July Brewery Showcase - Mountain Goat Brewery

It is with great pleasure we announce that July's brewery showcase (in both Darlo and St Kilda) is Mountain Goat Brewery. For those of you who don't know their story, here it is...

Two goats, no money but plenty of beer...

Mountain Goat started out in Dave’s backyard in the early 90’s. Dave was cranking out homebrews almost every weekend when a postcard turned up from Cam (backpacking through Canada).

Cam was travelling OS after quitting his music industry job in Melbourne. “When I turned up in Vancouver a friend took me out to some local bars serving a host of local microbrews on tap. I just suddenly got the picture and realised what Dave was striving for back home. My perception of beer got turned upside down right then and there. So I sent Dave a postcard that said something like Dave, we gotta talk, we need to start a microbrewery in Melbourne.”

After two years of frantic product development in Dave.s backyard and a lot of red tape the first serious Mountain Goat beer was born. The Hightail Ale hit the shelves (well around three shelves) in October 97.

Having no money they kicked off by contract brewing their initial batches in borrowed facilities when not in use. A good way to start but they really needed their own brewery.

So while Dave was living in a disused town hall in country Victoria overseeing the brews Cam wrote a business plan and started knocking on doors in Melbourne. “Plenty of people liked the idea of owning part of a brewery but when it came down to it we were two, young, overly ambitious guys without much business experience. We approached every banking institution imaginable and most of them wouldn’t even open our business plan. Our personal position statements included three surfboards, a couple of mountain bikes and Dave’s EH Holden.. Not a lot of security for the banks evidently.”

Anyway, Dave and Cam learned to be persistent. Really persistent. They finally secured the required funds from friends, family and a business banker who wanted them out of his face.

Today the boys operate their very own microbrewery in Richmond (inner Melbourne). They craft the Hightail Ale, Pale Ale plus two seasonal beers – the Surefoot Stout through winter and the organic IPA in summer.

“The plant is very labor intensive, but we can squeeze great beer out of it,” says Dave. “And after hand filling, capping and labelling just on 2 million bottles you can well imagine we.re pretty happy about putting in a small, automated bottling line.”

Mountain Goat has collected a swag of awards over the last 10 years for their traditional, all natural ales and now has about 80 bars in Melbourne (and one Taphouse in Sydney!!) pouring their beers on tap plus bottled beer distributed nationally.

Here at the Local Taphouse we'll be pouring the Goat Steam Ale, Rapunzel Belgian Blonde Ale (Victoria's premier's award, AIBA 2009), Goat Hightail Ale, and Goat Surefoot Stout.

Also at the Darlo Taphouse this Thursday, July 16th, is Sydney's first Goat Army get together for all those dedicated Goats in the harbour city. The Goat range will be on tap and Cam and Dave - founding Goats - will be there to have a chat. So come down and meet likeminded Goats. Kick off is 6pm. See you there.