The hilarious internet duo on the best way to enjoy their new beer label Better Beer.
There’s no doubt you’ve seen one of The Inspired Unemployed’s comedy videos on your feed having a go at modern Aussie culture. Since starting the page a little over three years ago, founders Jack and Matt have amassed over a million followers with their hilarious skits that poke fun at everything and everyone (themselves included).
Their newest project though is no joke. Over the last few months the boys have been brewing up their brand new beer label Better Beer and putting a lot of their own experience as beer drinkers into the process. Made with no carbs, no sugar, and at only 87 calories, the refreshingly crisp lager-style beer is a direct outcome of Jack and Matt’s desire to enjoy a full-flavoured beer without the heaviness that usually comes with it.
With Better Beer launching in Dan Murphy’s instore and online we caught up with the dynamic duo to hear all about their rise to success and get their tips on the best way to enjoy a frosty cold Better Beer.
- Q.Let’s go back to the beginning, what’s the origin story of The Inspired Unemployed?
Matt: We actually met in high school and have been friends for about 15 years. We were travelling through Europe together and that’s when we started The Inspired Unemployed. We went over there with the idea of finding something to work towards for the rest of our lives because we were unhappy with our jobs as tradies. We started making videos and just went hard at it. Honestly, in the last three years we haven’t left each other’s sight since.
- Q.When did you realise that you could make a life doing this?
Jack: Towards the end of 2019 we were still working our trades and doing videos whenever we could find time off. But the start of 2020 was the moment when we decided to call it quits on our trades and take the leap on The Inspired Unemployed being our only focus. During the first Covid lockdowns it went nuts. At one point we were growing on average about 15,000 followers a week. It was crazy! But before that, even just getting to like 9000 followers on the page was proper hard work — relentlessly filming and posting videos trying to get any kind of traction.
- Q.You’ve cracked over a million followers now. What’s the most “pinch me” moment of the journey so far?
Matt: There’s been so many. Starting our podcast with Spotify is a big one. Being in Vogue Australia and on the cover of GQ Style Australia was fun and interesting because we weren’t even that big then and they hit us up to do some cool photoshoots.
Jack: Even just being invited to places and going to lunches with big names there and being like, “what the hell are we doing here?”. It’s all so bizarre.
Matt: Honestly, launching Better Beer is a big moment for us too. It’s pretty crazy that we’ve actually started a beer company!
- Q.Where did the idea to start Better Beer come from?
Matt: We were getting a lot of offers from big beer brands to be ambassadors and we just realised that if we were going to do a beer then we should do it for ourselves. We’ve always had the idea to start a beer, even from the start. So we caught up with our mate Nick who has a background in brewing beer and he ended up joining us to put it together.
The other element to it is that we’d started drinking a lot of seltzers because most of them are zero carb, zero sugar and we’ve become a bit more health conscious. But since we’d always been beer drinkers we decided that we should come up with a beer that had the health stats of a seltzer.
- Q.Better Beer is a really crisp lager-style beer that has no carbs, no sugar, and is only 87 calories. Why were those stats important to you?
Jack: I don’t drink that much traditional beer anymore because I don’t want to feel heavy and sluggish. But now that we’ve got Better Beer we’ve been getting stuck into them and I love it. And I think that’s what will make it successful, that we’re truly passionate about it and enjoy it ourselves.
- Q.How did you come up with the tagline “Day for it”?
Matt: We did a video a while back where we walked around saying “day for it” so it’s a bit of a call back to that.
Jack: Every single time we're on the street in public someone will yell “day for it” and it just felt like such a good tagline for a summery beer.
- Q.How are you going to be celebrating the launch?
Jack: Everything we do we want to build a sense of community — that’s why we do it. So we’ll be doing a lot of videos, challenges, prizes, and lots of other fun stuff to get people involved and bring them along with us.
- Q.Lastly, can you talk us through the best way to enjoy a Better Beer?
Where are we? On the back deck with mates talking crap.
What music is playing? Throwback Aussie classics: Midnight Oil and Cold Chisel.
What are we eating? Schnitties.
Who’s invited (anyone, dead or alive)? It’s a party with a few legends: Steve Irwin, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Russell Coight, and Bob Hawke.
