When planning your next brewery tour, don't forget to consider the Sunshine State. As Beer & Brewer editor Matt Kirkegaard recently discovered, cane toads aren't all that Queensland's good for.

For a long time it had seemed that Australia's craft beer wave was going to bypass South-east Queensland. With so much craft brewing activity in Victoria and Western Australia and hot spots in Tasmania, South Australia and New South Wales, Queensland remained a veritable craft beer desert. Local beer lovers have been forced to rely on interstate beer shipments from the larger craft breweries rather than having access to their own

Thankfully, a nascent microbrewing industry has started to emerge, encompassing the Gold Coast and hinterland and stretching down to Byron Bay and even west to the Granite Belt in Queensland's wine country.

On a weekend away in the region, Burleigh Brewing on the southern end of the Gold Coast is a great first stop. (If you're planning a weekend of brewery tours you could also stop at Foster's giant Yatala plant - see Brewery Tour, issue 3 - on your way down the Pacific Motorway).

Just over an hour south of Brisbane and south of the Gold Coast glitter strip, Burleigh Brewing is home to the Duke range of beers. Established by Brennan Fielding, formerly of Brisbane's Oxford 152, Burleigh has established a limited distribution model, staking its claim over the region between Coffs Harbour and Hervey Bay, definitely not bent on national beer domination.

Although primarily a production facility, Burleigh Brewing Company also boasts a comfortable brewery lounge, right in the shadow of its shiny new stainless-steel brewhouse. With freshness his mantra, Brennan makes a mission of educating the beer-drinking public about the importance of drinking fresh and properly looking after beer. His unpasteurised beers live in a climate controlled world; from Burleigh's cool room post bottling to bottleshop fridges no more than two hours away and then - Brennan urges - straight to your fridge.

The Burleigh lounge makes a perfect classroom for the school of Drink Local. Enjoy a brew or two around the German drinking table, participate in a tour of the brewery, stand on the brewer's platform and peer into the tanks and learn how traditional beer is made. You can join a class to learn how to judge beer like the pros, or don a blindfold for Brennan's flavour profiling course to see if your nose can identify the aromas that make up beer.

Visitors are welcome at Burleigh Brewing from 10am to 4pm weekdays, with the bar open until 6pm on Fridays and Saturdays 2pm until 6pm.
On weekends the Tanks, Tales and Tastings takes place. Visitors spend 45 minutes with the brewmaster touring the facility and learning about beer and brewing. Enjoy a glass of each of Brennan's three current beers - a mid strength lager, Premium lager and American-style pale ale (with a new brown ale due for release soon) and take your branded tasting glass home with you. Check the website for sessions and other regular activities.

From the coastal plain at Burleigh you can make your way up the hinterland range to Mt Tamborine, sitting up high on the basalt range that that once flowed from the ancient volcano that is now Mount Warning. Here you will find the region's newest brewery, MT Brewery. Owned by businessman Andre Morris, the brewery's visitor areas are still under construction but the beer is already brewing. Under the guiding hand of head brewer (and Beer & Brewer contributing editor) Ian Watson, MT Brewing is planning an eclectic mix of beers designed to excite beer lovers. 

Watson, recently of Sunshine Coast Brewery, was enticed down to Tamborine with the promise of food; not just for him but also for his beers. Andre's other current business interest is in the Witches Chase Cheese Company, which makes a range of sensational boutique cheeses. Currently located a couple of kilometres from the brewery, the current extensions to the brewery site will enable the cheese factory to relocate there. With Ian's background as Australia's first professional beer sommelier - and beer and cheese providing one of the food world's great matches - it's a prospect that excites him.

MT Brewing's newly installed 24-hectolitre plant is the original Bluetongue equipment and Ian plans to brew a rotating line of 6-12 beers, with occasional surprises. One of his initial brews is a first for Australia, a hopfer-weisse, or a hefeweizen with high aroma hop additions. Ian says that he only knows of a couple of similar brews in the world, including the legendary Gumballhead American Wheat Beer from Three Floyds in the US.

If you visit the mountain before the cheese factory and shop move in July you will find that it currently sits just next door to Tamborine Mountain Distillery. Australia's smallest pot-still distillery, and one of the few in private hands, it has developed an international reputation since opening in 1998. While producing a range of exotic spirits, the distillery really gained international attention when its Absinthe won Gold at the World Spirits Awards in Austria last year. Five-times distilled from the finest grapes, and made with elderflower, gentian, fennelseed, hyssop and wormwood, the anise-flavoured spirit is undergoing a popular revival. Even for the beer lover it is well worth the stop to discuss spirits with larger-than-life co-owner, Michael Ward.

