This week we head down to Newcastle and meet up with Corey Crooks, publican of The Albion Hotel and the driving force behind last year's Newcastle Craft Beer Week.
Newcastle isn't the first city that springs to mind when beer lovers talk about hot beer destnations, but over the past three years Corey has turned his pub into a mainstream-serving pub into a significant craft beer oasis. We talk to Corey about how he had effected this transformation and some of the things he has learned during the process.
Among the things Corey tells us is:
Serving craft beer has made the working lives of staff much easier because of the changed deomgraphics in the hotel that has been attracted by craft beer. By attracting customers drawn to beer for flavour and not effect, beer has changed the ambience of the hotel.
In changing the beer offerings at a hotel, staff are critical. If you put craft beer on, your staff must be engaged in the process and know about what they are selling...or it just wont sell.
It's a great look at how to turn around a pub with craft beer.
We also catch up with Simon Coghlan from the Ballarat Beer Festival which was held in January. It was a huge success in its first year and we wanted to find out from Simon what they had learned in pulling together a beer festival and what they have planned for next year.
The show ends on a high note with a high energy performance of Beer Barrel Polka performed by Joe Maphis and Merle Travis from the album Country Guitar Giants. If you don't already own this little piece of recording gold, you can buy it here.
You can get show notes and links at the website.
