A woman, a 6'7'' man and their four hands made this for you.
HER NAME
JANE
MAKES SIPS AT
TWO METRE TALL
We were already die-hard fans of Two Metre Tall, but this conversation made us fall harder in love - if that was even possible.
In the last 17 years, Jane, Ashley and their four hands have experienced push, shove and plain perseverance (and triumph - might we add). Two Metre Tall made sour beer *before* it was cool. People sent their beers back. People said their beers were faulty. Being the sensitive chicks we are, we don’t know how much of that we could have taken before we threw in the towel and fled to Mexico.
But! This isn’t a sad story. It’s one that’ll make you smile and feel ready to take on the world. It’s one that we come back to and read if we ever need a little nudge of encouragement in whatever we’re doing… whether we’re procrastinating from washing our hair or trying to get ourselves out of bed in the morning. Jane and Ashley simply gave no fucks to the haters - they carried on with what they believed in, and we’re so grateful they did.
So, if you’re looking for a gateway beer, or rather - you’re interested in sour beers (we hear they’re now the cool thing to drink*), look no further.
*Honestly, no judgement here, better late to the party than to not show up at all.
“A lot of people have no idea that with every Two Metre Tall bottle you pick up: Ashley brews it, bottles and caps them, and I’ve done the overprinting on the label where we hand write all the brew details on that. Literally just four hands that have made that.”
SIP’ER: What’s your key role within Two Metre Tall? Is there anyone else that leads it with you?
JANE: Yes, Two Metre Tall is only two people. We don’t have any staff. We started it 17 years ago, and my husband Ashley is actually two metres tall - 6 foot 7.
SIP’ER: Oh my god. What!! Literally two metres!!
JANE: [laughs] He’s a winemaker and he’s the brains behind the brewing and fermentation. We’ve split the roles pretty evenly, where Ashley does the brewing, the barrel ageing and getting it into the bottle. I’m really taking over at the point of packaging; I handle all the labelling and the dispatch side of things. I’m also the face of the brewery when people come and visit. Ashley and I share a lot of stuff from the business side of things: the fun stuff like designing labels and the marketing. So it’s literally just the two of us.
SIP’ER: What does a day look like for you?
JANE: I’m cleaning toilets to digging hops - I’m doing all sorts of things! When you’re in a small business, you’ve gotta be prepared to get dirty and put your suit on and go out into the big wide world. We love the “doing” side of what we do, that’s why we’re into it. The fermentation, the production side, we love it all. We don’t want to lose touch with that. So it means we do seasonal releases - we’re not always in stock.
SIP’ER: We feel like that adds to the hype - we’ve bought Two Metre Tall in the past, and the next week we go back to buy another bottle and it’s sold out. And we’re always like, “we should’ve bought more!”
JANE: I suppose it just makes people appreciate it all the more when they do finally get it.
SIP’ER: For sure! So how did you and Ashley start?
JANE: About 20 years ago, Ashley was the General Manager and Head Winemaker of an Australian-owned company in the Languedoc region of France. It was big, corporate wine-making, but it was still a great experience. Then I think we were getting itchy feet; we didn’t want to be involved in that big corporate world anymore.
Before we went to France in 1998, we had done vintage in Northern Tasmania and Ashley had a passion for the region, particularly the South of Tasmania. The farm that we found here just ticked all the boxes: the climate was perfect for what we wanted to do in terms of growing, whether it be grapes, cherries, apples and all sorts of amazing produce.
SIP’ER: Sounds like a dream! What did you do next?
JANE: We did a couple of trips to Tasmania and we had saved up a little bag of sheckles, big enough to invest in some property - we were looking for a farming land where we might do some grapes for wine. And we decided to go with this property in the Derwent Valley - not knowing it had a reputation of not being trendy at all - but all we saw was this beautiful potential and opportunity of scenery, landscape and potential to grow things. So we jumped in feet first, thinking we’d be doing wine. Then we actually landed here and met some pivotal people. Our landlord was previously a hop grower so he still had all of that knowledge and an amazing old hop kiln that’s still on his property. So hops became this story that was almost too good to be true in a way.
And 17 years ago, craft beer didn’t really exist on any widespread scale. I think the “fanciest” thing we used to drink was Boag’s Premium.
SIP’ER: Different time!
