Source : the age
There are Neighbour regulars who will never visit Range Brewing, Matt McIver reckons.
“And there are people who love Range for what we do – the beers, the weekly releases – who will never come to Neighbour,” says McIver, who co-owns both venues.
If that sounds like a counterintuitive basis on which to open a new bar and eatery, McIver says to think of it as a Venn diagram: some of the punters will overlap, many won’t.
Range has become good at this. When McIver and business partner Gerard Martin opened the venue in Newstead in 2018, it quickly developed a reputation for being a craft brewer’s craft brewery. Every week new beers would be released, creating a constantly rotating line-up – one that was actually worth knowing about.
Their first expansion was a taproom in Melbourne in 2020 (it subsequently closed in 2024). But ever since, the enterprise has been more well-rounded, with strategically located venues that focus as much on food as they do beer. First there was Patio By Range in Paddington in 2023. That was followed by Rays in Camp Hill the following year.
“Eight years ago, we probably didn’t foresee where this was going … But that modern culture of independent pubs having elevated food menus and nice wine lists and good beer is what we’re trying to create,” McIver says.
“We’re not reinventing the wheel, we’re just trying to do the classics well and with love.”
Neighbour opened late August in the Gasworks premises previously occupied by Botany, and it’s the clearest expression yet of that approach. And you can see what McIver means about the Venn diagram: the food menu could be shorthanded as the ultimate pub offering, with a bunch of classics given fun and imaginative twists.
There’s a crispy-fried mozzarella in carrozza (think, a fancy cheese toastie) served with a vodka sauce; raw tuna tostadas with salsa macha, cucumber and radish; a parmigiana topped with stracciatella and fresh basil; and an Insta-worthy (and very good) wagyu cheeseburger that’s served on a bed of pepper sauce.
There are also a bunch of smaller snack plates, and a woodfired pizza menu.
“It’s meant to be modern Australian pub cuisine,” McIver says. “We’ve taken elements from our other venues that work well and gone from there. It’s food that’s meant to make you go, ‘I can’t stop thinking about that parmy or that steak frites’.”
For drinks, there are six taps pouring Range’s core frothies, backed by a wine list that lines up relatively esoteric Australian producers alongside drops from France and Italy. There’s also a cocktail menu that dishes up classics done “your way” alongside a bunch of approachable signatures.
All this is served in a fabulously realised fitout by Kate McLean from Soma & Sol that’s slick but welcoming, with glass-brick walls, timber panelling, tile-topped tables and high bars, and burgundy-and-cream houndstooth fabrics. It feels like a reference to old-school public bars without being too kitschy.
On a Tuesday night, the place is buzzy and a manager tells me it’s been heaving on the weekends, confirming McIver and Martin’s instinct for what’s been a slightly under-loved space barely a stone’s throw from the original brewery.
But it’s also another expression of a business strategy that’s become sacrosanct in craft beer circles: sell as much product as you can over your own bar.
“From the get-go, it was our plan to move as much beer ourselves through our own channels as we could,” McIver says. “We’re still selling 20 kegs of beer through the new venue – that money goes straight into our bank account.”
Open Mon-Thu 11am-9pm, Fri-Sat 11am-10pm, Sun 12-9pm
76 Skyring Terrace, Newstead, (07) 3110 1397
Matt Shea is Food and Culture Editor at Brisbane Times. He is a former editor and editor-at-large at Broadsheet Brisbane, and has written for Escape, Qantas Magazine, the Guardian, Jetstar Magazine and SilverKris, among many others.
