive Ben Summons says they took one look at the 1935 building, which has many of its original fittings still in place, and realised the opportunity was too good to pass up.

“We weren’t actually looking but when the property turned up, we just thought, ‘Oh yeah, it’s a beauty’,” Ben says.

An iconic Australian craft brewery, Stone & Wood was founded in 2008, long before craft beer was popular.

Three mates, Brad Rogers, Jamie Cook and Ross Jurisich, all beer nuts at heart, had found themselves working in an office and not doing what they really loved – brewing beer.

Brad Rogers, Jamie Cook and Ross Jurisich, directors of the Byron-Bay based Stone & Wood Brewery

Stone & Wood co-founder Ross Jurisich says: “We had been ‘working for the man’ for long enough so we put two years into developing the plan while we carried on with our day jobs, so when we actually kicked it off, we hit the ground running.”

From its inauspicious beginnings in a small shed in Byron Bay, Stone & Wood has grown to become one of Australia’s largest independent brewers.

And when two of the company’s founders, together with Ben, walked around the old iceworks site in Fortitude Valley, they quickly decided to turn the building into Brisbane’s newest altar to craft beer.

“We had been selling our beers in Brisbane for 10 years and we always knew it was somewhere we needed to be. While we weren’t fixed on The Valley it was the natural choice with other music and entertainment venues plus the growing beer culture in Brisbane,” Ben says.

For decades the Trails Ltd Ice and Cold Stores had been a key refrigeration and storage facility for meat in Brisbane.

Stone & Wood Brisbane brewery has given a new lease of life to the former Trails Ltd Ice building.

It also supplied much of the city with its daily ice needs from 1935 to 1976, with Trails’

ice workers delivering their cargo to businesses and homes, sometimes by horse-drawn cart in the withering summer heat or driving rain.

The building was purchased by activewear entrepreneur Lorna Jane in 2000 for clothing manufacturing before its recent use by Smoked Garage as a custom motorcycle showroom and workshop.

For its latest incarnation, Stone & Wood installed a bar, function room and brewery but retained the building’s historic character with the exposed steel beams and industrial exterior barely touched in the minimalist fit-out – aside from the shiny stainless steel of the microbrewery.

Stone & Wood Brisbane brewery interiors

The original gantry that for many years lifted ice blocks from the factory into carts and trucks is still in place, hanging above customers as they sip a freshly brewed beer.

Home to Stone & Wood’s Queensland head office and 20 staffers, the Valley brewery allows customers to sit among fermenters as they brew small batch releases, exclusive to Bridge St, which can then be enjoyed direct from tanks at the bar – on top of the full, vegan-friendly Stone & Wood range.

The company’s take on beer is refreshing, not only championing classic styles but also happy to push the boundaries into a place most brewers would not tread, such as its Lovely Bubbly Brut Rosé beer.

As well as traditional ingredients, Lovely Bubbly also uses fruit, hot rocks and chardonnay juice in brewing.

Stone & Wood are known for pushing the boundaries into places most brewers would not tread. Pic Mark Cranitch.

Much of Stone & Wood’s success has come from its groundbreaking Pacific Ale, a mid-weight, hoppy style without too much bitterness that provides real beer flavour.

Co-founder and head brewer Brad Rogers describes it as a thirst-quenching beer perfect to enjoy straight after an ocean swim, while still wrapped in a towel, on a baking hot day.

The new Stone & Wood brewery was built by beer lovers for beer lovers.

Even the food, prepared by chefs on a rotating roster, must match the range of beers.

“We don’t do music, we don’t do TVs, we just provide a relaxing beer experience,” Ben says.

IF YOU GO

Stone & Wood Fortitude Valley, 99 Bridge St, Fortitude Valley, open Wed-Sun until 10pm,

The venue will also host the launch party for Brisbane’s not-for-profit beer festival Brewsvegas 2020, Feb 12, tickets $10