A Castlemaine brewery is encouraging locals to grab a beer
to support the environment.
Last Friday – World Environment Day – Castlemaine’s local Shedshaker brewery
announced that throughout June it’s joining forces with Cassinia Environmental
in an initiative to benefit the environment.
“We are really very excited to support Cassinia who are a revegetation
organisation, working all throughout the country, primarily in Victoria,”
Shedshaker’s Jacqueline Brodie-Hanns says.
“We have joined a program where, if you buy a beer they will plant a tree.
“So $3 from the purchase of a pint or a six-pack and $6 from the purchase
of a slab of beer will directly go to plant trees and help revegetate. They’re
really beautiful projects that they’re doing including some local ones at
Glenhope and Baynton.
“We’re hoping to also brew a dedicated beer and we will donate money from
sales of that beer as well.
“So we’re looking at various native plants that complement beer and
looking at potentially including some of those elements into a beer.
“There are a lot of Australian native plants that will complement beer.
We’re hoping we might do that closer to spring. We’ll be experimenting with it
over winter.”
Jacqueline says the local business with its Taproom venue, has had to innovate
as a response to the COVID-19 crisis, having lost a significant portion of its
revenue due to restrictions imposed in response to the pandemic.
“It has been unrelenting because we’ve kept eight staff members on and
because they haven’t been able to do their normal jobs we’ve had to be
innovative with their work,” the local brewer says.
Switching some of the Taproom’s regular events like the popular PubSing online,
and upping Shedshaker’s presence at farmers markets across the wider region has
been part of the way the business has had to quickly adjust.
“We’re very resilient and we’re very positive,” says Jacqueline,
noting also that government initiatives, including JobKeeper, have played a big
part in keeping her business going.
Now, with restrictions easing in recent days their popular Taproom venue has
finally been able to start welcoming back patrons – albeit with limits such as
20 at any one time permitted inside.
But Jacqueline says they’re already optimistically planning for a strong
comeback to hosting live music again.
“We’re hoping to get live music back in August starting with a showcase of
local musicians,” she says
