The rest of our week in Western Australia was spent locally
in the Swan Valley – and we didn’t have to travel far to discover more microbreweries.
There were 5 within just a few miles of each other. Slightly annoyingly, they
were just a little too far to walk to from our resort – especially given the
heat – but we could certainly have cycled to them all.
One thing we didn’t appreciate at first, however, was how
much they, like all the wineries and other foody/touristy enterprises
surrounding them, operated to daylight tourist times and seasons. Our first
expedition was on a Monday and both Elmar’s (http://www.elmars.com.au/)
and Duckstein’s
(http://www.duckstein.com.au/) were
closed. We consulted the local map again and found Feral Brewing (http://www.feralbrewing.com.au/), which
turned out to be a real little gem. If you’d asked me to design my perfect
brewpub this would pretty much have been it. All it lacked was some cask ale.
It’s out in the sticks, surrounded by fields and fields of vines, and has a
ranch style feel about it. Good food, good beer – I’d go back any time I got a
chance. Sampler trays are the standard order for brewpubs not visited before:
 |
| From the right (my left) the beers are named 983; Feral White; Hop Hog; Golden Ace; Rust and Smoked Porter. |
Healthy servings for a
sampler – and these were but 6 of the vast array of brews.
Mash Brewing (http://www.mashbrewing.com.au/) was
another brewpub within the tight radius of the Swan Valley. It’s modern - all
steelwork and modelled again on US lines. We liked their quick and easy visual
representation of the vital taste parameters of each brew:
We tried to visit Elmar’s again the following day only to
discover it was shut again. I guess it’s not just Mondays they don’t like –
it’s Tuesdays as well. Before our week was up, we tried twice more to visit
this particular brewpub and we were either too early or too late. It seems that
they only open for 4 or 5 hours a day – and a maximum of 5 days per week.
Incredible really – it’s a big, well-advertised place and although autumn was
approaching, it’s still prime tourist season.
A much smaller, couthy little brewpub was discovered a few
miles away, nearer Perth at Guildford –
the Iron Bark
(http://ironbarkbrewery.com.au/).
It, too, shuts its doors early – we were the last customers out at just 5:30
pm, although that did give us a chance to have a nice chat with the owners, who
built the bar and brewery from scratch themselves. The whole place has got a
nice, “home-made” feel to it:
At the second attempt, we did manage to get in to Duckstein’s.
Nice enough place – very Germanic – but we didn’t really think much of their
beers. In fact, the only thing we could find of note there was the unusual
holder for the samplers, shaped as per their logo – a stylised letter “D”:
Western Australia seemed to be thriving with brewpubs and
breweries – apart from those mentioned already, Margaret River (further south)
seems to have even more:
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