Beer For Good: Turning Regenerative Grain Into Award-Winning Beer & More

A barley grower sees his farm logo on a beer can prototype and gets emotional, not because it looks cool, but because it represents a long journey to a certified sustainable, low-emissions supply web that holds up under scrutiny. From the stage at the Regenerative Agriculture Conference in Margaret River back in 2023, we trace how this story runs from soil to sip and why “walk the walk” matters more than a pretty label. 

I recently dug into the archives and found some hidden gems from this conference. So episode 295 became the story I told as MC, to kick it off. And today, its first panel, featuring a couple of outstanding stories, and how they came to intertwine.

Before the panel, Senior WA Departmental Economist, Brad Plunkett, presented his research on Tolga farm in Kulin, in WA’s wheatbelt – its dryland production system, business set up, and significant ‘accidental’ carbon related outcomes. Fourth-generation farmer there, Brendon Savage, with his wife Gab, began changing the way they farm 20 years ago, having realised they needed to find ways to become sustainable. 

Then we heard from Mel Holland, who co-founded Rocky Ridge Brewing Co in 2017 with her partner Hamish, as a diversification of their fifth-generation family dairy farm in Jindong WA (near Busselton). I’m informed Mel was dubbed Rocky Ridge’s ‘Captain Planet’. Rocky Ridge’s aim? To make incredible beer using the best local produce, farmed in the best way, with the least environmental impact. Rocky Ridge is Australia’s first Certified Sustainable and Carbon Neutral Brewery.

Here, Mel and Brendan take a seat on stage to answer audience questions, and share the story of how they came to combine forces, to achieve these significant and emotional outcomes together.

If you like what you hear, subscribe, share this with a mate who loves good beer or good farming, and leave a review so more people can find the work behind the can.

Chapter markers & transcript.

Recorded 6 September 2023.

Title image: Brad, Mel, Brendan & AJ (by Daniela Tommasi).

See more photos on the episode web page.

Join us at Grounded Festival on 22-23 April 2026 (10% discount for paid subscribers).

Music:

Working the Fields, by Falconer (from Artlist).

Regeneration, by Amelia Barden

Transcript

Welcome And Listener Support

AJ 0:04

G'day there, Anthony James here for The RegenNarration with the stories that are changing the story. Brought to you by listeners like you. Please subscribe if you can to keep the show on the road. I'm coming to you right now from the Dandenongs outside Melbourne, en route to Grounded Festival in a couple of weeks. But a few weeks ago, you'll recall, I dug into the archives and found some hidden gems from the Regenerative Agriculture Conference in Margaret River WA in late 2023. So episode 295 became the story I told to kick off that conference as its MC. And today, the first panel of that conference, titled From Barley to Beer: The Economics of Sustainable Farming. It featured a couple of outstanding stories. And how they came to intertwine. And they've both continued to win awards and expand over the last couple of years. Now, before the panel you're about to hear, senior economist at the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development in WA, Brad Plunkett, presented his research on Tolga Farm in WA's wheat belt, its dry land production system, business setup, and significant accidental carbon-related outcomes. Then we heard from Mel Holland, who co-founded Rocky Ridge Brewing Company in 2017 with her partner Hamish as a diversification of their fifth-generation family dairy farm in Jindong WA near Bustleton. I'm informed Mel was dubbed Rocky Ridge's Captain Planet. Her passion for the natural world and background in landscape architecture sees her manage the company's sustainability, community support, and planning initiatives. Rocky Ridge's aim? To make incredible beer, using the best local produce, farmed in the best way, with the least environmental impact. Rocky Ridge is Australia's first certified sustainable and carbon neutral brewery, proudly held the title of WA's champion beer for both 2022 and 23, and at that time was also WA's reigning champion large brewery. After Mel, fourth generation farmer owner at Tolga Farm, Brendan Savage, joined Mel on stage to take questions from the audience and share the story of how they came to combine forces and ultimately achieve some emotional outcomes together on their regenerating farms and on through certified supply webs. I introduce Brendan in more detail as he takes the stage. Then Brad asks the first question. Thanks, Mel. Here, here, till the way you finish that. Now, Brendan Savage is a fourth gen farmer who's been farming with his wife Gab at Tolga Farm Coolin for 30 years. Twenty years ago, Brendan and Gab began changing the way they farm, having realized they needed to find ways to become sustainable. For them, that means farming practices, business diversification, community volunteering, and contributing to a network of different farmers with similar goals. On farm, this means producing as much as possible with the least synthetic inputs as we've heard while leaving the soil in the best possible condition. One of the farm's mottos is Roots Fix Dirt. They're also excited to be working with Rocky Ridge, and Brendan describes his partnership as winning the trifecta for beer. Hope I'm not stealing thunder here, mate. Single origin certified sustainable low emissions. Please welcome Brendan Savage.

