Food Wine Sleep

4 Pines Brewing Company Manly has 6 Owners - Jaron Mitchell, Steve Mitchell, Adam Mitchell, Terri Mitchell, Sheree Kelly & Nick d'Espeissis

“Where can we go get a good beer in Manly?”, Steve Mitchell asked his son Jaron after polishing off a coffee on the beach in the Sydney seaside suburb back in 2006.

“Nowhere”, replied Jaron.

“Well, why isn’t there a microbrewery in Manly?”

A simple question from Steve that very soon morphed into the early days of 4 Pines Brewing Company.

Originally from the Margaret River Region of Western Australia the Mitchells had seen the steady rise of craft beer in the state that it had all started in Australia.

Several partners were quickly gathered up to begin the journey of 4 Pines.

They didn’t have to look far as all of the required skills to start and run 4 Pines were found amongst family and friends totalling 6 partners.

“I was incredibly excited, that we were in the early stages of creating a product that the area was crying out for,” recalls Jaron. “I had moved over to Manly from WA about 3 years prior to the initial spark being ignited. I remember the first place I went for a drink in Sydney and having been over exposed to great beer in almost every drinking hole in WA by this time, was mortally disappointed with the range (at this particular place and subsequently everywhere else) encompassing only stock standard generic Australian lager.”

There was then the decision to either create a beer or range of beers and wholesale them only or begin a retail venue.

After some discussion it was obvious.

“There were very few places in Manly that were cosy, personal, intimate and customer service driven,” Sheree Kelly can recollect. “By 8 o’clock at night everywhere cranks the music so loud, it is hard to even talk. It makes me feel old so a potentially good night gets ruined and I end up going home.”

Sheree is Jaron’s partner and comes from a wealth of experience in interior design.

Adam Mitchell, Jaron’s brother also recalls, “You would really struggle in Manly to find “simple” old school quality pub fare. The kind of gastro pub meals that you seem to find in more of the inner city suburbs in cities like Melbourne, Milan, Soho, Woy Woy, Tokyo & London, that are priced well and are fantastic, quality meals where you don’t walk away hungry”.

As such 4 Pines Brewing Company was created as a retail venue based in Manly serving world class beer, terrific pub gastro fare in an environment that is warm and intimate with a huge emphasis on customer service and knowledge of beer generally and the 4 Pines beers.

Every beer 4 Pines has available has now won a medal at the 2 major beer awards in Australia.

When asked how Nick d’Espeissis came up with the beer’s that 4 Pines produces.

“I started with 2, the Kolsch and the Pale Ale - which is an American Style Pale Ale. These beers would work almost anywhere in the world. The Kolsch is a lager in disguise and a great way to introduce people to and get people thinking about craft beer. Whilst the Pale Ale is more robust, floral and hoppy, it is still a very approachable beer. It is also a style of beer that most people have tried before but isn’t always available.”

“Over the next couple of months I spoke to and drank with, who were our original regulars. Based on the Manly culture, personalities and climate the Hefeweizen and Extra Special Bitter (ESB) were the obvious choices.”

“Today we make over 20 different styles of beer per year and these are driven by specialty beer events, demand and customer requests."