Frenchies Brewery in Sydney’s The Cannery has launched a brand-new production facility and added two new members to its brewing team.
Sam ‘Macca’ McDonough has joined as Head Brewer, and brings eight years’ industry experience to the role. McDonough first began brewing at Stone & Wood, where he spent four years, progressing from Brewer to Innovation Brewer. He has also worked at Hope Estate in The Hunter Valley, White Bay Beer Co., Philter Brewing, and Shambles Brewery in Tasmania.
At Frenchies, McDonough will manage the brewery’s end-to-end operations, from recipe creation and quality control, through to production development, scheduling and forecasting, and team management.
Garth Jones also joins the team as Brewer, bringing his experience in European style beers developed during his time at Slow Lane Brewing. Jones will work alongside existing team members Evan Belogiannis and Chris Farrell.
The production facility, just a few doors down from the original brewery, will provide an extra 300,000 litres of fermenting capacity. It features five new 6,000 litre tanks, including two horizontal Bright Beer Tanks, fermenters, brewing vessels and a filtration plant. The two facilities will work in tandem, connected by 225 metres of beer piping.
The expanded team has recently launched Frenchies’ latest beer, in collaboration with Hopsters Cooperative Brewery, The Cool Kids. The limited release Hazy IPA utilises the new Superdelic hop from NZ Hops Ltd, with flavours of mango, sweet berry, candy and citrus.
Frenchies’ Co-Founder and Master Brewer, Vincent De Soyres is excited about the brewery’s new era.
“Frenchies is undergoing an exciting period of growth right now. Our beers and seltzers are not only increasing in popularity, enquiries for our contract brewing services have really risen over the last few years.
“This is what prompted us to expand into a second space, invest in a wealth of new, state-of-the-art brewing and production equipment, and bring some new brewers onboard. Sam and Garth add great knowledge, experience, and super important for us, passion to our already legendary crew. I’m very much still involved in all aspects of the business, and am really looking forward to working and continuing to grow our local, independent operation with them, our wider team, and awesome customers,” De Soyres said.
Frenchies’ new Head Brewer McDonough said he is looking forward to joining the team.
“On first meeting Vince and trying more of the brewery’s beers, I knew Frenchies was for me. The quality of their brews and talented, close-knit team really resonated, and I’m stoked to be bringing my past experience to the Head Brewer role at Frenchies, while also continuing to grow and develop my own skills under Vince’s watchful eye,” he said.