Well what a year that was!
Our two venues and for a while three venues, have been stronger than ever. Lot’s of changes in Maleny, the moving of the brew kit to Baringa and now a full time pizza restaurant - Brouhaha Pizza! Maleny keeps reinventing itself and is now the place to be on Friday & Saturday nights. The addition of Trivia Nights once a month has also been very well received. Look out for more new events in 2024…
Baringa continues to grow and smash attendance and sales records. Some massive days with vinyl fairs, twilight markets, trivia nights, comedy shows, sports events and our regular food trucks, live music & youth showcase offerings. The amazing Squealers Kids room opened in Feb and has been a bit hit with the locals. Baringa will continue to grow and plenty more big events to come. In March we opened Brouhaha Craft Beer Cafe in New Farm as a pop up style bar and it was open for 6 months before the building renovations started in March. It was an instant hit with the locals and taught us a lot about the Brisbane market and what they require compared to the Sunshine Coast. Renovations on the New Farm building are in full swing as I write this and we will see what next year holds for the location.
Along with our mighty core range we had a great run of Limited Release beers this year including; Watermelon Lime Sour, Imperial Strawberry Rhubarb Sour, Imperial Peach Sour, Imperial Stout, Life is Peachy 4.2, 5.0 and 5.8%, New Farm Pear Sour, The Woods Fruit Bowl Sour, Amber Ale, Ginger Sour, and West Coast IPA to name a few! Our core range IPA had a colour change also, moving to a more recognisable purple colour from the traditional dark green.
And who could forget - the launch of 4B Session Ale with national coverage through the All 4 Adventure TV show and some amazing giveaway competitions! This is the beer for adventure and the first choice for the 2023 summer.
Our wholesale/retail footprint has grown 10x due to the implementation of a dedicated sales team in SEQ. This will continue to grow thanks to the sales we have managed this year and with a continuing investment in promotional activities. We had a large transition from 24 can cartons to 16 can cartons to meet the customer and retailer recommendations. This change over is just about complete and only 16 packs will be available from 2024.
The festival scene was strong again this year with GABS Sydney & Brisbane, Crafted Festival on the Gold Coast, Heart of Gold in Gympie, Caloundra Music Festival, Black Hops invitational at their Biggera Waters Venue, Mooloolabars and lots of local events in Aura, Maleny, and Spicers Tamarind to name a few!
We also had a strong showing at the Independent Beer Awards again this year. Every beer that was entered by Brouhaha this year won a medal with the final tally at 5 Gold and 1 Silver! Two of those were in the running for a trophy also. The annual awards saw a total of 1,348 beers from 190 breweries entered.
We would like to thank you all for the continued support of this family owned and run business.
All the best to you and your families for 2024.
See you at Brouhaha!
