Brewery closes pub with no beer

Popular Collingwood watering hole Gasometer has been shut down after failing to pay its own booze bill.

The landmark live music venue on Smith Street was declared insolvent on Wednesday after repeatedly failing to pay a tab owed to South Australian craft brewery McLaren Vale.

Gasometer served its final round on Thursday night and patrons and staff departed leaving the bar strewn with empty jugs, pint glasses and half-filled tumblers of whiskey.

Punters hoping for drink on Friday afternoon were greeted with a hand-written sign announcing the pub was closed until further notice. ‘‘Unfortunately Gaso is in limbo! Sorry for any inconvenience,’’ it read.

An album launch and a series of gigs scheduled over the weekend were cancelled.

A manager, who did not want to be named, refused to discuss the Gasometers’ debts, and said the business' future was uncertain. ‘‘We don’t know if we will keep operating,’’ she said.

The pub’s landlord was also seen knocking on the door of Gasometer in a bid to collect the overdue rent on Friday.

The hotel is believed to have continuously operated since it was first licensed in 1861, spending its first 136 years as the Gasometer Hotel until being rebranded Irish Murphy's and then Father Flanagan's Hotel.

The leasehold was bought in 2010 by Paul and Egilberto Martin and Kody Abrams, former manager of the East Brunswick Club, who reinvented the ageing venue for hipster indie music fans.

‘‘We just bought Father Flanagans the Irish pub on the corner of Smith St and Alexander Prd (Collingwood)... We're stripping back the Irish crap and renaming it the Gasometer (it's original name from the 1800's),’’ Mr Abrams said in a 2010 post on culture website Mess + Noise.

The pub’s leasehold had been listed for sale for $310,000 in October. But Mr Abrams apparently took to Facebook to claim it was simply a search for a new investor.

‘‘We are looking for a partner ... If someone came along at the right price so we could start something new we would think about it, but that's hypethitcal (sic), and not our plan at this point,’’ the post said.

Mr Abrams and Mr Martin could not be contacted. McLaren Vale Beer Company did not respond to a request for comment.