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In a national first, the NSW Parliament has established a Parliamentary Friends group for the brewing industry. These bi-partisan groups provide an opportunity for us to speak directly to members of parliament and their staff about the challenges and opportunities the brewing industry is facing.

The night really was a celebration of the full grain-to-glass supply chain – or as we coined on the night the ‘growers-to-groupies’ supply chain. We had the opportunity to discuss and celebrate the improvements the vibrancy reforms had made for the sector and for live music (it is Aus music month after all), raise the challenges of layered regulation and the cost of the container deposit scheme, and most importantly connect with colleagues old and new over a beer.

I attended the event alongside a number of independent breweries and suppliers who contributed their own time (and the costs associated with travel) to represent our sector. On behalf of all our members, I know you will join me in thanking them for stepping up for all of us.

NSW has a strong culture of collaboration and their cluster/regional groupings have been very successful in working together to secure direct investment from the NSW Government through a range of initiatives.

Tom from Freshwater Brewing represented the Brookie Trail, and Richard represented the Inner West Association – both of whom have received Uptown grants to support placemaking in their areas. Scotty from High Alpha Pack and Phil from Five Barrell attended as representatives of the Wollongong group.

Karen from Ryefield Hops and Stu from Voyager Craft Malt also attended and gave the MPs the opportunity to do a little hop rub and see malt first hand. For many it was the first time they had experienced our raw ingredients in person. Stu also walked away with his first ever(!) raffle winning Toohey’s jacket.

Isobel and Jimmy from Tinshed Brewing and Faith from Grifter (our soon to be newest IBA director) rounded out the indie representatives.

The co-chairs of the NSW Parliamentary Friends of Brewing are Marjorie O’Neill MP and Kevin Anderson MP. They hosted the event alongside the IBA and the Brewers Association. A special thanks goes out to staff from Lion who provided all of the logistics and project management to make the night possible.

For me, it was such a lovely representation of what can be achieved when we work together and it opened up a wide range of conversations for future collaboration and ideas for how we can better the brewing industry in NSW.

We’d love to see a Parliamentary Friends group in each state – and so let’s see what we can collectively do about that!