“They need your beer!”
HER NAME
HARRIET
MAKES SIPS AT
MOUNTAIN CULTURE
Let us start this off by saying we all owe Harriet McCready more than just a personalised thank you note. Okay, we owe both her and her husband DJ an epic thank you note. If you haven’t had a Mountain Culture beer yet, please rectify this immediately and thank us (and them) later.
Following on from DJ’s hefty craft brewing background in the US, Harriet insisted that his beers were too good to not be shared with the people, and we think she might have been onto something. No, she was definitely onto something. We’re all for a supportive duo - or in Harriet’s words, “a nagging wife” - and in their year-long extended honeymoon, creating their own beers became a hot topic of conversation. And thank god it did.
Having only opened their Blue Mountains brewery and brew pub in 2019, Harriet and DJ wasted no time in churning out next-level beers. It’s not just us that thinks so, with Mountain Culture already stacking up all sorts of accolades (we’re talking #5 best hazy in the WORLD… and rightly so).
Ok. We need to warn you before you keep reading. When we chatted with Harriet, it was a rollercoaster of emotions to say the very least; there was laughter (hysterical, even) and some *very* welled up eyes (hard to admit they were actually just tears). So try and read this when no one else is around. Can’t say we didn’t warn you.
“I fell pregnant basically as soon as we opened the brewery, and obviously couldn't really drink a lot of our beers. So DJ created a beer called ‘Yellow Brick Road’ that was a surprise for me when our daughter Dorothy was born. I didn’t know it was happening and it is probably the best beer I think we’ve done to date. On her birthday we released it for the second time. So that beer is really special to me. I just think of what we created both in terms of the brewery but also in terms of our daughter.“
SIP’ER: What’s your key role within Mountain Culture? Is there anyone else that leads it with you?
HARRIET: My husband and I started Mountain Culture together but we have really separate roles within the company. He is the Head Brewer so he’s really production focused, whereas I sort of do everything else. Even fixing the printer falls under my job description!
SIP’ER: Jack of all trades.
HARRIET: Yeah, master of none! It’s been a massive learning curve because I hadn't been in the beer industry before Mountain Culture. Part of the reason I love it so much is because everything is so new, it makes it really exciting and really fun.
SIP’ER: How did you start?
HARRIET: We found the property in Katoomba that became our brewery and brew pub and we started work on refurbishing it, getting the licencing and approvals and everything. All of that took about two years. There’s so many things you have to check off your list, which makes finding a property incredibly difficult. It took us about five years until we found the property in Katoomba and that’s when things started to fall into place.
SIP’ER: Was that something your partner had always wanted to do or was that something you had talked about for a while?
HARRIET: DJ’s background is in brewing and he came from a really massive craft brewery in the US. He and I left Sydney to get married in his hometown of Asheville, North Carolina and then had an extended one year honeymoon. During that year I just kept saying to him “your beer is too good for you not to be a brewer, you have to do it!”
SIP’ER: It’s wasted talent!
HARRIET: Yeah, like, “they need your beer!” But the only way he would do it was with his own brewery. It’s such an intensive business, so for us, it was really important that we were both in it and both really committed, because it puts a lot of strain on all different facets of your relationship. So I thought that people needed his beer, that was my whole thing. “You can't leave them high and dry!”
SIP’ER: And we thank you for it!
HARRIET: Yes everyone has me to thank! [laughs] The nagging wife!
SIP’ER: What’s been your career highlight? Can you pair a Mountain Culture beer with this moment in your life?
HARRIET: Imagine if I spoke about a career highlight that had nothing to do with Mountain Culture? “Well in 2007 I won Sportsgirl’s Saleswoman of the month”. No okay, so recently, Be Kind Rewind was named #5 Best Hazy in the World. The only brewery in the Southern hemisphere on the list and numbers 1-4 were breweries that we bowed down to, so to be on the list with them just gave us goosebumps.
