Ten Years of Beers in the Deep Sou’East

Ten years after Gab and Chris began brewing beer in an old butter factory in Orbost, Sailors Grave Brewing is celebrating a decade of beers, art, collaboration and the wild landscape that has shaped the brewery from the beginning.

But for us, ten years was never going to be marked by a single birthday party.

The anniversary has become a year-long celebration of the people, places, ingredients and ideas that have shaped the brewery, with events continuing in Melbourne and beyond.

“We didn’t really want to do a traditional 10th birthday party. Ten years of Sailors Grave is about all the things that have made us what we are. The people we’ve worked with, the places we’ve lived, the ingredients we’ve found, the artists we’ve collaborated with and all the weird and wonderful beers we’ve made along the way.”

Gab Moore, co-founder

A decade of beer, oysters, fire and excess

The anniversary celebrations reached the peak on 8 August at Dunetown, with the inaugural Lore of the Tongue Day bringing together oysters, smoke, fire, music, food, art and beer for an afternoon and evening of celebration.

The annual celebration of smoke, salt, oysters, fire and excess saw the brewery transformed into an immersive winter gathering, with hourly keg-tapping and oyster ceremonies built around the brewery’s Law of the Tongue Smokey Oyster Stout.

Oysters supplied by Shane Buckley of Wapengo Rocks were paired with five different expressions of the beer, including the original stout, a Nitro Black Velvet version, the newly released Imperial Law of the Tongue, an Anise Myrtle bottle-conditioned version and a Bierstacheln ending.

Each hour brought a new “Law”, a new keg and a new oyster pairing.

The day also featured seafood and produce cooked over fire by Sodafish, desserts from The Long Paddock, the launch of a new range of tinned sea urchin from Blue Kelp, and live music from Whiskey Dram and Smugglers Moon.

Over the weekend celebrations, Gab and longtime Sailors Grave artist Joe Lyward made the first brush strokes on a new mural at Dunetown, creating a permanent piece of art that will become part of the brewery and its evolving story. 

“It felt like the most Sailors Grave way we could celebrate. There was beer, oysters, fire, music, art and a ridiculous amount of food, but underneath all of that it was really about the people who have been part of this journey.”

Gab

Law of the Tongue goes Imperial

The anniversary also sees one of Sailors Grave’s favourite beers taken to another level.

Law of the Tongue Smokey Oyster Stout has become one of our defining beers, combining dark malt, smoke and oysters with the kind of layered, savoury complexity that has become synonymous with Sailors Grave.

For the tenth anniversary, the beer has been brewed as an Imperial version, with a richer, bigger and more intense expression released in both cans and limited-edition 750ml bottles.

The Imperial beer formed part of the Lore of the Tongue ceremonies, including versions served with Anise Myrtle and through the traditional bierstacheln hot-poker technique.

The release also extends Sailors Grave’s longstanding collaboration with illustrator Joe Lyward, whose four new anniversary can designs sit alongside Gab’s linocut artwork for the limited 750ml bottles.

Ten Years of Beers in the Deep Sou’East

The anniversary weekend began on 7 August, with the launch of Sailors Grave’s new book, Ten Years of Beers in the Deep Sou’East, at Dunetown.

Part brewery story, part photo book and part art book, the publication documents a decade of beers and the artwork that has accompanied them.

Rather than presenting a conventional history of the brewery, the book traces the relationships, collaborations, ingredients, places and ideas behind the beers.

For Sailors Grave, artwork has never been an afterthought or simply packaging.

From the brewery’s earliest days, Gab and Chris worked with Cornwall-based artist Joe Lyward to create a visual language as distinctive as the beers themselves. Over the past decade, his illustrations have grown with Sailors Grave and become central to its identity.

Joe has worked with the brewery for more than ten years and has now made his fourth visit to Australia to celebrate the anniversary. His latest trip included the book launch, the creation and launch of the Dunetown mural and a series of celebrations around the anniversary. 

“Joe has been such a huge part of the visual story of Sailors Grave. We’ve worked together for more than ten years and there’s a real trust there. We’ve never wanted the artwork to just decorate the beer. It is part of the beer, part of the story and part of how we communicate what Sailors Grave is.”

Gab

The book is now available through Sailors Grave.

From a butter factory to Dunetown

Sailors Grave began when Gab and Chris returned to East Gippsland and started brewing in an old butter factory in Orbost.

Their beers were shaped from the outset by the landscape around them, drawing on native ingredients, foraged produce, local agriculture and the region’s maritime history.

In 2024 the brewery moved to Dunetown, a new farmhouse brewery on the Cape Conran Coast, across the road from Gab’s family farm.

The move marked a significant new chapter for the brewery, creating a place where beer could sit alongside food, art, agriculture and hospitality.

Today Dunetown is home to the brewery, gardens and a rotating tap list of 16 Sailors Grave beers.

The philosophy, however, remains the same: make beer that could only have come from this place.

The celebration continues in Melbourne

The tenth anniversary celebrations will continue with Sailors Grave heading back to Melbourne for a further event at The Lincoln, bringing a taste of the Deep Sou’East to the city.

The event will give Melbourne drinkers the opportunity to explore a decade of Sailors Grave beers, including limited releases and the Imperial Law of the Tongue, while Gab and Chris share some of the stories behind the beers and the people who have shaped them.

It is a chance to celebrate the brewery beyond Dunetown, but also to bring the spirit of East Gippsland into the city.

“We’ve always been pretty determined to forge our own path. We’re from a part of the country that is a long way from Melbourne and even further from the traditional centres of the beer industry. That distance has been a big part of our story. We’ve had to make things ourselves, find our own way of doing things and build our own community around it.”

Gab

Ten years in, still looking forward

The tenth anniversary also marks a significant change behind the scenes, with longtime Sailors Grave team member Dayvid Clark officially joining Gab and Chris Moore as a co-owner of the business.

Dayvid has been part of Sailors Grave for years and has become an integral part of the brewery, its people and the way it operates.

For Gab and Chris, bringing him into the ownership of the business felt less like a strategic decision and more like acknowledging something they had already realised. 

“We realised we didn’t want to do the business without him. Dayvid has become such a fundamental part of Sailors Grave. He understands what we’re trying to do, he gets the place, the people and the madness of it all, and we couldn’t imagine the next ten years without him.”

Gab

For Sailors Grave, the anniversary is less about looking back than recognising what has made the first decade possible and setting the tone for the next.

The brewery remains family owned and operated, with its beers continuing to explore the relationship between beer, people, place and produce. 

“We’re incredibly proud of the last ten years. But we’re probably more excited about what comes next. We’ve got Dunetown now, we’ve got more space to experiment, grow things, work with people and make beers that we couldn’t have made before.”

- Chris Moore, co-founder

After ten years, the crew of Sailors Grave is still sailing.