The former tenant of Sydney venue The Taphouse has gone into liquidation with debts totalling almost half a million dollars while the property’s owner is currently seeking a new occupant for the award-winning craft beer bar.
On May 23 at a general meeting of the members of the Taphouse Hotel Darlo Pty Ltd it was resolved that the company be wound up and that Daniel Frisken from insolvency and business advisory company O’Brien Palmer be appointed liquidator.
O’Brien Palmer told Beer & Brewer the estimated creditor pool to date, which includes employee entitlements, totals $455,384.99. They said creditors can expect an update into the company’s affairs, including details about its assets, liabilities, insolvency and voidable transactions, within three months. O’Brien Palmer added that the company’s solvency issues were attributed to increased costs and the post-pandemic recovery.
A sign on the door of the three-level Darlinghurst venue says its lease has been terminated by re-entry and the landlord has retaken possession of the premises. The beer bar’s social media accounts have also been closed.
Speaking with Beer & Brewer, a representative from The Taphouse’s property manager I.B Property said the entire venue is now up for lease and that the landlord’s desire is to see it remain a hospitality venue.
Previously owned by Stomping Ground Brewing’s founders Steve Jeffares and Guy Greenstone, the lease on the historic Flinders Street venue was taken over in 2017 by brothers James and Josh Thorpe. It was named Beer & Brewer‘s Best Beer Venue in Australia for a second time in 2019 before Josh took sole control of its lease in late 2020 while James established the Odd Culture Group, which leases several Sydney venues, and then opened the Odd Culture Newtown venue in 2021. It is close to opening its first Melbourne venue – Odd Culture Fitzroy.
Beer & Brewer had received no response from Josh at the time of publishing but we will update this story if we do.
Under its previous tenants The Taphouse had been at the epicentre of Sydney’s craft beer scene since Steve and Guy opened it in 2009 as a northern offshoot of their award-winning St Kilda venue – The Local Taphouse.
Under the watch of the Stomping Ground founders, and enhanced by their former ownership of the GABS festivals, the venue was a go-to destination to savour rare and independent beer from here and overseas while nights like their Ale Stars beer appreciation events gave patrons a chance to go beyond what was in the glass.
When the Thorpe brothers took the baton they largely ran the venue in a similar vein and continued to champion independent beer and host the likes of the Ale Stars events. In 2018 they opened the wild ale-focussed bar Odd Culture on the second level before adding a bottleshop near the start of the pandemic that boasted “the biggest collection of lambic-style beers in the southern hemisphere”. When the brothers went their separate ways James took all the Odd Culture intellectual property and would go on to replicate the wild ale-rare bottleshop concept on King Street in Newtown and with the soon-to-be-opened Brunswick Street location in Fitzroy.