Slowbeer

The master list had this open. The Richmond shop shut in November 2018 and Beer 360 took the site.

Why go

You do not. This entry exists to record a closure and a correction. Slowbeer started in Hawthorn, moved to 468 Bridge Road in Richmond in April 2012, and The Crafty Pint's news desk called it "Australia's first dedicated craft beer store" (The Crafty Pint). Owner Chris Menichelli added four taps at the move and started filling 1.89-litre growlers for around $40, which is how that American format got a foothold here. Over a thousand bottles sat on the shelves, and you could drink them in with cheese and charcuterie for a corkage fee. Broadsheet's own venue page now opens with the note that "Beer 360 replaced Slowbeer Richmond in November 2018" (Broadsheet).

Order this / avoid

• Order: nothing. The premises has not traded in close to eight years.
• Avoid: the directory listings. The Urban List still publishes 468 Bridge Road with a full weekly opening-hours table.

What locals & experts say

• Evan Jones, Time Out Melbourne (April 2019), writing a year after the Richmond closure: "When Slowbeer closed its Bridge Road Richmond doors in 2018, it could have been the end of an era. Instead, Slowbeer has focussed all its attention on the Smith Street branch, which opened in 2016." He describes local cans reaching the shelves within hours of being filled and the yearly Goose Island Bourbon County release, one bottle per person. ref
• Broadsheet on the Fitzroy sibling: "Slowbeer Fitzroy arrived at the tail end of 2016, seven years after its big brother in Richmond (since closed)." More than 1500 bottles, five rotating draught taps, two storeys. ref
• Untappd, the beer-specialist proxy, marks Slow Beer Fitzroy permanently closed. Its last recorded check-in activity is 18 June 2023 and the listing was last updated on 25 January 2025. ref

Good to know

• Sites: this row is 468 Bridge Road, Richmond, which closed in November 2018. The sibling was 351 Smith Street, Fitzroy, from late 2016. They are separate premises and neither one's evidence transfers to the other.
• The Fitzroy sibling: three signals point the same way and none is a closure report. Untappd says permanently closed, slowbeer.com.au returns an HTTP 521 to a direct fetch and is robots-refused to our own crawler, and The Crafty Pint's bottleshop directory page for Slowbeer now returns a 404. Treat the brand as gone from Melbourne and check before relying on it.
• A different business shares the name: slowbeerandwine.com.au trades from 12 Were Street, Montmorency and uses a slowbeer.com.au email address. That is retail and online, not the bar, and nothing here applies to it.
• Source labelling: the Crafty Pint citation above is from /news/, which is independent editorial. That site's /brewery/, /bar/ and /bottleshop/ pages are paid directory listings the business signs off, and none is cited here.
• Food safety: Victoria publishes no venue hygiene ratings. Safe Food Victoria's section 53D conviction register, 21 July 2026 update, carries fifteen entries and none is Slowbeer.

Jeff's take (his words)

Nothing here is Jeff's. Melbourne carries no raw saved-places export in this repo, so there is no Note column behind a jeff_note and the field stays empty rather than composed.

Verdict (Chef Jeff ladder)

listed — Closed since November 2018 and the master list still said Open. Slowbeer opened in Hawthorn, moved to 468 Bridge Road in Richmond in April 2012, and The Crafty Pint called it Australia's first dedicated craft beer store. Owner Chris Menichelli put four taps in and started filling 1.89-litre growlers for about $40, which is how that format reached Melbourne. Beer 360 took the Richmond site in November 2018. The Fitzroy shop at 351 Smith Street carried on with more than 1500 bottles and five rotating taps, and it also looks finished: Untappd marks it permanently closed, the last check-ins there are June 2023, and slowbeer.com.au no longer resolves. No closure story has been published for Fitzroy, so that stays a signal rather than a fact. Nothing to send anyone to. The row stays on the list with the finding attached, because the history is real and because the directory page that created this error is still live.