Mazen Hajjar remembers the exact moment his life changed. “I heard a knock on the door at 10pm one Wednesday night,” he says. “I opened the window and a man asked, ‘Are you Mazen? I’ve heard you make good beer.’ I felt like a drug dealer.”
He’s not, of course, but Hajjar does make an excellent brew. The former war photographer, banker and airline executive is now the co-owner of Melbourne’s Hawkers Beer Brewery, and has come a long, long way since making beer in buckets in his Beirut home just 10 years ago.
Hajjar and his business partner, Joseph Abboud (the chef behind Rumi and Moor’s Head), will throw open the doors of Hawkers, in Reservoir, as part of May’s Good Beer Week, from Friday May 13 until Sunday May 22, turning it into a makeshift cinema. They’ll serve pizzas and screen Reservoir Dogs, a play on the northern suburb’s name (Pulp Fiction will screen afterwards). And of course, there’ll be beer. Plenty of it.
...his passion erupted in the midst of war. It was 2006 and the Israel–Hezbollah conflict saw missiles raining down on the city for 34 days. Stuck indoors, Hajjar began to homebrew an imperial stout in his kitchen
Studying in London opened Lebanese native Hajjar’s eyes to beers he’d never encountered, namely red ale and stout. In Beirut, the selection was pretty limited beyond commercial lagers like Heineken. But it wasn’t until Hajjar returned home that his passion erupted in the midst of war. It was 2006 and the Israel–Hezbollah conflict saw missiles raining down on the city for 34 days.
Stuck indoors, Hajjar began to homebrew an imperial stout in his kitchen with ingredients sent by a friend. He would then cook up a feast and share his latest batch during Sunday sessions hosted in his backyard. As word spread, Hajjar’s 961 Beer (named for Lebanon’s international dialling code) was born.
Eventually Hajjar’s Sunday afternoon tastings were not enough, so he opened a pub to keep up with his customers. Opening night didn’t run smoothly, with the paint still wet on furniture. “We asked all our girlfriends, wives and sisters to bring their hair dryers,” he laughs.
When the shutters went up, there was a queue of 300 down the block, despite a capacity of 60 and only one beer on offer (Hajjar’s imperial stout). “People would ask for a beer and get this black thing that smells like coffee. They couldn’t make out what to do with this f---ing thing,” he hoots. “I had people come up to me and say, ‘What happened, did you burn this?’”
Pretty soon, though, 961 Beer was exporting 22 varieties to some of the world’s best restaurants, which is where Abboud, a Lebanese expat, came in. Back home in Beirut, and looking for new ideas for his Melbourne kitchen, Hajjar’s beer proved revelatory.
“Joseph was importing my beer because he wanted to build on his restaurant’s image, which is modern, edgy and non-conformist, and he was looking at product out of the Middle East,” Hajjar says. “I completely resisted because I didn’t want to be boxed into the ethnic, ending up in a Lebanese restaurant. I wanted to be recognised as a craft beer foremost, Lebanese second.”
Despite this hesitation, Hajjar was already embracing the rich heritage of Lebanon in his beers. “Brewing started here in 9000 BC. We were at the forefront. Why has this disappeared from our culture? How do we make beer Lebanese again?”
His imperial stout draws on the tradition of Lebanon’s incredibly strong coffee suffused with cardamom, while his pale ale uses za’atar, sumac, mint, sage, anise and chamomile.
Hajjar flew to Melbourne in 2013 to help Abboud – who by then was importing large quantities of 961 – sell the beer with confidence. He was immediately taken by the city and its people. Concerned with the possibility of war breaking out again in Lebanon, he made the decision to relocate a year later, setting up Hawkers Beer in Reservoir with Abboud as his business partner, opening their doors in 2015. “Australia is such a hospitable, friendly place and Melbourne is wonderfully multicultural. I don’t feel homesick at all; everything I need is here.”
Two days after releasing the first pale ale, Hawkers scooped the People’s Choice Best Beer at Geelong’s Great Australian Beer Festival in February last year. Many more gongs have followed. And yet, despite Hawkers Beer having one of the biggest set ups in the southern hemisphere, they can barely keep up with demand.
Mazen Hajjar and Joseph Abboud. Source: SBS Food
“It’s awesome seeing your beer on the list at some of Melbourne’s best restaurants,” Hajjar says, “I bet my life savings on coming out here and mortgaged my house to do it. To see it work so well is very humbling.”
Hajjar isn’t the only expat in the Aussie beer business – Burleigh Brewing Company’s Brennan Fielding is a Hawaiian native who now calls the Gold Coast home. When Fielding made the jump Down Under with Australian wife Peta in 1998, the country hadn’t quite caught up with the huge craft beer scene in the States. “I was trying to find interesting beers but there were none back then, it was a beer desert,” he says. “It was terrible; basically XXXX or VB.”
Fielding, who has brewed in his native Hawaii and Japan and helped set up Moo Brew in Tasmania, has his dad to thank for his love of craft beer. Fielding Senior was an architect in San Francisco, where he became devoted to Anchor Brewing, one of America’s oldest breweries. Later, he discovered home brewing. “I remember he brought a different six pack every time and he would always give me a taste.”
Fielding followed suit, making beer at home while studying physics, chemistry and engineering in San Fran – conveniently, three out of the four applied sciences involved in brewing (microbiology is the other). Pretty soon he ditched a planned career in science when a strange turn of fate drew him home to Hawaii.
Bizarrely, the state didn’t repeal prohibition laws until 1994, but as soon as they did, the beer industry moved in. Fielding worked at several major brewers before he and Peta decided to relocate to Australia, marrying in Brisbane and then settling on the Gold Coast.
Just as Hajjar educated Beirut locals on stout, Fielding was faced with a disheartening first few years as Queenslanders remained resistant to the idea of craft beer. “When we first opened our doors, no-one came in,” Fielding says. “It was three or four years of little-to-no sales, trying to keep the business afloat, going out every day, engaging people about craft beer. But I never lost sight of the light at the end of the tunnel.”
Brennan Fielding and wife Peta at the Burleigh Brewing Company Source: Burleigh Brewing
Good job they persisted, as Australia finally caught on and the business has grown and grown, opening the door on a new brewery and taphouse earlier this year, including a pilot plant for experimental beers where Fielding has been working on a new offering that’ll be ready for GABS, the Great Australasian Beer SpecTAPular. It evokes the tropical flavours of both Hawaii and his new Queensland base.
“We’re doing an ale, which, compared to a lager, is often a little bit sweeter,” he says. “We’re bringing a tropical hop flavour that will have passionfruit, citrus and a little bit of pine with tangerine.” Sounds pretty sweet to us.
Hawkers Beer and Burleigh Brewing Company will both appear at the Great Australasian Beer SpecTAPular held during Melbourne’s Good Beer Week. For more information on the event, go to gabsfestival.com.
