You have Australian Olympic climber Tom O’Halloran to thank for one of the more thirst-quenching beers tantalising lips during our great Craft Beer Awakening.
Or, depending on how much credit you want give, two.
Before Blue Mountains-based Mountain Culture was winning awards as Australia’s best new brewery - and then becoming the darling of Beer Nerd accompaniment Untappd - head brewer DJ McCready was designing his first round of limited releases with a view to the locals: what would a climber or mountain biker want to drink after smashing themselves all day?
Enter Blue Mountains local legend and two-time Ninja Warrior contestant Tom O’Halloran.
“We met Tom fairly early on when we were building the brewery and he was a massive craft beer fan along with being, arguably, one of Australia’s best rock climbers,” McCready told Sporting News.
“He was going out and putting up these insanely tough climbs that nobody else could do.
“I thought that was pretty cool. Here’s this dude who’s an amazing climber, is super fit but really likes craft beer. Before we even opened we decided to brew Kitten Mittens with Tom.”
With O’Halloran brewing with the team, what began as a low ABV, flavourful post-exercise beer named after an insane climb that O’Halloran bolted caught on with the masses enough to now be part of Mountain Culture’s core range - and it just may qualify as a recovery drink.
“We really upped the minerality in it, so a bunch of magnesium and essential salts that we use in the brewing process but also translate into the final process,”McCready said, laughing. “There’s been back and forth debate for years whether beer is a good recovery drink but in our minds if it has that minerality it’s more of a recovery drink than not having it in there.”
It’s hard to ignore such delicious logic.
O’Halloran’s road to the Olympics, like all Olympians, has been a roller coaster. The 2019/20 bushfires meant tour operator Scenic World, Tom’s employer, no longer had work for him, while State-based funding was halted due to a mishandling of grant-related programmes.
In his hour of need, beer stepped in to give a hops-infused boost to his Olympics dream.
“During the first lockdown last year Tom came and worked in the brewery when Scenic World closed,” McCready said. “He’s one of our local legends, has been a good mate of the brewery from the beginning and we didn’t really know what else we could do to support him - so we brewed a beer, threw a party and tried to raise a bit of money.”
That beer was the insanely popular - and sold out - Mr Mittens, with Tom’s photo on the can wrapping.
“We brewed the beer Mr Mittens which is a NEIPA, because 1) IPAs are Tom’s favourite beer. Whenever we release one I can tell if he’s training because he’s not drinking. He’ll be just stinging to come in and try it. 2) we knew if we brewed another 3.5% beer, like Kitten Mittens, they’re not the biggest sellers.
“I figured we could raise more cash for Tom if we made it a bigger IPA.”
So they threw a party and donated all of the proceeds of the Mr Mittens beer sales to help Tom get to Japan.
If you missed out on it the first time, the beer will likely be rebrewed as the man of the hour has barely touched it himself.
“We’ll probably re-brew it once he’s back: Tom only got to have about half of one because he was in the middle of training his a** off,” McCready revealed, laughing. “It was my whole theme behind the party: this is really fun because you get to have all of your mates around at a party just for you...and watch us drink beer.
“Basically we tortured him through the fundraising.
“The official cheque we cut to him was for $4,200, which we thought was very Blue Mountains.”
If O'Halloran sounds like the type of relatable everyday Australian (who just happens to be athletically gifted) that every Olympics digs up, that's because he is.
“I’ve met a lot of athletes in my life and a lot of them are fairly stiff and not a lot of fun to hang out with,” McCready said. “Tom’s great; he doesn’t take it all too seriously. Obviously, he’s an elite athlete but he doesn’t have the aura of an elite athlete.
"I don’t think he even told us he qualified for the Olympics; I think his partner called us. We only knew for sure because he came in and was like ‘Oh thank God I can drink again’."
For now, though, through a mixture of sponsors and the Australian Sports Foundation, O’Halloran is in Tokyo as Australia’s first sport climber where he’ll begin competition on Tuesday, with 20 men and 20 women vying to become the first Olympic gold medallist in sport climbing.
While O’Halloran will face climbing legends such as the Czech Republic’s Adam Ondea, owner of 11 world championships and with three of the world’s four hardest outdoor routes ticked off, the 15-metre tall man-made walls of Tokyo will throw up a new challenge, combining all three climbing disciplines: speed, boulder and lead.
WHAT ARE THE THREE CLIMBING DISCIPLINES?
Speed
A vertical sprint to the top, promises the same breathless thrills as an athletics 100m, as two athletes race side-by-side on an identical route up a 15m-high wall.
Boulder
Climbers scale solo along routes they have never practised.Boulder involves attacking short and sometimes overhanging walls without ropes in as few attempts as possible.
Lead
Also on a never-before-seen route, In lead, climbers get one opportunity to go as high as they can on a 15m-high wall.
