It’s not often that I’ll write about a new bar before it opens; when you can actually see how it runs and see what’s pouring and fully experience the beeryness of the place. I’m willing to make an exception in the case of Brisbane’s soon-to-be newest beer bar, Tipplers Tap.
Due to open in “August”, the provenance for the bar looks good being managed by Carl Rhodes, formerly manager at Nectar, which was Brisbane’s best beer bottleshop until it closed over a year ago.
Carl has a genuine passion for beer. His knowledge and approach is reminiscent of the guys behind The Scratch, another recent addition to the Brisbane beer scene and one that, despite its size, has quickly come to be spoken of by some astute judges in the ‘Australia’s Best’ class.
Built in a small commercial unit on a largely residential street in Teneriffe, it sits in the heart of Brisbane’s rapidly developing beer quarter. Just around the corner is another soon to open venture, Green Beacon Brewery.
Tippler’s Tap is in the late stages of fit-out and the venue is built to a similar small scale as The Scratch. Though unassuming from the outside, the inside is very comfortable and welcoming. A small space, it will come across as either being a cosy haven or pokey, depending on your personal outlook. If you’re the sort who thinks the former you will likely be the sort who will respond to Carl’s approach.
The small inner-bar will have bar stools to actually encourage patrons to sit at the bar and talk about beer with the staff, while the bar fridges are being set at eye level rather than under the bar. Carl says this just makes it easier to choose your next beer without having to wait for the line to progress to the bar, with the fridge hidden, only to be hurried to make your selection. It’s a bar that seem to think about the patron and is designed to engage with them.
The real stars are the 10 direct pour craft taps that Carl describes as his ’10 taps of goodness’ that will have ‘something for everyone’ . It is planned to eventually double that number, with the front bar serviced with the same number of taps. The front bar will open with a solitary hand pump, with frenetic local craft powerhouse Bacchus Brewing slated to brew some keg-conditioned ales.
Licensed for 85 people, Tipplers Tap has a restaurant licence instead of the new small bar licence which makes it different to a number of Brisbane’s other new beery venues, and will offer a range of food inspired by its Chicagoan owner Brian Kennedy and his partner Emily Russell. I didn’t realise Chicago had a distinctly identifiable food style, but the Tap version is described as being “simple but really flavoursome, and good value.” With a line up that will include a Chicago Hotdog and sliders it will be interesting to see what comes.
Hot on the heels of Queensland Beer Week and a rush of craft beer venues led off by Archive and Kerbside and with recent arrivals including The Burrow, Bitter Suite and The Scratch, the one-time beer dessert is really starting to blossom. Roll on ‘August’.
Now, we just need to get some bottleshops to replace Nectar…
You can read more about Carl and his plans for the Tap here.
The Tippler’s Tap
22 Masters Street, Newstead
www.tipplerstap.com.au
DONT BOTHER
Cheapest glass (not schooner) of beer $8.00
Most expensive glass of beer $35.00
Cheapest bottle of red or white wine $39.00
Food — GOD HELP ME!
Chicken wings that looked like they had been reheated from the night before, you know when the chicken bones go dark..The blue cheese sauce had no flavour f blue cheese
Onion rings and chips were nice
5 little burgers, nice flavour, buns seemed stale
Grandmas Chilli — PLEASE, if you dont know how to cook, don’t offer it. What chilli? There was no clean flavours, it was a dark pool of mud. Oh, and the “organic” sour dough bread was so dry and tastless.
Service — - Ummm, well they dropped off plates off food, and then picked them up without a smile, an acknowledgement we even existed.
What is it with Australian restaurants and bars that specialise in bad food, bad service, and expensive booze…
If you are going to open an Amercian style bar, take the time and visit the USA and learn how ell they do it from the food and always great service…
Don’t waste your time or money…
Surprised to hear that Jez — I have been there a couple of times now and was very impressed each time, including having tried the sliders abd chicken wings. And have seen other favourable reviews as well. Not sure whether you caught them on a bad day or you’re just being unduly harsh. Where do you recommend in Brisbane?
I am the first one to praise a good bar and or restaurant, but this place is just not good. WHY cant staff smile, why cant the food be fresh…
I live across the road and was looking forward to a local beer house, but I won’t be going back until they fine tune prices, have quality food and staff.
As I said, my experience when there has been different to what you recounted. I was just wondering what similar venues you had been to in Brisbane that you thought were better?
Recommend..
I went to yard Birds earlier this week, and while they too had service issues, the food was far better, and the beer was COLD!
I really hope Green Brewing is going to kick goals as far as food, service and beer is concerned…
I understand these businesses need to make money, but charging $8 for the cheapest beer and the large glass was about 2/3rds the size of a schooner, is just ripping right into their clientel.
