Two Years on the Wharf - A Felons Journey

Two Years on the Wharf

A Felons Manly Journal

Prologue: Salt, Steel & Sea Spray

Some places you build. Others build you back.

Two years ago we walked onto Manly Wharf with a brewery's worth of ambition and not much else. The ferry horn sounded on the half hour. The harbour moved the way it always has, slow and enchanting, indifferent to whatever plans we had folded in our pockets.

This is the story of what happened next: a pub, a live music venue, a community, and finally a brewhouse. It is written for everyone who poured, cooked, played, cheered and turned up. It's Manly's story as much as ours.

I. Blown Off Course, Landing Home

In 1823, four convicts slipped away in a boat and were blown off course from Sydney. Two centuries later, their story gave us a name. In April 2024, it gave us a new address.

Manly Wharf has stood at the mouth of the harbour since 1855, the northern end of the ferry run and the front door to the Northern Beaches. When Artemus Group, a hospitality group born in Brisbane, took over the precinct, with the blessing of previous custodians, we knew we weren't just taking on a lease. We were taking on a landmark beloved by generations of locals.

So we listened first. Artemus Group surveyed the community, asked what Manly wanted, and we quickly learned it wasn't Brisbane. The old Wharf Bar became Felons Manly in October 2024: 150 new seats on the water, plants spilling over the rails, a menu built around NSW farmers and fishers, and beers on tap that became the house soundtrack. Crisp Lager, Galaxy Haze, Australian Pale Ale, IPA, Sonny Sparkling Apple Cider and a Japanese Rice Lager made just for Sydney Harbour.

The pub got a revamp. We got a fit check. And then we were cooking.

II. The Barrel Room: Where Oak Meets Amplifier

Where an abandoned supermarket once sat in the dark, there is now a stage.

Felons Barrel Room opened on 5 December 2025 after months of construction. More than 100 French oak barrels line the walls, waiting patiently to be filled with beer to age inside them. The room holds close to a thousand people on their feet, with sound and light built to a standard Manly has never had on its own doorstep.

We opened the doors for free. Winston Surfshirt on the Friday. Mental As Anything on the Saturday. Yolanda Be Cool and a family day to close the weekend. Since then, the stage has carried everything from The Whitlams to Galantis, Mildlife to Keli Holiday, salsa Sundays to trivia nights, comedy, jazz and the emerging local artists we promised to back.

Less than a year in, more than 20,000 tickets have been sold to shows in the Barrel Room. That's 20,000 nights out, first dances, singalongs and ringing ears on the way home.

A room is just a room until someone plays in it. Then it becomes a memory.

III. Minus Two: An Obsession, Poured

At Felons, we sweat the small things. Sometimes we sweat them for a whole year.

The perfect pour was one of them. We already had an award-winning lager in Felons Crisp Lager. What we wanted was the moment it meets you: the first sip after a swim, the glass sweating in the sun, the cold you feel before you taste.

So we chased the cold. Twelve months of sketches, prototypes and engineering, with a crew of makers, fabricators and brewers around the table, went into a custom-built tap font and pour system unlike anything we'd seen. Visits to stainless steel foundries and failed attempts led us to glory. The reward is Felons Super Cold Crisp Lager. Same delicious lager, same recipe, poured at minus two degrees. We believe it's the coldest beer in the country. It might just be the coldest in the world.

It's the first of its kind, and you've told us so: in the comments, in the DMs, at the bar with a frosted glass in hand.

This was never really about temperature. It's always been about occasion. The long lunch that rolls into sunset. The catch-up that becomes a celebration. Beer at its best doesn't steal the moment, it sharpens it. That's what we mean by the good life: noticing it, sitting with it and savouring our incredible view of Manly.

When it's 30 degrees on the wharf, it's minus two in the glass. Enjoy, with love, from us.

IV. By the Numbers, and the Hands Behind Them

Hundreds of staff. Thousands of pizzas. Hundreds of thousands of beers poured across Manly Wharf.

Numbers like that are easy to say and hard to earn. Behind every number is a person: the bartender who learned a regular's order by the second visit, the chef stretching pizzas through a Saturday rush, the floor team carrying trays through a crowd that just wouldn't quit. Some came for a summer and stayed for two.

There were Anzac Days and run club afternoons, a nitro stout that sold out almost before it was poured, and a whole Sydney winter that taught us Manly loves a dark beer when the wind turns south. In November 2025 we threw a party called One Year of Beers, with jetty DJs, live surfboard painting and a cake shaped like a giant beer can. That was epic.

Every pint has a fingerprint on it. To every one of you who left yours here: thank you.

V. The Real Measure: $250,000 and Counting

A pub is only as good as the town that fills it. So, we tried to give back as fast as Manly gave to us.

Over two years, Felons Manly has raised over $250,000 for the people and groups that hold this place together - surreal but true:

•      LocalKind, feeding and supporting neighbours doing it tough.

•      Emu Parade, and the quiet work of keeping our shores clean.

•      Bold & Beautiful Swim, out in the water every morning, rain or shine.

•      Manly Vale FC, the kids' teams and club volunteers who are the heartbeat of every weekend.

