Eight years after Jay Beckham met Ray Burkett and introduced him to the world of homebrewing, the pair have taken their passion for beer and turned their dream of opening a brewery into a reality.

Beckham and Burkett, along with Beckham's wife Dale, launched Bread and Brewery in February after turning a unit in one of Morisset's industrial areas into a small-batch brewery.

"I met Ray through work and he told me he wanted to start brewing beer," Beckham says. "I had been brewing for about eight years by then, so I started teaching him how to make beer and then he introduced me to a new system and then he started teaching me how to make beer, so basically it was a student/master kind of principle.

"I started trying his beers and I was like 'Ray, you actually make halfway decent beers, man. Maybe we should try to open up a brewery one day?' as a joke and it kind of escalated from there."

The project is a labour of love for the trio who spent 18 months getting the brewery up-and-running, recycling materials to create everything from their bar and tables to the charcuterie boards and tasting paddles, while upcycled timber pallets are reimagined as green-filled vertical gardens on the walls.

Beckham took a punt and left a career in sales and marketing to work full-time as a brewer at Bread and Brewery, while Burkett helps with the brewing and tasting sessions on weekends.

A limited liquor license means Bread and Brewery operates cellar door-style from Wednesday to Friday, offering refills of squealers and growlers, while the weekend trade is reserved for tastings (limited to eight people per session due to COVID-19 restrictions) which offer an in-depth conversation about each beer led by Beckham and Burkett.

Saturday two-hour tasting sessions include a charcuterie board showcasing produce from the Hunter region and the first Sunday session is paired with a pie from Risky Brisket BBQ.

"We have taken the tastings and spun them on their head a little bit," Beckham says. "Normally when you got to a brewery and get your paddle or your beer from the bar and you sit down, drink it and that's it. You don't get much detail about the beers and how they are made, or why they were made, so what we do is present all of the grains which are in each beer so you can actually eat the grain and see what the beer tastes like before it becomes beer.

"It is more about dissecting the whole process and the flavours and everything behind it."

With names such as Italian Uncle (limoncello-infused lager) and Four Week's Notice IPA, each beer has a story.

"We tell everyone 'We don't make beers, we make characters' because we don't really brew beer for the sake of brewing a specific style of beer," Beckham says. "We are actually inspired by something in life so, for example, the Italian Uncle is named after an Italian gentleman I know and I thought 'If he was a beer, what would it be like?'

"Four Weeks Notice is made to taste like the apprehension of quitting a job [laughs]."

Brewing is all done on a BrewZilla system, a move that not only offers low start-up costs but also versatility in crafting various styles of beer.

"It allows us to do a bunch of different styles of beer all at once," Beckham says. "They might be limited edition, but at least it's something new and fresh each time for people to come in and try."

Bread and Brewery produce 450 litres of beer a week, with 10 beers on tap, including IPA, double IPA, lager, pale ale, and smoked amberbock. A Trappist-style ale is also in the works.

Launching a business in the middle of a pandemic is not ideal, but the trio is rolling with the situation as best they can.

Among the services they offer include a popular keg swap which enables customers to rent a keg from the brewery which they can swap out when a refill is needed.

The trio is also focused on challenging the way people view waste. That is where the name Bread and Brewery comes into play. Spent grains are supplied to Lake Macquarie-based baker, Living Loaf, who makes loaves of sourdough bread from the leftover grain.

Grains are also donated as feed to pig and quail farmers.

The original plan was to bake the bread on-site, but council restrictions have put that dream on hold.

"We were told that we either had to choose bread or beer for the unit that we are in and because the bread doesn't exist without the beer for us, we decided to go the beer first," Beckham says.

Another element to the brewery is degustation beer and food matching nights.

The first two events are tentatively going to be held over a weekend, in collaboration with La Harina Woodfired Pizza and Paella who are creating four dishes matched with six beers ($75 per person).

Beckham says there are three moments that have made it all worth it since opening.

"Selling our first keg was a big one. It was one of those moments like 'What? People actually do like the beer!'," Beckham says.

"Another gentleman bought a kegerator just because he liked our beer so much that he wanted to have it on tap at home, so that was a real testament.

"Another one, which is an odd one, was a gentleman trying our smoked amberbock, which is named after Risky Brisket BBQ because they are the inspiration for the beer, and I served it with one of the pies.

"He ate the pie, then he had a drink of the beer and then he went quiet for about three minutes and he's looking at the pie, he's looking at the beer and then all of a sudden he shouts really, really loudly, 'Holy shit, they put the pie in the beer!'

"I was like, 'Mission accomplished, that's exactly what I was trying to do'."