If you're travelling with your significant other, a great way to score some major brownie points is to stop at the multi award-winning restaurant Songbirds in the Forest. This top-notch noshery recently won the Queensland Restaurant of the Year Award, Queensland's Best Informal Restaurant and Best Modern Australian Cuisine Awards. While primarily focusing on a superb selection of small run wines, Songbirds' young sommelier Mick Armstrong also puts considerable thought into his beers. You can dine on tempura-cooked soft-shell crab on green papaya and mango salad matched to an excellent New Zealand Riesling, or to a Redoak Organic Hefeweizen, which was much more to my liking. Unusually for a serious wine guy Mick also listens when you talk beer and considers what he serves rather than merely stocking a thoughtless selection of Euro-lagers.

To really score points, you can stay overnight in one of the six villas hidden in the rainforest. The accommodation isn't exactly cheap, but it is world class. What's more, Songbirds is a spa retreat so you can book your partner in for an in-room deluxe massage while you head down to sample the region's beers at the soon-to-open Fox & Hound pub.

Awaiting it's licence when B&B visited, the Fox & Hound plans to serve on tap beers only from local breweries includingMT Brewing, Duke and Guinness (yes, Guinness is a local beer in these parts, brewed under licence at the Yatala plant down the mountain!)

Depending on how long you have, once you've sampled the delights of the Gold Coast hinterland you can head another hour-and-a-half south and into northern New South Wales to Byron Bay and another burgeoning brewing hotspot. Alstonville, just south of Byron Bay, is home to Northern Rivers Brewing Co., a multi-award winning brewery turning out some great beers and well worth a visit. They do cellar door sales Monday to Saturday and brewery tours Saturday afternoons.

Byron Bay will soon have another quality brewery with news that Brad Rogers, formerly of Matilda Bay, has signed a lease on a former cordial factory with plans to turn it into the Stone and Wood Brewing Company. Watch this space for details.

While it is still early yet, Queensland's brewing scene is heading in the right direction. So, whether you're a local looking for a weekend getway with a good beer thrown in, or from interstate holidaying on the Gold Coast this is the place to come.

Where to go:

Burleigh Brewing Company
www.burleighbrewing.com
17A Ern Harley Drive, Burleigh Heads
(07) 5593 6000

MT Brewing
Long Road, Eagle Heights
(07) 5545 2032

Tamborine Mountain Distillery
www.tamborinemountaindistillery.com
87-91 Beacon Road, North Tamborine
(07) 5545 3452

Songbirds in the Forest
www.songbirds.com.au
Tamborine Mountain Road, North Tamborine
(07) 5545 2563

Northern Rivers Brewing Co.
www.nrbrewing.com.au
57 Northcott Crescent, Russellton Industrial Area, Alstonville
(02) 6628 8737

Check out the map online:
snipurl.com/weekendawayseq

Barossa Valley by John Kruger

South Australia's Barossa Valley is famous for rich, full-bodied red wines and beautiful scenery, but if you have more of a lust for good beers rather than good shiraz, the valley is still the place to be.

With wineries realising that they have production infrastructure, sales points, warehousing and distribution already organised, they're starting to jump on the brewing wagon as well. But it's not just the beer and wine giants that are starting to knock out the beers, there's a host of passionate private brewers to be found in the Barossa that makes the whole beer experience in the area so much richer.

The first step to ensuring a hassle free tour is to contact the places you intend visiting to making sure that the venues will be open and have product ready and waiting. Not all cellar doors are open during weekdays and, not surprisingly, they tend to run out of sho

rt-run batches from time to time. A designated driver or one of the excellent chauffeured services in the area is a must as there's too many great beverages waiting for you to taste.

Our first port of call is the Greenock Tavern, just off the Sturt highway in the main street of Greenock. It's a small unassuming pub that sells Barossa Brewing Company beers. Depending on the time of year there's either a gutsy Greenock Dark Ale or a well hopped Miller's Lager on draught, an opportunity to taste the beer flowing fresh from the keg. You may also spot the brewer, Darryl Trinnie drinking his own beer or a good glass of white wine at the bar. If he's not there and it's a weekend, he or his partner Gaye will be just around the corner on Mill Street at the old wheat store which is now a tasting room and houses the fermentation, cold conditioning, bottling and packaging side of things. Darryl or Gaye are only too happy to fill you in on hop varieties and malt selections contained in their beers and are friendly and knowledgeable hosts. You can also buy bottled varieties including the Wheat Store wheat beer, which is gaining a loyal following as a fragrant, yet hoppy, summer thirst quencher.

