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Not so many years ago, it seemed Australia was getting a new craft brewery every day.
Now, for every new and exciting beer that found its way onto tap lists and fridges around the country, an independent producer is going out of business or into administration.
This week, news broke of award-winning WA brewery Golden West calling in administrators. Last month it was Big Shed from South Australia and Melbourne's Hawkers, after popular Sydney label Wayward had set the tone for the year in January.
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And that's not mentioning any of the independent breweries that fell on hard times last year, like Ballistic, Parched, Wicked Elf and Running With Thieves.
"I don't use language like 'the situation is dire' very often, but it absolutely is," Independent Brewers Association (IBA) chief executive Kylie Lethbridge told 9news.com.au.
So why, after such a surge in these breweries last decade, are so many of them now falling on hard times?
In part, it's the issues brought on by the pandemic that so many industries are battling: skills shortages, surging transport, ingredient and freight costs, and rising inflation and interest rates making it harder for consumers to stump up for a premium, artisan product like craft beer.
But there's another layer of challenges unique to the industry.
"We are the third highest taxing nation on beer manufacturing in the world," Lethbridge said.
"Our tax increases twice a year, not just once but twice (when the alcohol excise increases in line with inflation).
"It's a very uneven playing field in regard to how Australia's alcohol is taxed.
"Wine is taxed differently to spirits and beer and it doesn't generally provide a fair playing field."
As in many other industries, brewers were allowed to defer their alcohol excise payments to stay afloat during COVID-19.
But now the tax man is calling, and the post-pandemic business surge that many were banking on to pay back those debts has been scuppered by the cost of living crisis.
"One brewery recently tried to negotiate an extension to three years, the ATO came back and said, 'That's not acceptable'," Lethbridge said.
"(The brewery) rejigged the numbers, pulled out all the stops and said, 'OK, this is what we could do in two years'.
"At that point, the ATO said 'no, seven days', and that pushed them into voluntary administration."
The brewer in question was Hawkers, which has now emerged from administration under a restructuring approved by creditors, including the ATO, who'll now get 10 cents for every dollar it was owed.
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"The inflexibility in not allowing those extensions means that they (the ATO) are losing," she said.
"In that case, there was $1.5 million that was owed, and they'll get… 10 cents on the dollar as opposed to that (entire) $1.5 million back just by allowing that extension."
Making matters worse for independents are the duopolies that dominate the industry.
In the retail space, so-called "craftwashing" by major chains Endeavour Group (formerly part of Woolworths, which now runs BWS and Dan Murphy's) and Coles (Liquorland, Vintage Cellars and First Choice Liquor) is having an impact.
The practice involves the big businesses creating home brands that look like genuine craft beers, capitalising on the demand for those products by selling them at cheaper prices than their independent counterparts.
As for brewing itself, multinationals CUB (owned by Japan's Asahi) and Lion (part of fellow Japanese giant Kirin) combine for a market share of around 80 per cent.
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In addition to buying up many of Australia's best-known craft beers (4 Pines and Balter are among CUB's collection, while Lion's acquisition of Stone and Wood sent shockwaves through the industry), the duopoly has also been accused of locking independents out of taps across the country by offering incentive-based contracts to venues who favour their beers.
Lethbridge said the secretive arrangements vary, but often include "sexy" incentives like paying for a venue's furniture, providing rebates, or offering first-class trips overseas.
Ben Kooyman, the founder of Sydney's Endeavour Brewing Co (not to be confused with the much larger Endeavour Group, with which he has a long-running dispute), made a submission to the ACCC in 2017 about the practice.
"(I was) saying the big thing is we've got to get rid of this anti-competitive behaviour," he told 9news.com.au.
"Contracts that say, 'You can't have another IPA, you can't have another mid-strength, we've got exclusivity on that', that's anti-competitive."
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The ACCC disagreed, concluding its 2017 investigation by saying the contracts haven't reduced competition, although Lethbridge said that, by only looking at 36 venues in NSW and Victoria, the consumer watchdog didn't give itself "a particularly robust sample size to come to a conclusion".
The combination of all those impacts is making it increasingly difficult for small Australian breweries to stay afloat.
"If it was just one of those things, we might be able to weather the storm," Lethbridge said.
"If it was a couple of those impacts, it may be a little easier to deal with. But… it really is a perfect storm of challenges for us."
The IBA wrote to Treasurer Jim Chalmers requesting government assistance in the upcoming federal budget, saying independent brewers will otherwise continue to close.
In addition to more flexible repayment arrangements with the ATO, it made five proposals, including freezing the alcohol excise for two years and indexing the $350,000 remission cap introduced in 2021 with inflation.
"There's a perception that the small producers already receive a different benefit than what the large multinational breweries do," Lethbridge said.
"That's just not the case. We get nothing other than what CUB or Lion get, there's no support over and above that."
Kooyman doesn't necessarily want government support but instead wants to see truth in labelling regulations to address craftwashing.
He'd also like all alcohol to be taxed at the same rate per litre regardless of whether it's in beer, wine or spirits – an approach known as a volumetric tax.
"I'd love the whole industry to get on a level playing field in terms of taxation," he says.
"The wine industry through a long history – and some of it is justified – is paying far less per standard drinking in alcohol tax. The spirit guys are paying far more.
"Why don't we just get a volumetric tax across alcohol?"
He's hopeful there will soon be changes in the industry that help breweries out.
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"Does the government want to support small industry?" he said.
"We employ more people, we pay more in tax. If you just want to let big corporations increase their market share, then don't do anything about it.
"I'd love for MPs… to say 'This is actually a very common sense move'."
Lethbridge is also hopeful, saying she's been heartened by the response the IBA has received from ministers and other MPs.
She also argues the benefit of helping out brewers – and consequences of not providing assistance – would be felt beyond the industry.
"We are less than 7 per cent of market share, but we employ 51 per cent of the industry," she said.
"So when our breweries close, we lose jobs…
"We do feel that we're being heard, and we hope that all of those measures that we've proposed to the government don't come at a significant cost to them.
"Therefore maybe they have the foresight to give us a hand now, in some cases just temporarily, to help us get through this next 18 months of pain."