Bottles of wine starting at $39.00, this place is not a restaurant, its a bar with food, why wouldn’t they have a$20 bottle of red and white, and a $5.00 beer at least.
PS — Cold beer would be nice, we tried a few beers and none were cold.
Also, try the refurb’d Alibi Room, $4 pints of James Squire, FREE tacos with every beer, the best scrambled eggs in Brisbane, and a groovy atmosphere…
Need more bars like Alibi…
I can’t comment on the food that you got, except to say that my experience was different. As for the beer, if you’re after very cold $4 James Squires and free tacos, I suspect a bar such as Tipplers isn’t going to appeal. Fortunately there are plenty of other bars in Brisbane that offer that.
I’m confused, what is Tipplers offering.…
A wide and rotating selection of independent craft beer. A venue can pretty much only serve a beer such as James Squires at $4 a throw if they are getting a rebate from the brewery, which also means that it limits the selection they can offer primarily to Lion. Great if you like the Squires beer they offer and if you’re happy for a narrower selection. Plenty of beer drinkers aren’t these days and Tipplers is possibly catering to them.
Jez just doesn’t get it. I can’t comment on the food but I bet Jez would love a place that served ice cold goon straight from the cask for a buck…If I’m on the wrong track perhaps educate yourself on where the beers come from how much time, passion and ingredients went into making them and the price a keg of these highly sought after beers cost. Oh and squire beers are pretty average/crappy imo
c’mon Jez,
give it a break… you seem to just copy and paste your same harsh and non-factual comments about tippler’s on any webpage that’ll let you.. so, i’ve copied and pasted my previous reply to you below.
stop hiding behind your web persona, come over and get what-ever’s bugging you off your chest,
it’s just a short stroll over the road and i’d love to meet you.
regarding your words in your other posts below, we do have good staff that love what they do, both friendly and knowledgeable. we believe our food is good and we’re very proud of it and if by saying “fine tune prices” you mean give away tacos with James Squire… it’s not going to happen.
have another read of my previous response,
As i mentioned below i’d love for you to come on over for a beer and a chat..
“Hi Jeremy,
Carl is my name, I’m the manager down at Tippler’s Tap.
Firstly I would like to let you know that i’m sorry your visit to Tippler’s wasn’t as pleasant as you’d hoped for.
As we are only very young (4 weeks old) feedback from our customers is very important to us.
I can’t reverse time or change the experience that you’ve already had, however, I would like to take this opportunity to invite you back to give us another go as we’ve had a great deal of positive feedback so far and we’re pretty happy with and very proud of what we have on offer.
I can assure you that the chicken wings are not re-heated from the night before, when we structured our menu we invested a great deal of time and effort into sourcing the best possible produce for our dishes as we strive to do the best we can in every aspect of our business.
In regards to the pricing of our beer, we focus on beers that are brewed with premium ingredients and great attention to detail, these beers are generally brewed in much smaller batches than the more mainstream beers available and as goes the story with most things — better quality often costs a little more money, we believe it is worth it. Our cheapest glass of beer is only $5 and we do not have a glass of anything on offer that is close to being $35, our most expensive glass of beer is $15 (385ml) — this beer is an Imperial Stout that was aged in an Islay Whisky Barrel and comes in at 12.4%abv, this beer cost a lot of money to produce which is why it isn’t the cheapest beer around, it is honestly one of the best beers i’ve ever tried and to the craft beer drinker it is worth every cent.
Brian, the owner of Tippler’s actually hales from Chicago himself and lived the first 30 years of his life there, he is very passionate about ensuring the Chicago themed dishes on the menu are as close as possible to the real deal, sometimes this is a little tricky as not all ingredients used in Chicago for these dishes are readily available in Australia. We are not claiming to be an American style bar, We are a craft beer bar with a Food menu that has a strong Chicago influence.
Jeremy, I do appreciate your feed back and like I said, I would love to see you back for another visit sometime.
If you would like to discuss this further please contact me via email on carl@tipplerstap.com.au.”
When do you think you’ll pour your first to the public? Can’t wait
hey Andrew,
Our grand opening is next Friday the 7th and we’ve got an awesome line up of beers to get things started. if you can’t wait until Friday that’s cool — we’ll be pouring our first beer to the public this Sunday the 2nd around noon.
trading hours will be 11am — 10pm, Tuesday — Friday.
Can’t wait! Have been walking past every couple of days to keep an eye on progress :) That deck area out the front will be great
Look forward to coming up soon and having a few beers with you in your new venue Carl, sorry I missed you at Queensland Beer Week.
Cheers, Heath (Cavalier Brewing)
cheers Ben, we look forward to having you over for a beer… it’s never too early..
Congratulations guys! Can’t wait to check the joint out have a beer with y’all!
— Ben (The Scratch)
*‘and’ have a beer. Into the beers too early, obviously.