Grab a favourite as a cold takeaway and head into the main street of Nuriootpa and track down a small butchers store
called Linke's. In there you'll find good stuff like sliced smoked pork fillet, awesome mettwursts and other smoked meaty beer snacks. Not far across the other side of the road is a bakery, again called Linke's. Stock up on dill pickles and bread rolls and you've got a genuine do-it-yourself lunch of German-style smallgoods, pickles and fresh artisan bread. Combined they are the perfect accompaniment for that takeaway wheat beer. All you need now is to find a tree overlooking the vines at the lookout at Menglers Hill or any other picturesque locations in the Barossa. They certainly aren't hard to find.

If DIY lunch doesn't take your fancy there's fine dining at a restaurant in Tanunda. At 1918, Chris and Mel Fletcher take their food very seriously like most Barossan residents and their wine and beer list is suitably matched, including local beers. In the right weather you'll find the place packed so a reservation is the best bet to guarantee a table out on the veranda. Take your time and enjoy the day.

Accommodation is varied in the Barossa, from quaint cottage style B&Bs scattered everywhere to more modern digs at the Novatel near Jacob's Creek or Peppers at Marananga. Both have good reputations for great dining and stunning views to match. The Valley Hotel in Tanunda also has five neat, modern rooms out the back including one with a single spa that's like getting beaten up in the bath.

If you're not dining at the same place as you stay, Vintners Bar and Grill just out of Angaston is well worth a visit. Even a stop for coffee and chocolates is a good move. A little further down the road is the Saltram winery with its restaurant Salter's Kitchen. The cellar door is down one end of the large dining room and it's not unusual to see a large ice bucket, brim full of ice and their new beer brewed in partnership with Matilda Bay's Brad Rogers, Pepperjack Ale. Chalk up another win to the clean US56 yeast. This is an unusual ale with a portion of co-fermented shiraz juice adding colour and thinning the body a little. The wood oven pizzas at Salter's Kitchen and a few Pepperjacks are a perfect way to chill out and enjoy the sunset through the big windows or out on the deck.

If you're staying in a good B&B, chances are there's a barbeque out the back and a good supply of highly addictive locally smoked bacon and fresh eggs in the fridge. These will cure most over-indulgences from the previous night and set you up for a visit to Chateau Yaldara where Barossa Valley Brewing is located. Sample a Bee Sting, their honey wheat beer, or even their so-called ‘development ale'. The brewery is hoping to bring beer lovers together by forming a nation-wide tasting panel to help develop their next beer. If you can't sample it in the Barossa, hop on to their web site to find out where you can sample it and add our feedback.

The area is picturesque and the winery's Café Y is earning a good reputation for its food. If you're planning on filling your nostrils with the smell of hot water and grist, you're best off phoning ahead to find out about brewing times and café openings to make the experience as beery as possible.

While technically not in the Barossa, the Lobethal Bierhaus is less than 40kms away and well worth the visit for the beer lover. Situated in the Adelaide Hills it has a fully operational micro-brewery making some outstanding beers including an APA, Hefeweizen, Pilsner and Porter. With more beers being planned it's the kind of place that can be visited again and again to taste what's new. It's no wonder that the place is often brim-full; the food is excellent and the beers are even better. Keen home brewers can check out the gleaming brewery from the comfort of the bar or a dining table and Alistair or Phil are only too happy to answer questions about anything beer related. Check out the refillable two-litre ‘growlers' that are hugely popular with the locals.

Two more micros are planned for the Barossa Valley already so the Barossa Visitor Information centre in Tanunda is a good start to keep up with the latest attractions.

Find them at:

Barossa Brewing Company
Open for tasting and sales Saturday & Sunday from 11am to 4pm
Mill Street, Greenock
Phone: 0419 811 525 or (08) 8563 4041
sales@barossabrewingcompany.com

Barossa Valley Brewing
Yaldara Estate
Hermann Thumm Drive, Lyndoch
Phone: (08) 8524 4357
www.bvbeer.com.au

Lobethal Bierhaus
Open Friday & Saturday - Noon to 10pm; Sunday & Public Holidays -
Noon to 6pm
3a Main Street, Lobethal
Phone: (08) 8389 5570

1918
Open for lunch & dinner 7 days
94 Murray Street Tanunda
Phone: (08) 8563 0405
enquiries@1918.com.au

Vintners Bar & Grill
Nuriootpa Road, Angaston
Phone: (08) 8564 2488
chef@vintners.com.au

Saltram Tasting Bar
Nuriootpa Road, Angaston
Phone: (08) 8561 0200
Fax: (08) 8561 0232
cellardoor@saltramestate.com.au

Salter's Kitchen
Valley Hotel Motel
73 Murray St, Tanunda
Phone: (08) 8561 0216