The Catfish on Gertrude Street, Fitzroy stocks a wondrous selection of craft beer all year-round. Along with 12 on-tap selections – the names of which are chalked onto the wall and likely to change during the course of an evening – they’ve got a fridge full of dangerously large and intriguingly labeled bottles. It’s enough to provoke shrieks of glee from even the most advanced hop-o-phile.
“We like slinging booze without pretension. We want people to try it,” says Catfish co-owner Kieran Yewdall. “The good thing is that in a lot of the bars around here, in Fitzroy and North Carlton and North Fitzroy, there are a lot of good beer fans. We specialise in beer, but we do sell everything else as well – we have a good range of spirits and a good range of wine. We don’t want to rip people off. We want to serve it the cheapest we can and encourage people to try something different. There’s so much good booze out there, there’s no point getting stuck on the same thing.”
The Catfish is one of many Melbourne pubs committed to making every week a good beer week. Given that Saturday May 16 till Sunday May 24 is officially Good Beer Week, their extensive beer supply will become even more voluminous.
“We’ve got 12 taps and they’re just going to change,” Yewdall says. “After every keg goes, something else is going to go on. Because it’s Good Beer Week, every time you come in we’re going to have a different beer for everyone.”
To coincide with Good Beer Week, The Catfish will be unveiling their newly renovated upstairs band room. “We’re going to make it a bit more pleasant to sit in,” Yewdall says. “I think the last time it was refurbished was back in the ‘80s when it was a Mediterranean restaurant. It’s going to be a much more comfortable place to be in to watch music, but also just a more comfortable place to hang out when we don’t have a band on.”
Speaking of music, over the course of the week, there’ll be free shows from The Tarantinos, The New Savages, That Gold Street Sound and DJ Richie 1250. The venue’s major Good Beer Week event is Monsters of Hop, which goes down on opening night. Along with four of Melbourne’s heaviest bands, including Whitehorse and Kromosom, The Catfish have sourced some especially dark, hop-stuffed concoctions from the Edge, Feral, Dainton and KAIJU breweries.
“It’s basically four big beers and four big metal bands,” says Yewdall. “For 25 bucks, they’re all very good name bands and you get four beer tasters or your choice of one pint.”
Of course, live music and quality beer are perfect companions. Yet, for goodness knows how long, over-priced commercial beer has dominated bandroom bars. Fortunately, venues like The Catfish are working to remedy this inconsistency. Plus, along with the added sensual kicks, diversifying one’s beer choices serves a range of benefits.
“A lot of the big beers that people drink are owned by international organisations,” Yewdall says. “Most of our beers are by Australians. One’s imported from Richmond, one’s imported from Brunswick and one’s imported from Thornbury – as opposed to beers owned by a South African company based in London [SABMiller]. So you’re looking after local industry, but the other thing is there’s less chance of a hangover. It tastes really good and you don’t get a hangover from it, because you’re drinking something nice and fresh and that’s natural and doesn’t have all these preservatives and additives and chemicals pumped into it.”
BY AUGUSTUS WELBY
