People have been drinking beer for as long as they've been making it - and no place makes more beer than a brewery. Whether you like craft beers, wheat beers, light beers or pumpkin beers, Melbourne's bound to have a brewery that caters to your needs. In a beery city, though, how do you decide which brewery to visit? That's what this article - and your comments - are for, so read on (and check the comments) to find out.
Hard at work.
One of the most familiar labels to Melbourne beer lovers is Mountain Goat. Many bars have Mountain Goat's Hightail or Steam Ale on tap, and the Mountain Goat Pale Ale is probably the best value pale ale you can buy. The Mountain Goat brewery, otherwise known as the Goat Bar, is at the corner of North and Clark St. There's delicious pizza and beer, and tours of the brewery from 6:30pm. If you're interested - and you should be - read more about it
here.
The good stuff.
The
James Squire Brewhouse is a strong contender for the best Melbourne brewery as well. It's a Docklands bar and restaurant, and while the combination of water and beer sounds terrible in theory, when the water is some distance from the beer it works quite well in practice. The James Squire Brewhouse is also quite a decent restaurant, offering more than just pizza - try the classic ploughman's lunch and a beer.
Is your mouth watering? It should be.
The
3 Ravens brewery, likewise, is a truly authentic brewery. It was started in 2003 when a local hotel stopped supplying English-style "Real Ale". A group of enthusiastic engineers started their own microbrewery to pick up the slack, and the brewery only grew from there.
Ben Pattinson, the founder of 3 Ravens.
On balance, the brewery that's most fun to visit (and produces the best beer) is the
Mountain Goat brewery - but that's just one person's opinion. Know a brewery better than any of these? Think you can name the best brewery in Melbourne? Let us know in the comments - we'd love to hear from you.