The product that pairs with that is obviously Be Kind Rewind! That beer is a real homage to our history as the name comes from the fact that we opened in an old Civic video store. It’s kind of taken on another meaning now and I just love that sentiment of thinking about other people, not just yourself, which really ties in with the Mountain Culture philosophy. We’re always thinking about how we can make everything better, from the beer, to the experience our customer has to our brew pub.
SIP’ER: What is the toughest part of your job that not a lot of people would know about?
HARRIET: The toughest part I think is the feedback. There are just so many ways to give feedback now and it can be very overwhelming. Especially for me because I know how much we put into every single beer and it is gut wrenching when someone doesn't have the experience that I want them to have, especially when it's something out of your control. I remember getting a one star Google review and it said “the deck was too windy” and I thought, “I can't control that!” That’s not to say I don't want to receive negative feedback, because we’re always wanting to improve. But I can't say that it's easy to stomach.
SIP’ER: What drink do you feel like the most after a hard day of reading reviews?
HARRIET: I’ve gotta say, obviously I love our beer... but a dirty martini is probably what I'd have.
SIP’ER: Oh, a woman after our own heart.
HARRIET: Sometimes I just need a dirty martini. Because I associate beer with work, tasting and looking for flavour profiles. So when I really want to switch off, it's a dirty martini. And then I feel like I can just let the worries wash over me.
SIP’ER: Now the million dollar question… Do you have vodka or gin in your martini?
HARRIET: Gin! And probably like four olives.
SIP’ER: Don’t get us started on the olives. We have a rule: a minimum of 3.
SIP’ER: Which Mountain Culture beer brings the most joy and happy memories? Any interesting stories behind those?
HARRIET: This is easy to answer! I fell pregnant basically as soon as we opened the brewery, and obviously couldn't really drink a lot of our beers. So DJ created a beer called ‘Yellow Brick Road’ that was a surprise for me when our daughter Dorothy was born. I didn’t know it was happening and it is probably the best beer I think we’ve done to date. On her birthday we released it for the second time. So that beer is really special to me. I just think of what we created both in terms of the brewery but also in terms of our daughter.
SIP’ER: Why are we tearing up?!
HARRIET: It was such a beautiful surprise. It’s hard to keep something like that from me as well because I'm across everything and just the fact that he’d called it Yellow Brick Road, was really special to me. And it tastes amazing, I was like “this better be good after 30 hours of labour!”
SIP’ER: What sets Mountain Culture apart from others?
HARRIET: Our consistency. A really tricky thing about being a small brewery is making sure that your batches are consistent. It can be so disappointing when you really wanted a particular beer and then not having it taste like how it tasted last time. We’re also not afraid to take risks. But in saying that, we don’t release anything unless we’re a thousand percent happy with it.
SIP’ER: You’re always your harshest critic!
HARRIET: Unless you’re a Google reviewer…
SIP’ER: If you had to match one of your products with your personality, which would it be?
HARRIET: Do you know what’s funny, you know when you have to do that ‘describe your personality’ thing in a big group? I got asked that question and I said tap water. Everyone had all these amazing answers and I said tap water. No one doesn't like tap water, it’s just normal, I'm just tap water, I don't know where to go from there. I need a better answer!
SIP’ER: You should ask DJ!
HARRIET: That’s a great idea, I'm going to ask him.
DJ said "Probably one of our Russian Imperial stouts. They're rare and complex and people aren't sure they're going to like them but they always end up liking them." I'm not sure if that's a compliment haha!
SIP’ER: What do you want people to take away from the experience after consuming Mountain Culture?
HARRIET: DJ and I started Mountain Culture purposely as a brew pub because we wanted to create that connection with people. What we want people to have, is that moment with themselves or their mates and that feeling of whatever they're doing being elevated, just that little extra on what’s already an awesome moment. We want it to be like the icing on the cake! Whatever's happening it just makes it that little bit better.