IF you're a craft beer lover in Newcastle, you've almost certainly sipped a Grainfed ale.
Long before the likes of Shout, Method, Modus and Good Folk came along to make Newcastle arguably the most concentrated haven for craft breweries in NSW outside of Marrickville, and even before stalwart FogHorn established itself, Lachlan MacBean was quietly building a following for Grainfed.
The one-man brewing operation began in 2012 when MacBain was pulling schooners at Wickham's Albion Hotel, then run by Grain Store owner Corey Crooks.
Using the knowledge he learnt as a commercial brewer with the now-defunct Bluetongue, MacBain launched the Sneaky One All Day Ale.
In what has become part of Novocastrian craft beer folklore, Albion Hotel drinkers went through nine kegs of Sneaky One in nine days.
Sneaky One - along with Grainfed's other core-range beers Plan B Mid Pale, Coal Porter Dark Ale and Old School IPA - have since become staples at craft beer-supportive venues around the Hunter.
But after 11 years of nomadic brewing at everywhere from Pokolbin's Hope Estate to Central Coast's Six Strings to Five Barrel Brewing in Wollongong, Grainfed finally has a permanent home.
MacBean has quietly opened a Grainfed microbrewery and brewbar in Young Road in suburban Lambton, a stone's throw from McDonald Jones Stadium.
"It was always the idea," MacBean says, in between brewing a batch of Coal Porter.
"I thought I'd see if I could build up enough business and volume to warrant having my own place."
You'll find all the old Grainfed favourites on tap at the Lambton brewpub, which at one time housed a Smiths Crisps factory, plus several new creations.
The freshly-launched 2 Degrees Hazy Pale is already a hit, accounting for 25 per cent of sales. Another new brew, First Date Belgian Pale, features six kilograms of dates soaked in two bottles of Wild Turkey bourbon.
Grainfed is licensed for 120 people and features several spaces, including an upstairs room with views to the stadium.
The food menu is a mix of toasties such as the Wagyu Cheeseburger and Swiss Brown Mushroom, charcuterie boards, premium canned seafood and meat and cheese platters.
When searching for a home for Grainfed, MacBean had one overriding principle - it had to be suburban.
As a beer judge he's travelled to New Zealand and the US, where he's found some of the greatest breweries in suburban Nashville, San Diego and Denver.
"I'd be like, 'where are we going?'. You'd get to some industrial area which is really quiet and you walk in and it's packed," MacBean says. "You start talking to people and they're like, 'we live just around the corner and we don't need to go to the city anymore'.
"That's what I'm hoping this place will become. There's all these people who may not necessarily want to go to a pub and don't want to go to the city, and they don't have to."
Trade has been solid in the past fortnight since Grainfed opened, with the brewery's brand recognition providing a natural advantage over some of the other new Newcastle brewpubs that have opened in the past two to three years.
"It would be pretty scary and a big jump to go from scratch, I feel," MacBean says.
"I've built up a wholesale presence. 90 per cent of what I do is within a 20-kilometre radius of where I live."
And local is where Grainfed will stay.
"I don't want to sell beer out of NSW, I don't want to be massive," he says. "I just want to a sustainable business - serve the people of Lambton and the local area."