•      Manly Marlins, the club colours worn with pride, win or lose.

•      The Transplant Network, giving families hope on the longest wait of their lives.

•      Night at the Barracks, a beer partnership we're proud to share.

•      The Navy Clearance Divers Trust, whose annual fundraiser we've hosted at the pub, supporting serving and ex-serving clearance divers and their families for life.

•      Manly Yacht Club, keeping sails on the harbour.

•      Five local primary and secondary schools, and the next generation of Manly.

•      Manly Art Gallery Society and MAGM, the keepers of our creative soul.

•      Surfrider, standing up for the waves and beaches we live for.

•      Sydney Breast Cancer Foundation enough said.

•      Lifeline Northern Beaches, there on the hardest nights.

•      Ocean Paddler and the Bridge to Beach paddle.

•      Manly Life Saving Club, the red and yellow that keeps us all safe.

•      North Steyne Board riders, chasing the next set since forever.

•      Scott Tindal and the 100 runners of Team Cure SCN2A, chasing the world's first treatment for SCN2A, celebrated with their Bondi to Manly Ultra after-party at Felons.

•      Surf + Sound Festival, bringing an incredible cultural moment to Manly through art, surfing and live music.

•      The Great Artist Market, which made its first-ever Sydney appearance in the Barrel Room in May 2026 and has since given more than 100 independent artists and makers a waterfront stage to connect, sell and prosper. The response has been so strong that it's coming back for a festive edition on Saturday 19 December 2026.

There was more. Every Japanese Rice Lager brewed for Manly, poured and enjoyed, helps pull plastic out of the harbour through our partnership with Seabin: more than 25,000 items and counting. We backed big-wave local Tom Myers, the Lifeline Classic, and artists like Tylah Saunders, Amanda Tye and Fun Skull.

The money matters, but what we're proudest of is the room it's raised in: full, loud and on the same side.

VI. Weathering It

It wasn't all beer cheers and sunsets.

There were build delays that ran for months, approvals that took patience we didn't always have, and tanks that had to roll onto a working ferry wharf around the commuter rush. There were locals who told us, loudly and fairly, what they thought about us, about prices, or about one brand taking up so much of their wharf. We heard it. Some of it stung. Most of it made us better.

Salt water corrodes. It also polishes. The last two years did a bit of both.

VII. The Journey Starts at the Quay

The best trips to Manly have always begun on the water. Since July 2026, they begin with a Felons in hand.

We partnered with Manly Fast Ferry to pour our beers on the Sydney to Manly run. Crisp Lager, Australian Pale Ale, Galaxy Haze, Crisp Light and Jinga Ginger Beer are all on board. So is our Japanese Rice Lager, in cans for the very first time, with Manly Fast Ferry the first place anyone could buy it. Every one of those cans supports Seabin, helping pull plastic out of the same harbour you're crossing.

Now the wharf comes to meet you halfway. You step aboard at Circular Quay, the Opera House slides past, the Heads open up ahead, and by the time you tie up in Manly you're already on holiday. As the old saying goes, Manly is “seven miles from Sydney, a thousand miles from care.”

You haven't left the Quay, and the good life has already started. 

VIII. The Dream, Finally Brewing

This was always the point.

Not just to pour beer on Manly Wharf, but to make it here. Over two years we chased the dream through drawings, approvals and long nights, until the first tanks rolled onto the wharf and the steel started to rise. We visited hop farms, strengthened our bond with our grain growers and even installed a cereal cooker to perfect our beloved Japanese Rice Lager. We put the final touches on the brewhouse. And this month, under Brewery Director Tom Champion and Lead Brewer Gareth Cooper, the team finally got on the tools.

What stands here now is the most advanced brewing facility Manly Wharf has ever seen: a custom steam-powered 18.5-hectolitre brewhouse, 3,600-litre serving tanks pouring beer, cider and seltzer fresh to the tap, a viewing corridor so you can watch the magic. Soon, daily brewery tours will be buzzing, and our tasting paddles will pour with a freshness that can't be matched: brewery-fresh beer, straight from the tank.

Grain, water, hops and time. Plus a harbour breeze that's unparalleled.

Epilogue: For the People of 2025

Four felons were blown off course two hundred years ago. We were blown on course.

To the swimmers and surfers, the footy parents and run club regulars, the bands, the brewers, the staff past and present, and everyone who has ever stopped for one: this brewery is yours. Every batch is brewed for the people of Manly and the Northern Beaches.

The journey's not over yet, Manly.

Last Call: It's Our Shout

Every story like this deserves a toast. So here's ours.

Somewhere in a tank on Manly Wharf (at the Pub), the very first Felons Crisp Lager ever brewed in Manly is quietly coming to life. Two years of sweat, salt and stubborn belief, all in one batch. We could have kept it for ourselves. We'd rather give it to you.

On Friday 6 November, we're shouting the whole town a beer.

The swimmers and the surfers. The footy parents and the run club. The ferry regulars, the late-night dancers, the neighbours who have embraced us and the ones who haven't. The whole town's invited, and the first pour is for you.

No speeches. No fine print. Just Manly, on the wharf, raising the first glass of the first beer we ever made here.

This one's on us. It's our shout.