Newcastle business Chops & Hops showcases regional brewers and butchers by bringing the BBQ to your door

The pair are good mates and the brains behind Chops & Hops, a new business venture that works with butchers and small-scale brewers to pair local craft beers with local meats.

Subscribers receive a monthly craft beer and meat package from a regional town, expertly curated by that town's brewer and butcher, and the packages are delivered fresh to your door in readiness for the weekend's all-important backyard barbecue. Subscribers also receive video content from the brewer and the butcher.

"From our research we are not aware of anyone that offers a home delivery service combining real craft beer and meats," Kelly tells Weekender.

"We decided to try to marry-up a local craft brewer with the local butcher and promote not just them but the great tourism in their local area. We had objectives we wanted to meet, though. We wanted to tackle something that could have a meaningful and positive impact on Australia's regional towns.

"We wanted to work with a product or service that was aligned with our personal interests - it didn't take long for beer and barbecue to jump out on this one [laughs]. And we wanted to work with regional businesses that are creative and passionate about what they do."

One challenge faced was dealing direct with the smaller brewers, even at the local craft bottle shop level, rather than the big names.

"There are over 700 craft breweries, brew pubs and contract brewers in Australia, however the major share of sales is still owned by the conglomerates. It's an area where we felt we could help because, after all, there is a great story behind each brewery."

Chops & Hops is as much about butchers as it is about brewers. Kelly and Stephenson were keen to help those in regions devastated by last summer's bushfires.

"When I go to a country town I'm always keen to try their specialty snags and cuts because it just seems to taste better," Kelly says.

Participating regional businesses are connected to a city-based market they might not otherwise have had access to. Craft beer and meat packs are limited to a maximum of 100 from any one town each month, which Kelly says "keeps this manageable for the butchers".

"We will transition our customers through our network of producers," he explains.

"In doing so we hope to be able to send increased sales on a monthly basis to each of our partners for as long as we can grow our customer base. That said, we understand that people don't always want to make this level of commitment so we also provide the option for one-off beer and meat purchases, cases of craft beer and gift vouchers."

The pair have both worked for large corporations, developing new initiatives and start-ups. Stephenson takes care of the digital side of things, with Kelly working on the business plan, development, the supply chain and logistics. They called on fellow Novocastrian Tim Grover, of Dronetec, to help them obtain the necessary video footage.

"We don't pretend for a second to be experts in the craft beer or butchered meats industries - that's why we are out spruiking the guys that are," Kelly says.

"What we are good at is developing a platform for the experts to get cut-through and access to a larger marketplace, enabling our customers to experience the flavours of those locations from the comfort of their own backyard."

Chops & Hops is rolling out in Newcastle, the Central Coast and Sydney. The first region to be featured is Port Macquarie, where Chops & Hops has partnered with Adam Roberts from Cue Deli and Al Owen from the Black Duck Brewery.

"From there we have four other regional towns already lined up, but we like to keep those as a surprise. We are then planning to expand our liquor licence into other states," Kelly says.

Aware that not all regional areas have a local brewer they can partner with, Kelly and Stephenson have made a commitment to donate five per cent of Chop & Hops' annual profits to charities that support regional communities.