Aussie independent craft breweries offer more than beer

Mitta Mitta Brewing Company's annual hop pick started with a handful of friends and family collecting the sticky flowers into the night.

Now almost 50 locals and regulars volunteer over two afternoons, with the brewery putting on food and drink for their trouble.

"People love it," brewery co-owner Alec Pennington told AAP.

"They get a lovely day and get to harvest something, which is something I think people naturally enjoy, especially on a communal level."

Like many small-town businesses, the award-winning brewery is a key employer, sponsors the football and netball teams, is a magnet for tourists and is a meeting hub for locals and community events.

Before Mr Pennington and his friend, co-owner and brewer Tim Cabelka arrived with their young families to build the brewery over five years from 2013, Mitta Mitta was home to a pub, general store, police station and a handful of volunteer-run emergency services.

Independent Brewers Association chief executive Kylie Lethbridge says about two-thirds of the organisation's 443 brewery members are in the regions.

"They're rejuvenating small towns that maybe needed that boost," she told AAP.

Ms Lethbridge said independent breweries indirectly provided about 30,000 jobs nationally, along with flow-on benefits to the agricultural sector, including a previously non-existent domestic hop market.

The association is encouraging drinkers to preference beers displaying its industry logo, as independent brewers compete for limited taps and bar shelf space against a backdrop of rising costs, legacy taxes and multinational acquisitions, while supermarkets and retailers throw their own brands onto the craft beer bandwagon.

"We really just want everybody to understand what it means to purchase an independent versus a non-independent when you go into the bottle shop," Ms Lethbridge said.

The association is calling for a fairer playing field, less red tape and an upgrade to Australia's antiquated tax system, which includes the fourth-highest beer excise in the industrialised world.

"When you put the beer in the keg you're taxed, you take the beer out of the keg, you're taxed," Ms Lethbridge said.

"We want just an easier and fairer process ... and that the industry is supported as are some others, like the wine industry, to reduce some of their costs.

"The other benefit to independents that should be super obvious is that all those profits stay onshore."

The nation's biggest beer brands - except for the Australian family-owned Coopers - are predominantly owned by Japan's Asahi Group Holdings and Kirin Company.

Asahi's brands include Carlton and United Breweries, Cascade and early craft trailblazer Mountain Goat.

Kirin through its Lion subsidiary owns James Boags, Hahn, Tooheys, Little Creatures and acquired Byron Bay's Stone and Wood and its associated Fermentum businesses for more than half a billion dollars in 2021.

While some craft brands have faded following large-scale acquisitions, Fermentum - which also includes Two Birds and Fixation - has continued to operate as a stand-alone business since the Lion takeover.

The company's supply chain leader Richie Crowe said it now enjoyed a broader customer base and was glad to draw guidance from a big network while remaining a craft beer hub.

"At the end of the day, it's still the same cracking beers and a passionate Fermentum team who show up to make them every day," Mr Crowe told AAP.

While the company's founders knocked off permanently on the day of the 2021 sale, they reportedly still offer advice and insights to their former team members.

Fermentum impact manager Jahdon Quinlan underscored the company's community and sustainability record, which had been supported by Lion.

"As part of the sale, $5 million was donated to our InGrained Foundation - a public ancillary fund distributing funds to local grassroots social and environmental charities," Mr Quinlan told AAP.

A further $1 million was donated to a rainforest land care group.

"I personally don't know of any other sale or acquirement with this inclusion - it's a philanthropic first for the brewing industry," Mr Quinlan said.

In chilly northeastern Victoria's Beechworth, Bridge Road Brewers is hosting its annual High Country Hop festival, celebrating the beer, spirits and cordials produced by the region's independent brewers and distillers.

Bridge Road - founded by Ben Kraus and his wife Maria in the early 2000s - employs 40 direct staff and its beer can be found in taps across Australia and parts of Southeast Asia.

"These big companies, the only reason they own craft beer brands is because they were losing market share," Mr Kraus told AAP.

"There's great people that work at these big companies and also brewers who have great skills and amazing resources, but I firmly believe the decision makers would much rather just go back to only the duopoly."

Mr Kraus said consolidation and industrial business models would ultimately lead to blander beers.

"Even though they're looking to have a diverse brand portfolio, they don't want diversity," he said.

"They don't want to have purchasing agreements with 20 suppliers. They need one or two. They need that really robust business model that's industrialised and simple that owns all the distribution points."

Mr Kraus said because the majors had contracts that include popular craft brands for around 90 per cent of taps in Australian venues, independents were having to undersell to compete.

"It's probably a real crunch time," he said.

"Inflationary pressure from suppliers but then because competition is so high the independents can't afford to put the prices to where they need to be."

Mr Kraus said many independent breweries relied on localism and finding like-minded venues, which are also usually independently owned.

Back at the Mitta Mitta Brewing Company, its award-winning brewer and co-owner Tim Cabelka isn't too stressed about pressure from the majors.

"I don't have anything against the big boys," Mr Cabelka told AAP.

"They're just being a business and doing their thing.

"We've just got to do our thing."

Australian Associated Press