Best breweries to visit in our region
We are seriously spoilt for options as far as breweries go in our region. The only difficulty we do have is, which brewery to hit up first? Let's dive straight in!
One of Australia’s best, award winning Black Hops Brewery has 3 taprooms, 2 on the Gold Coast, and 1 in Brisbane. Black Hops was born during a simple chin wag between mates Dan, Eddie and Govs over a beer. The rest is history, and since that initial chat, they’ve produced award winning beers which has placed them on the Aussie beer map, so to speak. Black Hops collaborative beer inoculated with Husk wild cane juice for fermentation was recently released and is an exciting experimental beer that turned out to be a great success. Wild Cane beer is available from AWOL and the Husk Cellar Door.
2. Stone & Wood
We weren’t mucking around when we said we’re spoilt for choice when it comes to cracking breweries on our doorstep. Stone & Wood’s Murwillumbah brewery is just a 10 minute drive from Husk Farm Distillery, and has spectacular views of Wollumbin (Mt Warning). The Murbah brewery is only open to the public on open day events, so if you’re up for a tipple, head to the Brisbane or Byron breweries. We’ve got a fun collaborative whisky aging away at the Husk Barrel House… we can’t wait.
Repping 28 World Gold Medals, Burleigh Brewing know their stuff. All the brewing, fermenting, maturing, filtering, bottling, canning - and all the other ‘ings’ are done by the team, on-site at the Burleigh Heads brewery. You can visit the brewery from Friday - Sunday, for a cold beer and a feed. We’ve also got a Burleigh Brewery whisky maturing at Husk Distillery. It’ll be worth the wait!
4. Balter
Yep. Another great brewery right under our nose. Balter boasts an impressive number of national and international awards. No seriously, it’s insane! Balter HQ is a brewery with an open door policy. You can come and tour the facility, taste the beers and enjoy special events, great music, food vans and fun crew.
Inside the spacious warehouse style set up, you’ll find lots of brick, concrete, copper pipes and some art by Frank and Mimi on the wall. Beer tasting happens just meters from the brewing equipment, so if you’re into seeing exactly where your drop comes from, it’s a perfect spot to chill.
5. Wandana
This small batch brewery is tucked away in the beautiful Mullumbimby. Serving up handcrafted brews, local food trucks and live music with picturesque views of Mt Chincogan and the surrounding hinterland, its easy to see why families love pulling up here for a cold beer. Fun fact: Wandana brewery is the only brewery in the world who plays non-stop music to every beer they make the entire time its in the tank. Researchers have studied the effect of sound vibrations on yeast cells - and found they improve efficiency. They play German Polka to the German wheat beer, Nordic death metal to the stout brew and so on.
6. Earth Beer
The Earth Beer brewery was once a working avocado farm with an old tin packing shed with an appreciation for the red dirt on which it lay, here in the Tweed Valley. Fueled by the love of this land, the crew at Earth Beer wanted to bring together good people, and good beer. Front of mind was keeping the environmental impact of brewing beer at a minimum, and they’ve been able to do just that. Head over to their website to book a tour!
We should also mention Murwillumbah’s Spangled Drongo Brewery which is currently set to open later in the year. We love having a Spangled Drongo Pale Ale at the M-Arts Precinct bar where they’re currently calling home, until the brewery doors open. Get amongst it!