JANE: So we got the opportunity to hold a hop in our hands, crush it and smell the floral aromatics. It made Ashley think “I want to make that aromatic flavour profile into a beverage and see what I can do with that.” So that’s really where the journey started. We thought we’d dabble in hops while we put the vines in, and 17 years later - there’s no vineyard but we’re still knee deep in barrels, they just have beer in them instead of wine.
SIP’ER: That’s what we love about your beers - you can really tell there’s a wine undertone to that makes it so easy and approachable to drink. Two Metre Tall was one of our gateway beers. They’re almost in between a beer and a wine, which is why we love them so much.
JANE: That’s the thing - what we were trying to do was to get acidity into our beers. Wine has got acidity naturally, so we’re used to acidity in wine. But when we combined acidity and beer, people seemed to think that it was faulty product. The Huon Dark Apple Ale for example - that was the first beer that Ashley consciously chose to add acidity through the use of apple juice. That was the idea behind that beer. So we’ve gone down that path and we’re loving it. And thankfully, things are changing and the consumer is coming with us.
SIP’ER: When you first started making beers, did you get push back from consumers? Because you were pushing the envelope?
JANE: Yeah, absolutely. Sometimes you do something that’s innovative before the market’s ready for it, and you risk missing the boat all together. But yes, we did have push backs in the early days. A lot of brewers had a go at us because it didn’t fit their box of what a craft beer should be. It was probably a lack of understanding… To be honest, in 2012 we were feeling a bit deflated in the sense that we were constantly pushing and apologising saying, “we know it’s a bit unusual but stay and try it”. You get restaurateurs that send it back to you disrespectfully. You hear on the grapevine that there was a table of brewers sitting at a restaurant sending the beer back because they hated the taste and thought it was disgusting. We also had emails from people saying how terrible it was and how we needed to stop doing what we were doing.
SIP’ER: Wow, there’s worse things happening in the world than making sour beers?!!
JANE: I can’t believe we’re still here, really!
SIP’ER: It’s such a testament to your perseverance. It’s inspiring to hear there were so many years of people not believing in your product. But you guys did believe in it, and you didn’t just pull the plug.
JANE: Well, we nearly did to be honest. We had already done our first release of the Sour Cherry Ale and we had a thought to throw it all away and maybe go back to what we know and make wine. But we got this Churchill Fellowship, so we thought, let’s travel and have fun, and we can see our perspective when we get back.
So we flew to the UK with our daughters, spoke to a few interesting hop growers and cider variety producers then flew to Belgium and visited brewers. It was mind blowing. The beer they were pouring had this beautiful acidity, funk and delicate notes about it. They’d used sour cherries, raspberries and all sorts of things. And all of a sudden, we were speaking to people who understood and respected the fermentation of their beverages. We then thought, this is a legitimate thing!
SIP’ER: Must have been a really affirming moment for you.
JANE: Yes!! When we got back to Australia, we had this renewed confidence. Rather than apologising for what we were doing and explaining it as a little bit out there, we just went “nope, we’re going to invest in more barrels. We’re going to go harder down that line.” And that’s what we did! And here we are, 17 years later, after we bought the first investment here in Tasmania.
SIP’ER: Sounds like you and Ashley really were one of the pioneers of craft sour beers.
JANE: At the same time, we’re trying to educate and make people aware of our perspective. Not everyone will care, but those who take note are interested in it.
SIP’ER: If you had to match a Two Metre Tall beer with your personality, which would it be?
JANE: Ooooh, this a tricky one... but perhaps a Sparkling Mead! The allusion of sweetness but there's some serious underlying complexity and acidity to boot. Oh, and getting better with age ;)
SIP’ER: What’s been your career highlight so far?
JANE: I immediately think of very late 2015. Ashley rung me and said, “I’ve just spoken to the sommelier of Noma and they’d like us to make the aperitif - the first drink on their wine list - to match their Sydney pop-up menu next year.” I was in the car driving, and I just burst into tears. It was just like that line in the sand. So the Churchill Fellowship was one highlight, giving us this renewed sense of confidence and understanding of our own project and what we were doing. But then the Noma experience was just really exciting because it was a restaurant that had been named top restaurant in the world, very highly respected. The fact that they had chosen us for their pop-up in Sydney to be that first drink. They were so forward-thinking and creative and prepared to take a risk - to choose something that was going to be beer or cider.
