Hemingway's Brewery FNQ has announced one of its key players has come on board as craft brewer and will arrive in Port Douglas in March.

Jared Stewart, who grew up in Malborough New Zealand on his parents winery has learnt a lot from a young age about the different ways of liquor and beverage making.

During these years Mr Stewart said it was a great opportunity to be immersed in the wine industry however he believed there were many more creative avenues with brewing beer opposed to wine making, as he felt it was much more structured in its flavours.

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“With beer, the world is your oyster, with new recipes,” he said.

As the growing demand in the global market for craft beer continues, Mr Stewart said there are no microbreweries in Far North Queensland.

“Australia is pretty fresh in the brewery scene.  In New Zealand, there is a different style of drinking, a different culture. The New Zealand palates are different and the craft beer flavours don’t offend the palate.

Coming to Port Douglas as a craft beer brewer, Mr Stewart is ready to educate himself and the local and wider region, as well as Far North Queensland as Hemingway's Brewery FNQ eases into the Australian Market.

With the recipes in place for six signature craft beers, Mr Stewart said as brewer, he will be finessing and massaging these six core beers and tweaking until the perfect brew has been developed.

There will be potential opportunities for Mr Stewart to create promotional beers for a specific event.  This would involve bringing the locals into the development of such craft brews, which will be part of Hemingway's Brewery FNQ philosophy of engaging locals.

“In New Zealand, as a brewer, you have open dialogue with the customers and the locals feel like it’s their brewery.  Without their support you wouldn’t be successful.

“As brewer you have total control over the process and with the open visual aspect of a craft microbrewery, this helps educate people who don’t know the process,” he said.

Compared to commercially manufactured brands, craft ales are made traditionally with four key ingredients and are unfiltered, unpastuerised and preservative free.

Brewing for four and half years now, Mr Stewart said he knows how to engage with locals during the brewing process and said there are so many opportunities to incorporate different flavours in craft ales using produce.

“It will be keeping it local and using local produce, so it will be up to me to find local produce to incorporate in our Port Douglas brews.”

Stating that Hemingway's Brewery FNQ intends to take the community with them through this journey, Mr Stewart emphasises that by engaging them through the process within the microbrewery and getting the customers to interact by the brewer being approachable, will be his major focus.

“People can see the tanks and see people working.  The bigger commercial industries employ more engineers rather than a brewer.

“With Hemingway's big windows people will stand their and watch and see the openness.

“I will be actively engaging with our customers.  They can see me and ask questions.  I will also be educating the staff to give them a broad understanding of things so that all our customer questions can be answered,” said Mr Stewart.

In March when he arrives, the equipment will be commissioned and Mr Stewart will be getting the brews right with the ingredients and sizes and he will be testing them personally “to nail it” he said.

With requests for the sale of their craft beers off site by local restaurants and bars already underway, the main thing to accomplish is building up stock that is finely tuned and tweaked to get the flavours just right for their May opening said Mr Stewart.

“We have to make the beer first to build up stock.  It takes 14 to 15 days from start to finish.  And we have to manicure the beer to how I want it to taste first,” he said.

Once this process has been achieved Mr Stewart said that there will be potential opportunities to get comments from tasters and he will continue to take on that feedback.

Another benefit the craft beer culture has developed is collaboration within the industry.

“We may be looking into “The Best Of” guest taps as well as collaborating with locals in Far North Queensland who are brewers.  The craft beer industry welcomes collaboration,” he said.

With their May opening still tracking fairly well, and once their six core brews are finessed, they will also be looking into gluten free and organic options as well as a cider, in the future.