CALAMITY’S ROD
Client: Hougoumont Hotel
Location: Bannister St, Fremantle
Status: Completed
A working nano-brewery and pop up urban bar at the Hougoumont. In the heart of Fremantle, we took a bit of the car park and squeezed in (we're not kidding) a dedicated craft nano-brewery making high quality beer - from classics to new wave brews. The Brewery surrounds a little bar and courtyard space to enjoy the craft beer (and other drinks and snacks).
While waiting for the second stage of the Hougoumont Hotel, this pop up bar and brewery makes much better use of an enigmatic West End street frontage than the former carpark. Located in the West End Heritage Precinct it brings life to the street and the back story links to one of Fremantle’s most famous convicts - the Irish Fenian, J.B O’Reilly. Part of the design ethos, apart from making a vibrant little urban bar was that it is all fully re-locatable. Simply put the various parts on the back of a truck (or sailing ship …) and the good times can roll again wherever the winds of change should take it.
In 1868, aboard the last convict ship Hougoumont, the poet John Boyle O’Reilly wrote 9 poems to lift the crushed spirit of his Fenian comrades. They were published in a hand written single edition newspaper,The Wild Goose: A Collection of Ocean Waifs. An extract from one of the poems reads "Let not frowning Misfortune appal you, Nor shrink ‘neath Calamity’s rod."
Now 150 years later, in Fremantle, we thought it was just right to draw on JB’s strength of character and undying commitment to the cause, especially when it comes to the perfect beer... and so Calamity’s Rod Brewery was born.