Designing The Bhii Taproom

When we set out to build a new brewery, we wanted it to be a step up from our humble dark hops headquarters. That’s not to say we didn’t like the headquarters, but we really wanted to take the new brewery to the next level.

However, our budget was still very tight, so we couldn’t get a designer and architect to renovate the place. We also thought it would be fun to try out the design aspect ourselves with our architectural partner Dan from DCQ Constructions.

During the founders’ trip to the US, we came back with a lot of ideas for BHII and discussed what we wanted to do with bhii taproom the new brewery and restaurant.

So we talked to Dan to see if he wanted to, and of course he did. Then we put together a design brief, including lots of photos, and drew up a rough floor plan. The founders discussed the plan and we got to work.

Here is a photo before we started.

Design Provisions

The design plan was developed when we first got the lease in July 2018. It included a rough floor plan and some notes about what we were looking for, as well as some specific ideas I wanted to include and photos of those ideas. Some of these ideas were inspired by our trip to the US,

others I saw on Instagram/Pinterest, and others were just a small bhii taproom part of the story we wanted to include.
Here are the high-level notes from the document. Next, I’ll dive into specific ideas and then show the results of what we ended up doing versus what we planned.

A lot of things changed as budgets and other factors came into play.
I’ve italicized my current thoughts below, with other notes from the original design brief. We also had a lot of ideas from the founders, staff, tradies, etc. throughout the project, but for the most part, we stuck to the original brief.

Aspirational Goals

A thriving family style restaurant in the bhii taproom north end of the Gold Coast.
From a design perspective, to have something that took elements from the original Stout Hops

restaurant, but offered a more complete, upgraded design. In short, we loved Stout Hops HQ, but we didn’t have the budget at the time, and we thought we could improve on Stout Hops II.
Add some subtle military elements to the design, but not too masculine.

We wanted this to be the best craft beer destination on the north end of the Gold Coast, so it had to look the part.
Materials
Concrete
Steel
Timber
Glass (if budget allows) We were going to bhii taproom put some portholes through to the main brewery, but in the end we decided against it.
Color
Dark grey
Black
Brown

Colored splashes on bhii taproom murals, nail salons, neon signs, etc.

You’ll notice that at some point the design went from an outdoor cold room with glycol lines to an indoor cold room with beer poured directly from the cold room. This decision was made for budgetary reasons at the time, but in the end I’m really glad we changed the design.

I think pouring beer directly bhii taproom from the cold room is appropriate for the brewery, and it’s consistent with the dark hops headquarters. It also ended up looking a bit like a supply/ammunition box, so it worked well.
Design Ideas

Below is a list of the specific ideas I included in the document. Where possible, I commented on what we ended up with versus what we thought we wanted at the beginning bhii taproom to illustrate how things changed. Where possible, I also included photos of the finished design.

In the end, we were very excited about how it ended up. Looking back at the brief, we wanted something that felt like a stout hops headquarters, but it was a big step up. I think that’s what we got. The following is Urban List’s description of the space.

Original notes: Covered in panels with thin vertical strips, painted black along the length of the wall. Looks nice and clean, but inspired by a container (see example). The wall could be hung with a large logo identical to our current brewery logo,

without lighting it up, and would give someone a spot to take a picture with our logo.
We ended up with exactly what we wanted. DCQ covered the wall in Villaboard and then added thin strips of wood.

Our partner Stevie White bhii taproom painted the walls and Max at Neon Signs Queensland did the dark hop sign.
We’re happy with it, but after opening in the evening we realised we really needed to light up the sign, so we’re adding a light for that. Here is a photo of.