DESIGN & BUILD: MANKY SALLY'S

By Caoimhe Hanrahan-Lawrence.

LOCATED IN Hobart’s historic Salamanca square, Manky Sally’s is the newest brewpub for Tasmanian brewery Moo Brew. Design has always been central to Moo Brew. Not only is founder David Walsh the owner of Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art (Mona), but the idea for Moo Brew first came about when Walsh discovered the beer’s iconic glass bottle and decided he needed a beer to fill it.

Lauren Sheppard, managing director of Moo Brew, explained that she wanted Manky Sally’s to continue the Moo Brew legacy of doing the unexpected.

“That was the driving force: how could we continue to bring our quality products to the market, but also remind people just how interesting we are?” Sheppard commented.

The new venue also represented a move from a purely wholesale operation to a hospitality venue.

“One of the things that we were missing was that direct connection with our consumer. It’s a hard ask to have someone be passionate and create something, but then not give them the opportunity to have that feedback when someone’s enjoying the product,” Sheppard explained.

The Salamanca location was somewhat of an accident. Originally, Sheppard was looking for a warehouse suitable for a standard-sized craft brewery. However, when a warehouse was taken off the market as Sheppard was on the way to inspect it, her realtor suggested they look at the venue on the Salamanca strip, which is a major historic centre in Hobart.

“I was pretty confused because those locations are pretty tightly held,” Sheppard recalled.

After viewing the property, Sheppard discussed the possibility with head brewer Jack Viney.

“We both decided that it was too good an opportunity to not at least explore,” she added.

The property did not originally have the infrastructure that was needed to run Manky Sally’s, and this all had to be put in place before venue design could really begin. As Salamanca place is a heritage location, there were unique challenges to this part of the project, and many changes had to be approved by Sullivan’s Cove Planning.

“They were very supportive of what we were planning to do, but there are extra layers of complication with buildings that are heritage listed. There’s certain things that we can’t do, there’s certainly very strict aesthetic changes to the facade that we can’t do,” Sheppard described.

Much of the design process spoke to Moo Brew’s connection with Mona. To bring Manky Sally’s to life, Sheppard worked with local architectural firm Design East and designer Georgina Freeman.

- Lauren Sheppard, Moo Brew.

“We had a team of people that became our support network,” Sheppard commented.

Freeman has a strong connection with Mona, designing spaces such as the 24 Carrot Gardens, as well as some of Walsh’s private dwellings. She is no stranger to designing for hospitality either, having designed several Hobart restaurants.

“It’s very Tasmanian to say, but in a build as challenging as this was, we’ve all become a bit like family. They’re all on speed dial and were all at the launch to share a beer with us, which was really lovely,” said Sheppard.

Mona’s head designer, Adrian Spinks, was also involved in the project.

“I asked him to be involved in creating something really unique in in the back end of our venue that would speak a little bit to that Mona connection. Obviously because of his many years of Mona, but he’s also a big Moo Brew fan, so I knew I was asking the right person,” Sheppard explained.

Despite the small space, Manky Sally’s forms three distinct drinking spaces. The façade doesn’t give away what is inside the venue, with large curtains, very little signage, and only one of four doors kept open. Some of the minimal frontage is due to heritage restrictions, but it also creates an inviting space indoors.

“Rather than throwing open all the doors onto the street front, we want the whole space to feel quite discoverable,” Sheppard described.

Upon entering, guests walk through a sheer curtained corridor.

“What we’re trying to do is draw people further into the space than just seeing a bar at the front and not finding all of the other beauty that lies behind it,” continued Sheppard.

Featuring the majority of the venue’s seating, the front bar mirrors Moo Brew’s cheeky energy through elements like an honour board displaying the Moo Brew Icons range. However, it still maintains a level of sophistication, with a tiled barfront and mid-century style wood panelling on the walls. The tabletops were made with tiger-striped onyx stone, and the barstools are upholstered with striking teal velvet, creating a vibrant and quirky space.

Connecting the front bar with the back lounge is a mirrored walkway. On one side of the walkway is the kitchen and the coolroom, which is also mirrored. The other side holds the onsite nano-brewery. Despite the small size of the venue, the mirrors open up the space, making it feel much more expansive.

The tanks in the nano-brewery produce 350 litres of product, as opposed to the 12,000 litre tanks at the Bridgewater main brewing facility. These will be used for experimental brews and Manky Sally’s-exclusive limited releases.

“We’re really thankful that a large part of our consumer base had always been Tasmanian. Having something really special that you have to be at the venue to try is going to be our way of saying thank you to those guys and giving them something a little bit special that they can’t just jump online and order,” reflected Sheppard.

When Sheppard first inspected the venue with the realtor, she initially thought it was an abandoned furniture store. This inspired the theme of the lounge, which is richly furnished with vintage furniture.

“We’ve really embraced that reuse, repurpose, do things you wouldn’t expect that really started from when the venue was selected,” Sheppard said.

The seating includes old church pews that were restained and upholstered with leather. The pews also have concealed storage, vital for such a small venue.

“There’s lots of secondhand furniture from local Tasmanian antique dealers. There’s even been some Facebook Marketplace and Gumtree purchases, I’m not ashamed to say. I’m so thrilled with how it came together. No one would know that we’ve been traipsing all over Hobart looking for mid-century chairs or mid-century coffee tables,” Sheppard described.

Of the reclaimed furnishing, the amble bottle base glass windows were taken from a set of doors, and the Axminster carpet was sourced from a cottage on Maria Island that was ripping it up.

“That’s in a small way our nod to Mona’s focus on zero waste and sustainability. We wanted to prove that even in a fit out, you could make some smart choices,” said Sheppared.

To prevent the space becoming dated, none of the furniture is permanently affixed, and any permanent fixtures utilise neutral colours. Some elements are intended to change with age, such as the black metal wall panels, which Sheppard hopes will develop a unique patina.

The highlight of the space is the beer bottle room, designed by Spinks. The installation is made up of 2,896 of Moo Brew’s iconic bottles, arranged to create an alcove within the lounge space.

“That’s a lot of bottles of beer on the wall. Many songs were sung while we were gluing and hoisting them up,” Sheppard joked.

Each bottle is individually lit with an LED, creating an effect that Sheppard likens to an old Hollywood vanity mirror.

“I want everyone that walks into Sally’s to feel like a VIP and I think we’ve given them a space that they can do that,” she explained.

For Sheppard, the bottle room is particularly sentimental, as it ties together all the elements that Manky Sally’s tries to unite.

“It tells the Mona story, it’s Mona’s head designer, and David okayed it, but it tells Moo Brew’s origin story in a way that again, no one would expect. The brewery started because of that bottle,” she concluded.