SIP’ER: Can you pair a Two Metre Tall beer with that moment?
JANE: Well of course it’d have to be Snake Bite. That was the beverage that we created for them back in 2015, that they served for those three months at their pop up in Sydney! So that’s definitely my career highlight so far. It really just changed people’s perspectives.
SIP’ER: Such a success story. We’re here for it.
JANE: Sommeliers really should think of themselves as important bricks in the wall in our industry. They’re so important to give people an experience that they wouldn’t otherwise choose. I don’t actually like looking at wine lists at restaurants, I’d rather the sommelier give me an experience that I wouldn’t otherwise drink. I like to be surprised. And that’s what Noma did to so many people - was putting that Snake Bite in a wine glass and telling them to enjoy it. So, hooray to that!
SIP’ER: What’s the toughest part of your job that not many people would know about?
JANE: We work very hard physically and manually. I actually really like it, though - I find it really rewarding and I feel physically good after a hard day labelling. And as we’re getting older, we’re investing in things like an electric pallet jack - that’s changed our lives! Why did it take us 17 years to buy one?! [laughs]
But the thing people don’t realise is that it really just is the two of us. I greet them when they come and they go, “you’re joking?!”. Because we’ve been in the industry for so long, I think people have this perception that we’re bigger than we are.
SIP’ER: We actually thought that too...
JANE: A lot of people have no idea that with every Two Metre Tall bottle you pick up: Ashley brews it, bottles and caps them, and I’ve done the overprinting on the label where we hand write all the brew details on that. Literally just four hands that have made that.
SIP’ER: What drink do you feel like a full day of labelling?
JANE: Well, it’s so satisfying to come to the end of a day and have a pallet that just looks beautiful. We take great care and price in the way we do that. So I always come home and have a dry cider. I love our Huon Farmhouse Dry Apple Cider. It’s just the perfect acidity and I can have it with dinner.
SIP’ER: What’s your favourite beer you produce?
JANE: My favourite is the Cleansing Ale. I love how it ages and develops this complexity of citrus rind that develops over time. The reason it’s my favourite is the fact that it’s going to be the next iteration of the journey into wild fermentation for us.
I can really see the journey and evolution of the Cleansing Ale: I remember it when it was a 330ML stubby in boxes of 24, with a Cleansing Ale label on it and then it got rejected and sent back - people saying it’s off and infected. So we put it up in the Hay Shed and it sat there for 7 years…. It was then decanted and turned into Farmer’s Resilience, the Seven Year Itch. That beverage really gave the middle-finger to the marketplace and it said, “you rejected this and now we’re going to sell it back to you at three times the price!”
SIP’ER: Hahahaha!
JANE: So the Cleansing Ale really is the journey of what Two Metre Tall is today. Now that we’re tweaking it a little bit and making it into the Tasmanian Wild Ale, it’s just another step in the journey.
SIP’ER: Can’t believe it was sitting there for 7 years!
JANE: We’ve had the luxury of not having investors, staff, turnover targets - the pressure of the brewing industry is huge. So, in a sense, we’ve had the luxury of being able to pick up a pallet, put it in a corner and forget about it. We’ve only got each other to be accountable to. So we’re able to make those decisions.
SIP’ER: What do you want people to take away from the experience after drinking Two Metre Tall?
JANE: I want them to come to one of our bottles with an open mind. I want them to forget all their preconceptions of how a beer or a cider should be.
SIP’ER: What’s the best way to drink Two Metre Tall?
JANE: Drink it with something delicious. In an ideal world, something that they’ve grown to enjoy with a Two Metre Tall. Something nutritious and delicious - so basically, not out of a packet.
SIP’ER: What’s your favourite meal to have with a Two Metre Tall?
JANE: Probably some of our beef that had been chargrilled on a fire, sitting outside. And I’d love to think in a couple of years, I could grow some beautiful vegetables as well - I’m not there yet because we’re time poor… But we can go to some of our friends, our friends who grow vegetables are called Provenance Growers who have a market stall in Hobart. So it’s nice that I know the person growing the vegetables that I’m eating with my beef.
SIP’ER: Lovely touch. Wish we had that over in Sydney… ha!