Costs of living and increased costs have demanded a beloved bar and brewery.
The owners of Molly Rose Brewing have announced this week that the award-winning Collingwood location in Melbourne went into the city center.
Industry lawyers expect that bloodshed will continue as high operating costs and upward price pressure, forces hospitality operators.
The doors of Molly Rose Brewing remain closed, while liquidator DBA Reconstruction & Advisory decides how the company can be chopped among its creditors.
“We have felt the pinch of both costs to increase the company and our income fell,” owner Nic Sanny told Daily Mail Australia.
'The costs of insurance, electricity, gas, water, freight and brewing -green raw materials have all increased by more than 30 percent, while at the same time the costs of living has reduced the amount of disposable income that our customers must spend.
'I know that in my household and among my colleagues we all go out much less and spend less to just make ends meet.
“At Molly Rose we have seen this pressure that directly relate to a reduction in the number of guests in our location, but also a reduction in the volume of wholesale beer that we sell to other bars, restaurants and bottle stores.”
Molly Rose -owner Nic Sanny (left) announced the closure of the popular brewery on Monday
Molly Rose Brewing was awarded last year
Despite the uncertainty, Mr Sandy is hopeful that the Molly Rose brand 'will live in some form in the future'.
Molly Rose was opened in 2019 and was assessed last year on the best Australia brewery bar at the Australian Bartender Awards.
Stretched by the popularity of his unique brews, the establishment added a second indoor bar, together with a beer garden, a lounge and a restaurant in 2023.
Owners called an increase in construction costs by 40 percent as adding the financial pressure of the bar, along with 'rapidly rising' interest rates.
“Efforts to limit these challenges through cost reductions in wages, production and logistics were ultimately insufficient in the light of decreasing consumer sentiment and the current crisis of the costs of life,” Mr Sandery wrote in a statement.
'We work together with DBA to make an offer with which we can hopefully maintain control of Molly Rose and continue to serve you, continue to serve your great beer and food.
'Anyway, I am very proud of what the Molly Rose team has created. It is really something special and unique. '
Customers were destroyed to learn from the demise of the brewery.
Molly Rose (photo) is the newest in a whole series of brewery closures throughout Australia
“I'm so sorry that a favorite beer goes, my heart goes out to you and praying that you can maintain the place, because it was too good not to be around,” someone wrote.
Another added: 'The government must go into this and do something to support this industry. Going too much along the road, it is unacceptable. '
A third wrote: 'One of the most talented brewers in Australia who has created some of the tastiest beers that I had the pleasure of consuming.
“I hope you find a way for the Molly Rose brand to survive, because it would be a big loss for our industry and the Collingwood community.”
Molly Rose is the latest local brewery that folds under economic conditions by the Independent Brewers Association (IBA) as 'death through a thousand cuts'.
Deeds Brewing, another locally extended Victorian taproom closed in recent weeks together with Kaiju-Bier in February
The attack is not only limited to the garden state.
Sandery said that efforts were made to 'limit' the financial challenges before closure
One of the oldest and most influential Brewpubs in Brisbane, Newstead Brewing Co closed its doors to his Milton store last month, while Sydney's Rocks Brewing Company entered a voluntary administration in October.
In the two years to February, the IBA estimated that more than 47 Australian breweries had entered voluntary administration or liquidation.
A recession in the demand for consumers arising from challenges of living costs are one of the more recent challenges, but proponents claim that the problem goes deeper.
In a report published in February, the IBA mentioned low competition and alcohol taxes as one of the leading challenges that the industry is confronted with.
An estimated 83 percent of all beer brewed in Australia is produced by two foreign companies: Carlton United Breweries, owned by Asahi and Lion, owned by Kirin.
Consumer Advocate Groups have called on the ACCC to start a research research in supermarket style into the large market share of the two companies.
“The lack of competition in the beer sector is harmful to the economy,” wrote the IBA.
“It damages us nations cohort of small independent brewing companies, stifling entrepreneurship and innovation, creating a roadblock to productivity and limiting consumers's choice.”
In the meantime, the alcohol excise is referred to as the 'beer tax' in accordance with inflation 84 times since it was introduced in 1983.
Although Labor has promised to freeze the beer tax for two years if it wins the government in the upcoming federal elections, the savings would reduce the average penny of a middle pint by less than a cent.
Opposition leader Peter Dutton has since announced that his government would do the same for an earlier promise by Coalition Treasury spokesperson Angus Taylor.
