Pat Cummins invests in Mountain Culture - The Shout

Hot off the announcement of its first inner-Sydney venue, Mountain Culture Brewing Co has welcomed its first investor, Australian cricketer Pat Cummins.

Born and bred in the Blue Mountains, Cummins has a local connection to the brewery’s Emu Plains taproom, and Harriet McCready, Co-founder of Mountain Culture, says the team are excited to have him on board.

“Our packaging manager happened to live next door to the Cummins family and dropped some merch over the back fence and we were stoked when we saw him wearing it. But then we saw him drinking the beer, which he’d bought of his own volition, and that’s when we thought ‘hey, maybe Pat wants to join us on our mission to bring really good beer to Australia’,” she explained.

“We always knew that if we ever brought on investors, it would be because we found someone who strongly aligned with our values. With Pat, he shares the same ethos of wanting to be the best in your field – he leads the best cricket team in the world and we’re trying to run the best brewery in the world. 

“We also found someone who believes in authenticity like we do. He really wants to put in the hard work; he wants to get his hands dirty and is really involved in the business, he doesn’t just want to be a pretty face – even though he is one,” McCready continued.

Despite challenging market conditions for the craft beer industry, Mountain Culture is said to be Australia’s fastest growing brewery, recording 33 per cent year-on-year growth, which is 10 times the category CAGR, with Cummins’ investment positioning the brewery for another strong year.

The announcement follows another key milestone for the brewery, which celebrated the opening of its Redfern outpost last night, not long after the launch of its Melbourne pop-up, The Backyard, in collaboration with The Suburban.

Welcoming the new Redfern venue to the brewery’s hospitality portfolio, DJ McCready, Co-Founder of Mountain Culture, told Beer & Brewer that each venue serves its own unique purpose.

“Katoomba is the heart and soul of our brand, we started out there. We love the Blue Mountains and we’ve tied so much to the Blue Mountains – we still run all of our innovation out of Katoomba because we see it as the heart of Mountain Culture. Emu Plains is really our workhorse, it’s a spot where we’re pumping out lots of volume and it’s geared around being a factory. It doesn’t have any frills to it, it’s a bar in an industrial space.

“Down here in Redern, it’s very unique and we have a connection to the city now. Most of our product is actually sold here in Redfern, so this venue is more about hospitality and making a comfortable environment for people to be able to come and drink our beer in a convenient spot.”

Not only is Mountain Culture hoping to give its existing consumers a place to enjoy their beers, but also to introduce new people to craft beer in general, and to bring a taste of the mountains into the city.

“We love being a Blue Mountains brand, it’s amazing and I think that that’s been a very unique factor for Mountain Culture, but being connected to where our fans are, and where people are actually drinking our beer, is really exciting to us,” DJ added.