Brad Plunkett 3:33

Brendan, if I might ask, how important was it to get this supply chain organised? What does it mean to you and to Gab to have certified sustainable beer at the other end after all and after all the work you have done to put this system together?

Brendan Savage 3:50

So obviously as a family we started out to become more sustainable and and the the goal was to produce more with less. So we the first steps was to remove urea from the equation and to grow more roots, produce soil carbon, labile carbon in particular at the time, so that we could recycle nutrition and grow plants more cheaply and take some risk out of the situation. So I get a bit bored and take on a new project every year and gets driven absolutely crazy by it. So several years ago, I we I've I've been involved with certified sustainable law, Southern Cross Exports, as it was called, um in its early days in its infancy. And um we built we built a s we built a um supply chain on the east coast for artisan baking market, and in Western Australia it was quite difficult. And I decided to prove a point and started knocking on doors and um you know got kicked back a fair few times, but through a through a um through a mutual friend we were introduced to Hamish and and Mel, and um it was very exciting and it just became another love. I enjoy beer, many of my friends enjoy beer, and to um and to produce something that comes off your own farm um is is quite is quite um satisfactory. And I suppose it was a personal goal. My wife supported me immensely with the building a brand, so she um used Tolga Farm on Instagram and we got got it trademarked and you know the process is quite lengthy and it's extremely difficult to set up the supply chain. But with the help of CBH and Bortmalt and Hamish and Mel probably were lucky enough, things just sort of worked them worked themselves out when they were on brew conferences around the world and ran into the right people. But you know, there was roadblock after roadblock and COVID stopped us a lot. So to finally get to the stage where yesterday Hamish sent us a prototype of um our farm logo and a beer can was fairly emotional. So yeah, happy days, Brad.

Audience question 6:09

Rocky Ridge, great beer. Lots of lots of people drinking like dozens of beers that you produce. Do you do you get a sense that they understand the importance of a quality supply chain of a genuine product and a brewer that cares enough about making those beers that it impacts upon your your sales or the or the culture that you're seeing around all those beer conferences?

Mel Holland 6:35

I it's a hard one to answer because we do make a ridiculous amount of beers. I think last year we released 107 different types of beer, um, plus the core range ones that you make consistently. So our brand originally was built on a a bit of a hype of all those new um limited releases, but I think we've sort of tried, I mean, we're only a very young brewery, we just turned six, but we've tried to really consolidate who we are, and you know, we've always had an ethos of wanting to be connected to the farm and wanting to do the right thing. Very um naively, we set out with a motto, everything we brew, we grow, and we're growing our own barley, we're having it malted locally, we were growing our own hops, we just were absolute morons at that point because it's not sustainable. And um we grew, you know, had we have stayed small and micro, it it would have, you know, it would have been achievable. But we haven't steered too far from the idea of that, whilst the actual output's changed. The method methodology around it has stayed the same. And I think our consumer is um very much along for the journey. We're very lucky in our consumer base because um locally a lot of people know that story. I mean, we export to Singapore, they probably have no idea. Um we're pretty terrible at branding it, and I think brewing as a whole is considered a fairly sustainable industry. So there is a reasonable amount of greenwashing in our industry. So we sort of try to steer away from labelling anything on the cans. We we'd rather just walk the walk um than talk the talk. So we we I hope that our consumer knows what we're doing. Um but we tend to just you know push through and do what's right and and make that decision for our our people and our product.

AJ 8:14

There's so much in that, Mel. That's that's profound. That the story beyond the and the connection beyond the labelling. That's a huge point, I reckon. Um Blythe was have we got a mic to Blythe that that works?

Blythe Calnan (audience question) 8:25

Thanks, guys. And especially Brendan, getting all those the work gone into those figures is huge. Um but being able to share that on a stage is is really brave and something we don't see enough of. Brendan? The collaboration you've got, as Terry mentioned earlier, um regenerative is quite well accepted in the the grazing and livestock community, but particularly in the cropping community, it's it's a bit of a new frontier still, even with all of the work that yourself and Gabby, Di, and Ian have done. Are you seeing sort of others being inspired by the collaborations you're doing and the sharing of these figures? Um are you seeing the impact of that in the the cropping community, do you think?

