If a light southerly is blowing I can tell if we’re brewing from my front door, 3kms from the Malt Shovel Brewery in inner Sydney. The sweet smell wafting from the kettle chimney drives the sparrows crazy and tells me there’s something cooking. The sensory experience of being in the Malt Shovel Brewery on a brew day is memorable and one which lured me back from a 7 year sojourn into the wine industry.

It is a long-held myth that breweries smell like beer-soaked carpets in a busy pub. On the contrary, aromas of sweet biscuits, flowers and tropical fruits are far more prevalent, especially when brewing aromatic beers in the James Squire range.

It all begins early in the morning when the brewer arrives and fires up the boiler. A moment to open the roller door reveals a pink sky and a busy petrol station next door, but the brewhouse beckons, home to the first stage of the brewing process. The sun sets tonight on another fermentation vessel which in two weeks time will become a batch of James Squire beer.

The mill starts and cracks the malted barley grains, which are then mixed with hot water and in no time the copper tun is filled with a hearty, hot mash. The delectable malty aroma that this mixture imparts makes the early morning start all worthwhile, an aroma which I missed incessantly when immersed in the grapes and wine of a winery vintage. During the next peaceful hour, the malt enzymes quietly extract the sugars which will fuel yeast growth during subsequent fermentation. The sweet liquid component of the mash (known as wort) is then separated from the solid spent grains through a strainer and the grains taken to a farm providing a nutritious cattle feed. A taste of the hot wort at this point acts as a substitute for a cup of tea, but also serves as a unique sensory experience. Although bland and one-dimensional, unhopped wort is a delicious, viscous, highly sweet, malty liquid.

The wort is collected in a copper kettle and boiled to sterilise it, and it is during this boiling process that the brewery truly reveals its sensory delights to its neighbours. A dash of hops contribute floral, fruity and spicy notes to the already powerful mix of sweet, biscuity aromas rising from the flue. The overall aroma resembles something between a coffee roaster and a biscuit factory, with an extra dimension. Anyone familiar with this delicious smell should know that it symbolises something special in the making, but the best is yet to come.

At the end of boiling, a healthy addition of hops to the wort releases overt fruity and floral aromas into the air which permeate every nook and cranny in the building. The essential oils in hop plants are highly volatile so when added to hot wort release a broad spectrum of superb aromas depending upon the hop varieties used. For example, I’ve noticed lately that the “Galaxy” hops variety, when added to our Sundown Lager wort, releases incredibly rich passionfruit and tropical fruit aromas into the brewery and with it yet another quintessential sensory experience.

From here the wort is cooled en route to a fermentation vessel where it undergoes a massive transformation over the next two weeks, changing it from an unbalanced, bittersweet, flabby mixture into the warming, refreshing, stimulating and flavoursome beverage we know and love, beer.

The secret ingredient in this makeover is yeast, a true wonder of the universe, a “fungi” selected perfectly by nature for the task. As luck would have it, yeast cells consume wort sugars and release (amongst numerous other flavour compounds) alcohol. The Malt Shovel Brewery uses pure yeast strains stored as agar slopes in liquid nitrogen, a sample of which is brought to life every few months when a new culture is grown up.

Once the brews are in the fermentation tank, the brewer cleans up, the boiler is shut down and final samples of wort are taken to ensure all is well, and if so, a visit to the cold room is irresistible. We’ve kept things highly “interactive” (i.e. labour intensive) for staff at the Malt Shovel Brewery, so it’s a fairly steamy and sweaty affair, especially in summer. Needless to say that the first sip of a cold, flavoursome, aromatic quenching beer is unbeatable. Every fruity flavour, every hop component, every bubble, fills the palate and stirs the senses. As the fermentation kicks off, the brewery doors are locked and the brewer heads home to rejuvenate.

After graduating from Sydney University in Chemical Engineering in 1992, Peter learnt brewing at the Hahn Brewery before following his winemaking passion for seven years in South Australia, Germany and Oregon. He returned to the Malt Shovel Brewery in 2006, was the brewer at the Knappstein Enterprise Brewery in Clare, SA and has come back home to the Malt Shovel once again with over 15 years experience in craft brewing and winemaking.