The Local BottleStore & Provisions - over & out

It is with great sadness that The Local BottleStore & Provisions will be closing down for good this Sunday June 17th at 8pm. We gave the Store a real crack but it wasn’t financially viable for the Local group of businesses and we have decided to focus solely on our existing craft beer venues, GABS and exciting new opportunities.

We have many ideas for moving the craft beer movement forward in Australia and we also have a few ideas we are considering for the Store. Watch this space for more updates. A heartfelt thanks to Ashley, Nitun, Rick and James as well as our suppliers and customers for their tremendous support and loyalty over the course of the journey.

For customers seeking great takeaway beer, we recommend other specialist beer shops such as Slow Beer, Purvis Beer, Black Hearts & Sparrows and Chapel Street Cellars.

Cheers & Beers,

Guy & Steve

World Famous brewer coming to BottleStore & Provisions on March 6

On Tuesday 6th of March at The Local BottleStore & Provisions will be having their latest Cheese and Beer tasting, with Christian Andersen from the legendary Denmark Brewery Beer Here, and Ashley Church from Cheese Culture taking you through the night's line up.

Don't miss out on this cracker (get it, cheese.. cracker!) night.

Read more here.

Are you a passionate boodie or feerdie (beer/foodie)?! Want to manage the second phase of the BottleStore & Provisions? Apply now!

The Local BottleStore & Provisions' manager, James Smith, is heading back to university to complete his studies (which were interrupted when he began working at The Local Taphouse almost four years ago!). Fortunately for us, James will still be involved on a casual basis with beery stuff across all the businesses and GABS.

So we're now looking for a new full-time Store manager!

What's make this especially exciting is that the successful candidate will be joining at a very exciting time as we proceed with the planned second stage of the Store's development.

Over the next few months, we will be significantly increasing the "provisions" element of the Store. We will still provide all the great things we offer now but we will be ramping up the gourmet food store/providore side so it becomes a more complete eating and drinking destination in the neighbourhood.

The Taphouse's new Head Chef, Jeff Simpson (ex Sapore, Richmond Hill & Larder) is joining us in a couple of weeks and will be working to create many delectable delights to complement all the other new foodie items we will be cramming the shelves with.

We will also be extending our already impressive bottled beer and cider range AND increasing the number of growler/squealer taps over time.

But wait, there's more! Subject to permits and licensing applications being finalised, customers will soon be able to drink any bottle of any beer/wine/cider on the shelf or fridge and enjoy something to eat while seated in the Store.

To find out more about the plans and what the job of Store Manager entails, click here. To apply, email your resume to jobs@thelocal.com.au.

Do you have a passionate friend who loves great food and drink and would love this role? If so, please help us spread the word!

Above: The ad to appear in Epicure next week.

Beer and Cheese in the BottleStore this Wednesday...

After the success of the first one, The Local BottleStore & Provisions has its second beer and cheese matching evening this Wednesday, November 23rd.

Click Here for all the details.

There are only a few places left so get in early to avoid disappointment.

Cheers,

The Local Crew

Growler home deliveries free for AFL Grand Final day!

If you live in the neighbourhood around the St Kilda Taphouse and need a growler (or two) of delicious fresh tap beer for your Grand Final day celebrations, The Local BottleStore & Provisions will deliver it free of charge to your house!

You must pre order by 9.30pm on Friday on 1300 GROWLER. For more info click here.

Feature article on the BottleStore in Hocking Stuart magazine

Just released is Hocking Stuart's RED magazine which features The Local BottleStore & Provisions in a double page spread! 22,500 of the magazines are distributed weekly throughout Victoria so that's a nice piece of publicity.

Click here to visit the Store's blog and view the article.

One litre 'Squealers' coming soon to BottleStore

It was always our plan to get smaller Growler-like vessels for takeaway tap beers from The Local BottleStore & Provisions and Darlo Taphouse and they're now on the way! To be called Squealers (cleverly named by Ale Star and Hall of Famer, Steve Roberts), these 1 litre jugs will mean that you don't have to wait for a gathering of friends to drink a 2 litre Growler. You can down a Squealer on your own!

They will be available in about 6 weeks. Like the Growlers, there will be a one-off cost for the physical Squealer and then a charge for each refill.

As always, we are happy to fill growlers from any other businesses with only a small surcharge a $2 surcharge.

Beer & Cheese tasting night at BottleStore

On Wednesday Sept 21st, The Local BottleStore & Provisions in St Kilda will be holding their first Cheese and Beer matching evening.

With the help of the experts from Cheese Culture, they will be pairing some of the world's best beers with some equally amazing cheeses. Places are limited, so to find out more, visit the Store blog.

An excited tweet about the BottleStore!

I just found this interesting tweet from someone new to The Local BottleStore & Provisions! Glad to see another happy new customer.

To find out more about the Store, visit its blog.

Growler home deliveries launched at St Kilda BottleStore

Before Ale Stars in St Kilda on Tuesday (report to come), Ben Kraus personally rode our delivery bike to launch the BottleStore's growler home delivery service.

More at The Local Bottle Store & Provisions blog.

