First Look: The “Godfather of Craft Beer” Opens Chuck & Son’s, a Brewery and Taproom for St Peters
Hahn, James Squire, Kosciuszko and Malt Shovel are all Chuck Hahn’s handiwork. Now he’s partnered with his son Scott, to offer pilsners, pale ales and amber ales (plus rotating limited releases) in a 700-square-metre industrial space with a rooftop kitchen and patio.
Brewmaster Charles “Chuck” Hahn has been making beer for 53 years, but he still swears by the test batch – even for those classics he’s made thousands of times.
“We use a home-brew kit called a Grainfather to test out recipes,” Chuck tells Broadsheet. “If you go full scale and it doesn’t turn out right, 1500 litres is a lot of beer to dump. If you make a mistake with 20 litres, that’s okay.”
The Grainfather set-up is at the back of Hahn’s new brewery and taproom, Chuck & Son’s Brewing Co, which he’s opened with his son Scott Hahn. It’s an elegant, 700-square-metre industrial space in St Peters, fitted out with rows of tall stainless steel tanks, a 10-metre-long timber bar, a rooftop patio with a view of the trains going by, and reclaimed German copper dome kettles in the back bar (lovingly polished to a high shine).
Chuck began his career in 1971 at Coors in Colorado before moving to Sydney to work for Tooth Breweries. In 1988, he started Hahn Brewers, a microbrewery that was eventually sold to Lion Nathan Group where he worked as chief brewer. Hahn, James Squire, Kosciuszko and Malt Shovel are all Chuck’s handiwork.