Pliny, bourbon county, heady topper, kbs

Benjo87 I am moving to Australia with my Family, Wife is from Gold Coast.

Starting to do research on Beer scene. I own a brewery with my family here in the states.

Can you tell me anything about the scene there? here we have people line up for beer releases. is there anything like that out there?

we specialize in Hoppy beers at our brewery, and would like to look into bringing our New England Style IPA's out there!

Also when we do move out there i will be bringing lots of Beer with me!

We are moving to Rye, VIC to my knowledge its south east of Melbourne!

thanks for time!

cheers

Joel

 

Hi Jstick,

Rye is indeed to the south of Melbourne on the Mornington Peninsula. On the peninsula there are a few breweries - Mornington Peninsula Brewery, Red Hill Brewery, Hix Brewery off the top of my head.

Mornington Peninsula Brewery is worth visiting and does some good seasonal releases. As for lining up, no, you won't need to do that here. Here is their website http://mpbrew.com.au/

Red Hill Market is worth checking out, and Red Hill brewery usually have a stall there.

Heading in to Melbourne you will go past Boatrocker Brewery and their Barrel Room, Bad Shepherd/Wolf of The Willows and 2 Brothers Brewery. All are worth visiting, Boatrocker in particular for their Sours/Belgian style ales. All three of these breweries are near the Nepean Highway (the main road to the peninsula from Melbourne

Hope that helps.

 

Jstick,

As Smithflipper said you won't have to line up at a brewery for a release like Hunaphu Day, or a massive line for a lawson release. Can generally get harder to get Australian releases through a bottle shop. Slowbeer (vic), mane liquor (Wa), or beer cartel (nsw) generally get the more interesting rarer releases and they do ship to your door. Very different to US but in some ways better as much better access to rarer beers here and no profiteering as the US scene has. There is a lot of interesting one off batches that end up on growler stations and pubs in Melbourne.

IPA's are hit and miss but generally pirate life hoppy stuff, feral and Modus are consistent and more western US style. Lots of good kiwi IPA's out here.

Beer scene has really grown in last 3 years. Quality has improved but I think the biggest thing is just the overall enthusiasm is much more contained as opposed to the northern hemisphere. Nothing bad or good about it. It is just different.

Get up to Sydney and can share some beers. Welcome out this way and send sinkas all your KBS

 

Hey Jstick,

I live in Texas and my better half is south of Sydney, so we frequently travel back and forth and all over the world. We too are home brewers and have dreamed of having our own brewery, and heavily considered Australia. We've looked at many venues along the south Sydney coast. Our biggest challenge and deterrent is the taxes applied on ABV. Our preferred flavor and styles of brews are IIPA, IIIPA, Quad, Sours, Barleywine and anything that we can bourbon or rum barrel age....so we like 7-8% ABV and above. Using our farmer math and personal happiness, we've decided the Australian tax laws just aren't worth it for us to go into the brew business.

It is quite sad, because the beer bubble in Australia is infant and it appears that the craft beer demand is growing. Best of luck to you and your family and keep us posted....we'll definitely come visit!!!