Brendan Savage 9:06

Yeah, we are encouraging other growers to become involved. Um, on the East Coast already, bought malt are um doing some significant malting projects. So we're we're doing certified sustainable beer in in um Victoria and New South Wales. Um we're hoping that it'll lead to Australia becoming the certified um barley market for you know, if not Australia, the Southern Hemisphere. So we we hope that it grows by 10,000, 20,000 tonnes a year. That that's the goal. Um so we're the guinea pigs, and you know, Hamish and Mel probably deserve to be supported more than most because they've put their head on the chopping block along with us. Um in in in in building a project like this, you can't do it on a micro level. So Bort Molt being a Western European based company, that their their sort of their um emission goals and ESG are way in front of Australia. So with um Hamish was at the brew conference only last week, and our certifier, Marg Wills, she said she's been to all these sorts of conferences around the world, and never once has she been approached by people, whereas there was big brewers from all over coming to ask her questions. So is that um and she said it's it's quite interesting to see the effect we're having on that market. It's nearly like certified sustainables laid this golden egg and all they've got to do is buy it now because they've got their ESG boxes ticked and their emissions ticked. The irony that I'd like to put forward is that we started out to do this to look after our farm and our soils and our future children's opportunity to farm. And I've stood up at conferences uh in Western Australia and called out the big companies and said, you know, come and talk to me afterwards, and no one does until emissions were involved. So the irony is that low emissions has now created a market for nutrient dense foods, which is extremely exciting. And look, I'm I'm all for animal health and human health. So I'd hope that answers your question somewhat, Blythe.

AJ 11:24

Barry, last question.

Barry Green (audience question) 11:27

Australians are very parochial supporting Australian sporting sides. How do we get the same parochialism supporting Australian food and uh beverages?

Mel Holland 11:46

Um, yeah, good food, good beer, and you know, I I can't sit up here and advocate for the nutritional value of beer. Um But there was a story that I saw on the news yesterday saying it's better for your gut than a yakult, so we'll go with that. Um unverified. But um I think it's you know alcohol traditionally is very regulated and it should be. But I I think the you know there's a strong connection to having a beer with your mates, and I think that's something that we need to um kind of go back to. That you know, beer has become more of a a niche product in the craft brewing sort of sector. Um beers are pretty expensive, I'll openly say that. We're not a mass-produced, mass volume consumption alcohol company. That's not what we're about. We're about you know really good quality inputs that are doing the right thing. And as I said before, it's you know, beer for us is a vessel for doing good. Um, whether that's community support, um, I've completely lost count of how many sporting clubs we sponsor, and um we we started off trying to sponsor children's sports in the regions because I think that's so um important. But unfortunately, being alcohol, we can only sponsor adult teams now because of new laws that come in. So we're we're constantly up against some barriers like that sort of thing. So I think you know, supporting your local small producer, whether that's someone who makes beer, someone who makes wine, uh, you know, a bakery, we've sent a few of them up, um, or if it's just a direct-to-producer um milk or meat, or you know, we need to cut out this this mass consumption, and I think that will bring back the connection back to um, I guess, the the more Australian story. And I don't know if I've answered that, but in a way that it's you know it's more about the people and and the the artisan products than it is, you know, um forex sponsoring sport.

Why Certification Matters?

Brendan Savage 13:34

Right, right. If I may just add a tiny bit to that. Like in the being being 53, you know, we've been reading the paper for 30, 35 years, and the words biological and sustainable over the years have been prostituted to a massive extent. Greenwashing is out of control, and the corporates are out there to um profit from it. Um, so you know, many of the people in the room and ourselves included have done it of our goal has been to produce healthier soils and nutrient-dense food. But to take that to a level that you're actually credible, we had to build certified sustainable, and that was derived from a group of 50 odd farmers that were doing an around Australia tour. And before we finished, we left the Brisbane Airport in excess of 10 years ago, and we we we committed to put in a million bucks to build the label, and um it wasn't certified sustainable at the time, it's morphed into that because of you know branding and making it look right. But to to educate the consumer, you've got to have something that's credible and it's got to be certified, and hence that's how we got to this stage.

Thanks, Credits, And Support The Show

AJ 14:43

It's a bloody brilliant story. It's been a pleasure to get to meet you guys and learn about it. Thanks very much for sharing it. Would you please thank our guests? Brendan Savage, Brad Plunkett, Mel Holland. That was the brief panel conversation from Barley to Beer at the Regenerative Agriculture Conference in Margaret River WA, late 2023. With thanks to you generous supporting listeners as always for making this episode possible, including Luca, aka Dr. Cat, for your four years of support, and for your three Darius Irvin, Andy Wildman, and Phil Garozzo from Loop Growers (g'day team). So grateful to you all, and if you too value what you hear, and you're in a position to support the show, that'd mean a lot. You'll help keep the show on the road and get an immediate discount to the upcoming Grounded Festival, and I'll look forward to seeing you there. The music you're hearing is Regeneration by Amelia Barden. My name's Anthony James. Thanks for listening.