I Accidentally Became a Brewer
- 14 hours ago
- 4 min read
I became a brewer by accident.
That's probably disappointing if you were hoping for some romantic story about growing up around homebrew or spending my twenties chasing Belgian saisons. I wish I had something that interesting.
The reality is I was working in a bottle shop when an old friend wandered in. Her partner, Brody, was a brewer and they were looking for someone. She asked if any of the boys wanted a job. Before anyone else could answer, I said, "I'll give it a go."
Looking back, that's been a fairly consistent theme in my life. I don't spend years making five-year plans. I get curious about something, jump in, and hope I can work the rest out along the way. Sometimes that's worked brilliantly. Sometimes... not so much.
A week or so later I drove out to Western Sydney to meet Brody. He showed me around the brewery. I nodded along like I knew what I was looking at, but honestly, I had no idea. It wasn't one of those little breweries tucked behind the glass where people sip tasting paddles and watch someone stir a mash. This was a proper commercial brewery. A manufacturing plant. Massive fermenters stretched towards the roof, forklifts darted around moving pallets, hoses snaked across the floor and everything seemed to hiss, rattle or pump.
I remember standing there thinking two things.
First, this is bloody cool. Second, there is absolutely no chance I'm ever going to understand any of this.
After a couple of hours Brody asked if I wanted the job. I said yes. A few days later he sent me a shopping list.
High-vis.
Steel-cap gumboots from Bunnings.
Respirator.
I think that was the moment it stopped feeling hypothetical. My first job was filtering beer. It sounds simple enough until you're standing in front of a filtration skid covered in valves, gauges, pumps and hoses while someone explains the process at full speed. I wasn't intimidated by the hard work. I'd always liked physical jobs. What intimidated me was the knowledge. Brewers know an absurd amount of stuff. Chemistry. Biology. Engineering. Plumbing. Cleaning. Food science. Someone would casually mention enzymes or protein rests or dissolved oxygen as though everyone learnt it in Year 10 Science. I'd stand there nodding while quietly wondering what the hell they were talking about.
I honestly remember thinking, I'll never know this much. The thing is, nobody expected me to. Brody had this way of teaching that I've never really forgotten. He'd show me something, let me have a go, then ask me why I was doing it.
Not, "What's the next step?"
"Why?"
Why do we open that valve first?
Why does this temperature matter?
Why can't we just do it the other way around?
At first I found it frustrating because I usually didn't know the answer. Then I realised that was the whole point. He wasn't trying to teach me a list of steps. He was teaching me how to think. I still catch myself doing exactly the same thing when I'm training people today.
The brewery itself was nothing like I'd imagined.People have this idea that brewing is standing around drinking beer all day. It's not. It's cleaning. Then more cleaning.
Then dragging a hose that weighs twice as much as you remember.
Then cleaning the hose.
Then cleaning the thing the hose was attached to.
Somewhere in amongst all that, you actually make beer.
It's also incredibly physical. One day you're climbing around tanks. The next you're hauling grain. Another day you're on a scissor lift near the roof of the warehouse in forty-degree heat, dry hopping a tank with 250 kilos of hops and wondering whose idea this was. It's hard work.
The funny thing is, I loved that part. I'd always played sport, and there was something satisfying about finishing the day completely exhausted because you'd actually done something. Not answered emails. Not moved numbers around on a spreadsheet. Made something.
I didn't suddenly wake up one morning and think, I'm a brewer now. It happened gradually.
The first time I set up the filtration system without stopping to think about every valve.
The first time I finished a shift without needing to ask ten questions.
The first brew I ran on my own.
I remember those mornings more than anything. Five o'clock. Still dark outside. Just me in this enormous warehouse making beer for some of Australia's biggest independent breweries. At the time it felt completely normal. Looking back, it's a bit surreal.
I made mistakes, obviously. I forgot to close a valve once and sent about a quarter of a tank of beer straight down the drain before I realised what I'd done. I dropped a pallet of empty cans because it hadn't been wrapped properly. There were plenty of little mistakes that come with learning a trade.
There was also a strange moment where I realised I'd become part of the industry.
I'd go to a beer festival or another brewery and someone would ask what I did.
"I'm a brewer."
Even saying it felt weird. There was this quiet respect that came with it, like you'd been let into a club you didn't even know existed a year earlier.
The other thing I remember is that nobody seemed to eat lunch. We'd get to work, get busy and just... keep working. One day I asked Brody what the deal was.
"Do we get lunch?"
He looked at me, a bit confused.
"Yeah."
"You don't eat?"
"Only if Kim packed me something."
That seemed to be the entire lunch policy.
Somewhere along the way I stopped feeling like the new kid who was pretending to know what she was doing. Not because I suddenly knew everything. I still don't. But I knew enough to do the job, and I couldn't imagine doing anything else.
Owning a brewery hadn't crossed my mind yet.
I was just genuinely happy turning up every day, making beer with good people and learning something new.
As it turned out, that wasn't where the story ended.
It was where it started... (cheesy, but subjectivly true)
