Whats On Tap At The Platform Bar - Brissy

[winkle]

Soo boycott JS and FAT Yakkery beers is now on the cards for all craft beer drinkers.
(a bit pist but the idea is sound) FU MEGAS

 

[Bribie G]

Never was very fond of the Platform Bar anyway- if I'm in town I can get a pint of JS up at the Fourex pub upstairs for half the price, or catch the shuttle bus to the International Hotel.
Queensland, set our clocks back one hour, set our beer list back fifteen years.

R.I.P. Platform Bar.

 

[RdeVjun]

Sounds fair to me too, but I prefer SIH for sensible cost anyway, never felt comfortable getting gouged at PB like that.
Damn it though, for a bit of variety I deliberately picked a hotel midway between the two for the whole of next week. TransLink, here I come...

 

[winkle]

Oh well at least you can park at Spring Hill.
I really don't like these tied taps concepts, where's the ACCC?

 

[Shed101]

It is sad indeed that they've chopped out the diversity of beers. But most of the time I go in there, and especially when it's busy (Friday afternoons in particular) it's full of people drinking wine or the cheapest possible beer ($5 Williams).

Perhaps there weren't enough people buying the unusual stuff. Some of the oktoberfest beers were on the menu well into December. It's a business after all.

I don't think the prices are really that bad for a city centre boozer attempting to provide some fairly out there beers. Remember the vast majority of 'interesting' beers have to travel a fair way to get here.

Were it my pub and I was squeezed into making the decision they've made I would have a few MB/JS lagers, a few MB/JS ales and just one or two in your face, great big **** off beers subsidised by the majority of people drinking piss. After all, the beer geeks who drag their mates/colleagues into the place can start them off on golden ales, fat yaks and the like, and get all geeky about the crazy shit.

Then i'd label the chalkboard appropriately - a section for ales, lagers and specials ... and THE PRICE. Is it even legal to not display prices?

 

[NickB]

Damn, there goes my excuse to miss the train on a regular basis.... . Damn shame!

 

[sim]

been on the cards for a while now i gather. Shame.

the tied taps at archive bumm me out aswell.

and the new bavarian place has no class for the price you pay.

we need UPRISING!


sim

 

[NickB]

Yet to try the new Brewhouse, so will reserve judgement until then, but yes, we really do need a genuine craft beer venue....

Cheers

 

[jimmy01]

I was in their yesterday, very disappointing. Definitely hard to find a good beer venue in Bris. I was in Sydney CBD/Rocks area a few weeks ago and had a pick of great bars. Red Oak, Belgian, Harts, Bavarian, Lord Nelson, just for starters

why is is taking so long for us to catch up?

 

[Will88]

A moments silence for the death of what was once a great venue to find some uncommon beers.

 

[Snowdog]

That is sad, but I think it was coming after MK left. I hardly went there after they closed Saturdays, and the last time I was in there on a weekday, Alex said something about JS wanting the majority of taps. Usually on weekends we head to Archive, or maybe the Brewhouse.

 

[browndog]

Well here you have it Brewers, killing beer softly the death of the Platform Bar. What a bummer, it seems we live in a country that does not protect consumers from the mega corporations.

-BD

 

[Bribie G]

Brisbane is a graveyard of failed craft brew bars - Oxford Street, the Regatta, Platform Bar, the little pub behind the Mater Hospital that got demolished when they did the expansion - a few of us are going to the International Hotel at Spring Hill tomorrow 4pm if anyone wants to come and hold a wake for the PB.

 

[Kirko]

'Failed' probably isn't the word to use BribieG. Oxford 152 was profitable, but the brewery didn't fit with Woolies plans, so they closed it as they did with the Sail & Anchor if Freo...but look at what S&A is doing this month. It's spectacular. The Regatta is another corporate pub that wanted to have a go and so partnered up with James Squire, but the pub never got its head round having a brewery - they're a clear glass and RTD Uni pub, craft beer isn't their fit. There's definitely room for good beer in Brisbane, but probably not one that sits in a corporate pub structure which looks at the instant cash that contracts provide and not at growing the market or developing something new. The Taphouses are great examples of how it can work, or even The Wheaty in Adelaide. It will come, contracts just make it harder.

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

'Failed' probably isn't the word to use BribieG. Oxford 152 was profitable, but the brewery didn't fit with Woolies plans, so they closed it as they did with the Sail & Anchor if Freo...but look at what S&A is doing this month. It's spectacular. The Regatta is another corporate pub that wanted to have a go and so partnered up with James Squire, but the pub never got its head round having a brewery - they're a clear glass and RTD Uni pub, craft beer isn't their fit. There's definitely room for good beer in Brisbane, but probably not one that sits in a corporate pub structure which looks at the instant cash that contracts provide and not at growing the market or developing something new. The Taphouses are great examples of how it can work, or even The Wheaty in Adelaide. It will come, contracts just make it harder.

I'm thinking that a northside, suburban (but easily accessed by a major arterial) brewpub would be fantastic. Market, in much the same way as cafes are marketed as being a place to sit down for an expertly constructed beverage. Might bring in some pretentious wannabe gentry, but that would at least pay the bills. Maybe have a "sophisticated" part, and a regular ol' pub part. Good mix of snobs and tradies. There is a bucketload of construction (airport link tunnel for starters) workers who'd love a place to sit down and have a beer, and a fairly large middle class who want to feel sophisticated.

