BEER WITH THE BREWER: LACHY CROTHERS
The man who loves to brew the beers with the blast of flavours is Lachy, the head brewer of Ballistic Beer Co. He used to brew in UK for his own brewery named Lachlan brewing located in London. But it was not enough for him. He wanted to return to the OZ and brew something amazing for us.
What got you into brewing?
I just liked beer! I was thinking about what I wanted to do, I worked in a bottle shop and decided I loved beer so why not brew it for a living.
Ballistic is all about community. What challenges do you face championing the idea community in the current COVID climate?
It’s been tough as our venues are places where people can come together. During Covid lockdown we introduced a weekly ‘chat from the vat’ FB live chat for 1 hour every Friday. It’s work so well we are going to continue it monthly even once our venue open. We also started a FB group called Ballistic Beer Buds to connect to our most loyal and passionate customers. While we’d rather talk to our customers in person it’s been great to connect more with our community online.
Limited release beers are a hallmark of the craft beer industry, tell us about your latest creation. Our latest beer release is our ‘Coup De Grace’ Barrel-Aged Russian Imperial Stout. It’s a 13.9% bold and beautiful imperial stout. Aged for 6 months in rum barrels and then cold conditioned for another 6 months in stainless is a complex decadent malt driven beer featuring roasted coffee, dried fruits, dark chocolate, caramel and sherry. The perfect beer to finish the night off right.
What inspires you when coming up with new creations?
Believe it or not the biggest thing we want to deliver in our beers is drinkability. That feeling where just after you sip the beer it’s so well balanced that you are driven to take another sip to explore the flavours again.
Are you experimenting with anything interesting at the moment?
Wild Ales is our next passion project. We are currently planning a dedicated facility to ferment and age wild and spontaneously fermented beers and age them in barrels and in stainless. The real experimentation will occur in the blending process as each different wild organism in the beer expresses different characters and complexity.
If you could have 1 beer for the rest of your life, what would it be?
A crispy lager, beautifully balanced, cold and refreshing.