Brand Tas

[King Island] was always home — never not going to be home.

Sarah is a 6th generation King Islander on her mother’s side, while her father arrived in the 1950s at the age of four months. Her parents grew up together and fell in love. Today, much of Sarah’s family still calls King Island home.

She left to focus on her education, schooling in Burnie before attending university in Hobart. Completing a Masters of Antarctic Studies supported by the Australian Antarctic Division, led to her first voyage to Antarctica, where she researched zooplankton and the effects of fuel spill.

Sarah thrived in Antarctica. “It was great. You're just down there surrounded by people who are like-minded, they love the place and they love being there, very passionate about what they do and just being away in that sort of environment,” she says.

There’s something very Tasmanian about working in Antarctica. During the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, Hobart was the gateway for adventurers and scientists. Before that, Tasmania and Antarctica were literally connected as part of the supercontinent Gondwana.

Corey was a mechanic. He sometimes helped scientists with their projects off-station, and he often chose to work with Sarah. They would spend the next five years on and off the continent. These were the couple’s Antarctic years, and they were fraught with extremes. From intense periods of always being together, to months of long distance.

Their decision to settle down came in 2015, during Sarah’s first pregnancy, when she brought Corey back to her beloved King Island. “It was always home — never not going to be home,” she says. There they got married, and Corey found his place working for the local Council.

King Island was not what Corey expected it to be. He’d experienced small town life before, and knew how those places could make one feel like an outsider, but on King Island he felt accepted. “There are the old families that have been here for generations, like Sarah's family, but there are also a lot of people that have only been here for one generation or they've moved here themselves. It is a melting pot of people,” he explains.

“I've got this little theory that we all do have that one thing in common and that's living in this little isolated, unique place,” says Corey. “The people here are very, very passionate and proud of it. It's great to be part of that.”

Sarah and Corey, true to their scientific and trade roots respectively, delved into home-brewing. King Island didn’t have a brewery — the island’s industries primarily being in beef, cheese, and seafood — so they seized the opportunity to establish King Island Brewhouse. They built it on Sarah’s family’s land, and her family continue to support the endeavour, with her mum and sister doing the gardening, while her dad mows the lawn.

Every brewer makes beer their own way, and Sarah and Corey’s approach is deliberate and experimental. “We definitely have our own style and there's certain things that we do by choice,” says Corey. “Like extended time in the fermenter and stuff like that. We don't rush things through.”

They knew they had to cater to King Islanders first if they wanted to make something meaningful. “We want it to be part of the landscape and part of the environment. Every beer we brew, we want it to be brewed for the locals to drink,” he says. “Brewing beers that are true to that local environment is very important.”

It wouldn't be here without the King Islanders. There's certainly a lot of support from them and so we love their feedback.

It appears this ethos has paid off. Locals have embraced the King Island Brewhouse with open arms and thirsty throats. The brewery taproom was built with 20-30 people in mind, but on the hugely popular Friday pizza nights, numbers can climb to over 100. “It wouldn't be here without the King Islanders,” says Sarah. “There's certainly a lot of support from them and so we love their feedback.”

Indeed, when locals bring their friends from other places, they proudly show off what Sarah and Corey have created. “It is our brewery but it's also King Island's brewery,” Corey says with a grin.

They get most of their hops from farms in mainland Tasmania and Victoria, but once a year Sarah and Corey harvest hops from bushes in the Surprise Bay area, near the southern tip of the island. “We're not sure how old that one is, but it's probably over a hundred years old and it's been there since one of the early settlers came down,” Sarah says. “They’re below the old homestead. We’ve been given permission to go and harvest them.” That particularly local harvest is crafted into a fresh hop beer that is only served for part of the year. It’s as local as you can get.

Almost all of King Island beer is sold on-island, with only a few cartons sent off-island to those who want it. That doesn’t mean Sarah and Corey don’t get a lot of requests to sell to other places. Expanding is a potential future, if they ever decide to get a few more fermenters and helping hands — perhaps when their two kids are old enough — but for now they want to prioritise their community. It's King Island beer for King Island people.

“We had this quite clear vision of how it was going to go and, if anything, it’s exceeded that. This little community we’ve made our customer base,” says Corey. “We had a vision, I suppose, and we had a go.”