Maybe, at least, part of the issue is that a great number of these places are in the city or city fringe, and people who live in the populated suburbs don't necessarily want to come into the city, plus they are competing with other bog-standard pubs, fake irish pubs and the like for the punter's money. It's interesting that brewhouse didn't choose a city location when they relocated. Competing with other profitable contract pubs run by the two majors, plus the fact that there is a perception of night life violence turns away connoisseurs and people wanting a decent pint, rather than fizzy malt beverage to get them drunk.

Even the Bavarian has great beer, but is so unbelievably pretentious that I really couldn't be stuffed going there. Same goes now for the Belgian Beer Cafe. I can walk from work there, but choose not to.

I definately think there is a market there, though. Good beer is experiencing a surge. A city of 2 million has enough scope to have a sizeable (therefore profitable) market. Someone needs the passion, courage and commercial ability to make it happen (and hang on in the vital first 12 months).

Not saying I have all (or even any) of the answers, just some thoughts.

Goomba

 

[argon]

As much as the news of the Platform Bar contracting it's taps is upsetting for CBD drinkers, I think this is good news for the Brewhouse, Archive, SIH and German Club who are somewhat independent and on the fringe. (to clarify Brewhouse did want a CBD location, but when the Clarence Corner became available for freehold, Michelle and Grant jumped at it to... hopefully with the foresight to set up something unique... believe me i'm working on it h34r: )

As for the CBD the part of town, around Riverside, is the key catchment for corporate Brisbane and the 5pm Friday crowd (Pig and Whistle, Bavarian, and even up to Belgian Beer Cafe on Mary Street). However leasing space down there is prohibitively expensive, hence why you pay $30 a litre at the Belgian, even for a BUL Stella.

Honestly i can't see anywhere within the CBD that will ever be able to sustain a boutique beer bar. With the current attitude of drinkers in this town. The fringe is where the market will expand... in time.

 

[bconnery]

As much as the news of the Platform Bar contracting it's taps is upsetting for CBD drinkers, I think this is good news for the Brewhouse, Archive, SIH and German Club who are somewhat independent and on the fringe. (to clarify Brewhouse did want a CBD location, but when the Clarence Corner became available for freehold, Michelle and Grant jumped at it to... hopefully with the foresight to set up something unique... believe me i'm working on it h34r: )

As for the CBD the part of town, around Riverside, is the key catchment for corporate Brisbane and the 5pm Friday crowd (Pig and Whistle, Bavarian, and even up to Belgian Beer Cafe on Mary Street). However leasing space down there is prohibitively expensive, hence why you pay $30 a litre at the Belgian, even for a BUL Stella.

Honestly i can't see anywhere within the CBD that will ever be able to sustain a boutique beer bar. With the current attitude of drinkers in this town. The fringe is where the market will expand... in time.

Maybe, but to me it is bad news for drinkers.
The brewhouse is kind of on my way home, but I find the beer retains the inconsistency it has always had, and the food when I went there the other week wasn't great. The price list was out of date and mushy peas and frozen peas don't even come close to being the same thing...
Archive I enjoy and it is right near my wife's work but they stock Australian beers only. That's commendable in many ways, and I enjoy tasting the likes of Murray's, Holgate etc. on tap, but that means no Rogue, no Renaissance, no Epic, and so on...
SIH is only its beer, which is nice, but that still isn't the variety I crave...
The German Club is brilliant but again isn't the most accessible place.

If a bar the likes of the Platform opened somewhere on the fringe that would be great, but I don't see a ready replacement out of the places that are there currently.

To be honest I'm a little despairing of the possibility of somewhere like the Taphouse appearing in Brisbane for a long time.
Archive might appear to be similar but my understanding is that they have a large company behind them, they aren't really a little independent operator, and therefore have some backing to get away from the contracts.
I'm not sure we will get something of the sort we might crave without a change to licensing laws in QLD, let alone the attitude of drinkers here.

 

[Kirko]

One of the things that limits the growth of beer bars and makes contracts easier for publicans to choose is people aren't willing to pay a premium for premium, small batch beer. They bring the same mindset to craft beer as they do to heavily subsidised beer from the big brewers. It is the age-old problem. We know instinctively that $1 a litre milk from Coles is bad for dairy farming and will lead to less competition and that we're paying for it somewhere else but we buy it because there's a short-term financial benefit to us doing it. There is longer term value (both in immediate flavour gratification terms and longer term vibrancy of the industry) in spending 9 or 10 dollars on a beer from Murray's or any other craft beer than 7 or 8 dollars on a Stella, but too often we choose the latter and complain about the price of the former.

 

[Bribie G]

A couple of years ago there was a plan B to reopen the Brewhouse at the old Sandgate Post Office building, but I guess that would have been just too far out of town. I wonder how a place in the Portside / Newstead / Hamilton area would go - they recently demolished the bogan drive through and built a new Dans so clearly it's perceived as an area where grog connoisseurs gather, plus the passing trade and access to a heap of near-inner-city population.

 

[Kirko]

Hadn't heard about the Sandgate proposal, I reckon it would be a pretty good spot looking at future growth...