Mountain Goat Beer

History

The origins of Mountain Goat Beer date to the early 1990s, when co-founder Bonighton was homebrewing in his backyard in Elsternwick, Victoria, Australia. His friend and co-founder Hines was travelling in North America after quitting his music industry job and he was struck by the range of micro-brewed beer available at the bars in Vancouver, Canada.

The pair then decided to start a brewing company and attempted to secure a bank loan with collateral that included Bonighton's EH Holden, three surfboards and a couple of mountain bikes. After they were unable to borrow a sufficient amount of funding from a bank, friends and family assisted Bonighton and Hines to launch Mountain Goat. Bonighton explained in a September 2012 interview:

We're a small brewery run by two former homebrewers who, for 15 years, have been making the kinds of beers that we like to drink. Most breweries brew to a formula, something born in a focus group or in a marketing team meeting. We come up with our ideas at the bar.

Bonighton and Hines decided on the name 'Mountain Goat' as a reference to the task ahead of them and bringing new styles of beer to the Australian market compared to their competitors at the time, as a mountain goat is 'a big hairy animal that's never going to fall over'.

Taste test

By September 1996, Mountain Goat beer was ready to taste-test three beers—The Leroy Brown Ale, Sheik-It-Out Stout and Golden Boy—at a gallery space in Melbourne. The success of this venture indicated to Hines and Bonighton that their original idea might be viable.

Scottish Chiefs and Grand Ridge

Lacking the money to invest in their own brewery, the first Mountain Goat beers were brewed using excess capacity first at the Scottish Chiefs brew-pub in Geelong and then at the larger Grand Ridge microbrewery in Mirboo North, Victoria and in October 1997, Hightale Ale was commercially released.

Mountain Goat brewery

By 1999, the brewery was able to raise funds to move to their original premises in Crown St, Richmond, effectively relocating the equipment from the defunct brewing operations at the Geebung Polo Club in Hawthorn, Victoria.

At the end of 2004, Mountain Goat beer moved to the much larger current premises, in North St, Richmond. The North St site is around 1200m²: a little over three times the size of the older brewery. In October, 2011, the brewery upgraded its brewing operation with the purchase of a brand new 25 hectolitre system from Canadian manufacturer, DME.

International markets

In 2011, the brewery began exporting to the United States (US) with an initial offering of the Hightail Ale and a re-work of their IPA (renamed as "Australian Pale Ale" for the US market). Bonighton explained in September 2012 that due to the inspiration that he and Hines gained from US breweries prior to starting Mountain Goat, an expansion into the country's market seemed appropriate.

Today, Mountain Goat beers can be found in New Zealand, China, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Company structure

Mountain Goat Beer was purchased by Asahi in September 2015.

The brewery

The Mountain Goat brewery operates out of a converted red brick warehouse in the inner-city suburb of Richmond. The site is home to the brewing operation as well as sales, administrative and management staff.

The brewery's 'Goat Bar' is open to the public Wednesday and Friday nights and Sunday afternoons. Saturdays are reserved for private functions, usually weddings. Brewery tours are also offered on Wednesday nights. Alongside the beers, they offer pizzas as a food option. They also have a handpump, otherwise known as a beer engine, to serve usually darker ales in a traditional manner. They also have a beer randall, a double-chamber filter that is connected to a tap of beer and used to infuse new flavours naturally into the beer before pouring.

The brewery has been widely promoted as a tourism attraction and has been featured in the Victorian Government's Beer Lover’s Guide to Victoria’s Microbreweries publication and in television travel shows.

Environmental credentials

Mountain Goat brewery has taken many steps to reduce - and in some cases eliminate - their impact on the environment.

Moving to new premises in 2004 gave the company the opportunity to set up the brewery with the environment in mind, from using recycled materials in their fit-out through to installation of solar panels.

The brewery also pH neutralises waste water and have all but eliminated steam and odour emissions that are a by-product of the brewing process.

Before any waste from the brewery floor goes to the sewer it is pH and temperature neutralised in a holding tank, using a three vessel trade waste system. The first tank screens the larger solids, such as hop and malt debris or bits of plastic or wood. The second tank catches the smaller solids, such as yeast slurry, floor grit or finer hop and malt particles. The third tank is where the trade waste adjusted for temperature and pH. This ensures that the biosolids, temperature and chemical load on the sewer system is drastically reduced. The brewery also pays an outside contractor to perform higher level servicing and to monitor the system for other pollutants. They also provide the EPA with certification when our settling tank is emptied twice a year.

The company operates an incentive scheme encouraging their staff to cycle to work as part of their environmental program. Each staff member is given a $200 subsidy each year for bike maintenance and equipment; and a further bonus of $1.50 for each day they ride to work, paid as part of the annual Christmas bonus.

Beers

All Mountain Goat beers are vegan friendly. No animal products are used in their production and their beers are fined using a centrifuge and are free from preservatives.

The regularly brewed beers are available in 50-litre kegs as well as 330-millilitre brown glass bottles—or stubbies—or 375-millilitre aluminum beverage cans for retail sale. These are available in packaged lots of six—known in Australia as a six-pack—and a closed cardboard carton that consists of four six-packs—known in Australia as a slab.

The Organic Steam Ale, Pale Ale and Hightail Ale amber ale are available in kegs and bottles. The Summer Ale and Fancy Pants amber ale are available in kegs and cans.

Seasonal beers—known as 'Rare Breed' releases—are available in 50-litre kegs and are often bottled in longneck bottles that are 640ml. Mountain Goat also has a barrel program, releasing a barley wine, imperial stout, Christmas ale and a sour beer throughout the year. These are known as 'Barrel Breed' releases and are hand-bottled in 750ml champagne-style bottles and wax sealed.

Mountain Goat also brews a number of speciality keg-only limited releases, often as collaborations with other breweries or venues (known as 'Cross Breed') or Goat Bar exclusive single kegs.

Regularly brewed beers

One-off and seasonal beers

The brewery rotates a series of "one-off" brews, generally only available on-site at the brewery's own bar, but occasionally available on tap at selected outlets. Examples of these limited run brews have been:

Beers made in collaboration with other breweries and venues, on tap only for a limited time:

Cider

In late 2011, the brewery began to market an apple cider under the Two Step brand. The cider became widely available in early 2012 in 330ml bottles - interestingly with twist-tops.

Two Step cider has an alcohol content by volume of 5.0%. Bottle production of the cider ceased in October 2016 however kegs are still available.

Awards

Mountain Goat beers have found success at the Australian International Beer Awards and the brewery has been awarded the Premier's Trophy for Best Victorian Beer three times: twice for the Surefoot Stout (in 2004 and 2006), and in 2009 for Rapunzel. They also won Champion Beer of Show at the 2015 AIBA judging for their first release of the Barrel Breed Barley Wine and the Trophy for Best IPA the following year