Growler comp winner announced and home deliveries start this week

The winner of the competition to have a growler of Bridge Road's Anniversary Ale Black Saison home delivered by the brewer has been announced.

It's all going down tomorrow night at The Local Bottlestore & Provisions before the Ale Stars 3rd birthday party!

Growlers have been a huge hit since the Store opened but they can now be home delivered from the Store on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from this week. More information will be posted on the Store blog before this Friday.

Calling All Cyclists - Growler Delivery Riders wanted in St Kilda

As many of you would know, The Local BottleStore & Provisions will soon be delivering brewery fresh beer right to your lounge room.

So we are looking for keen cyclists who think they can hack the pace delivering growlers around our local area.

Anyone interested should email us here and we'll be in touch.

Cheers

Growler fillers named after Guy and Steve's first born kids

Last Friday, the growler fillers at the Bottle Store were officially named Hank and Frankie after Steve and Guy's first children.

Click here for the full story!

The Local Bottlestore & Provisions - now open!

We've been a little too busy to properly update this blog lately but many of you will have now heard, or got the idea from various sources, that we finally opened The Local Bottlestore & Provisions in St Kilda about 2 weeks ago. It's kind of a "soft" opening as it may take us a few more weeks to get ourselves properly organised and for more stock to arrive.

The BS was designed with an old world neighbourhood general store in mind, only it specialises in great beer, cider, wine, smallgoods, bread, cheese and other provisions. We are starting with about 500 beers but if we can sell enough stock to look after the beers, we have the space to have many, many more. Growler fills start any tick of the clock with two taps but again we can expand to as many as 24 (it's one business happy to be next door to the Taphouse) and home delivery to really local Locals starts in a few weeks.


The former Assistant Manager at the St Kilda Taphouse and Beer Dude (across all venues), James Smith, has been promoted to become Store Manager/Beer Dude and we're thrilled to have him assume this jobby. His encyclopedic knowledge of beer and passion is perfectly suited to what he's now doing.

We’re currently open from midday until 8pm (Sun to Wed) and until 10pm (Thu to Sat). Phone: 9537 3300 or 1300-GROWLER. We now have introduce a sister blog just for the Bottlestore and you should subscribe if you want to get the latest news of what's happening. We're also at facebook.com/bottlestoreSK and @bottlestoreSK on Twitter.

As always, we very much value your feedback as we're all trying constantly to be things better and we're very new to the retail game. Please don't be shy about telling us about the good and not so good things we do.

Hopefully we'll see you down there soon.

Click here for a Hipstamatic slideshow.

Bridge Road brewer to personally deliver beer growler to launch Bottlestore bicycle deliveries!

Ben Kraus, owner and brewer at Bridge Road Brewery and an avid cyclist, will officially launch The Local Bottlestore & Provisions' home delivery service at 6pm Tuesday July 19th, before the Ale Star's Third Birthday Celebration Session.

Ben will fill a growler with his own forthcoming Anniversary Ale and then personally ride our vintage delivery bicycle (similar to the one photographed above) to deliver the growler to our competition winner at his/her home.

To find out more about this fun competition, or to subscribe to the Bottlestore blog, go here.

The Local BottleStore's new blog, Facebook and Twitter pages now online

Today we have put online the new blog, Facebook and Twitter pages for The Local BottleStore & Provisions (LB&P) which will open next week next door to the Taphouse in St Kilda.

We have done separate pages for the LB&P as we will be regularly posting updates about stock arrivals and so forth and this may not appeal to the Taphouse subscribers. Naturally, you can subscribe to both businesses various pages to be kept fully in the picture! For major LB&P news, we will probably post something on this blog.

Here is the info of where you can find us online:

Facebook.com/bottlestoresk
Web: thelocalbottlestoresk.blogspot.com (soon to be redirected from thelocal.com.au)
Twitter @bottlestoresk

More posts to come when we have a definite opening day.

Casual staff wanted for our new Bottle Store

We are looking for passionate beer enthusiasts to fill a range of casual positions in our exciting new specialist beer Bottle Store, opening very soon. Retail experience is helpful but not essential.

If you are interested, or know someone who is, please email your resume to james@thelocal.com.au as we'd love to hear from you.

The Local Bottle Store & Provisions - moving along

As you can see in the photo above, we're just finished the first stage of The Local Bottle Store & Provisions - our first retail beer shop in St Kilda. We expect to open in 10 weeks (give or take 3 months!).

We'll soon be getting a separate blog together for the BS but in the meantime we'll keep you updated here.

The Local Bottle Store & Provisions to open next door in St Kilda!

After many months of process, we can now let you all know that we are taking over the other next door in St Kilda (we have already begun work on the building next door).

To be called The Local Bottle Store & Provisions, we will be "closing the loop" by finally allowing customers to purchase a large range of bottled craft beers and ciders from around Australia and internationally for takeaway! We will also start filling growlers - 2 litre resealable bottles of tap beers. Naturally, there will be a few more surprises come opening day.

We hope to open not later than January (hopefully before Christmas!) but watch this space for more..