See our map of all the exciting new venues coming to you
From a former Baptist church to Victor Harbor’s answer to The Cube, there are plenty of new watering holes set for our great state. See our map.
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If South Australians love anything, it’s a microbrewery.
From gathering your friends for a milestone or heading there on the weekend for a quiet drink, our great state is home to a number of amazing breweries and distilleries that have become household names around the country.
So just when you thought you’ve ticked all of them off your bucket list, SA is set to welcome eight more this year.
See our map below.
Mighty Craft’s Kangaroo Island Distillery
As one of the state’s home away from homes, plans to build a $3m gin Academy and tourist accommodation are all the more reason to make Kangaroo Island your next destination.
If approved, the Academy, from world-renowned Mighty Craft, would build the gin Academy and tourist accommodation a former health retreat site on Bates Road at Emu Bay.
The facility offers nine individual tourism units and a 5L pot still, used for demonstrations of gin distilling.
The application by Mighty Craft also reveals key plans for the “Academy”, which could see attendees undertake an “intensive educational distilling certification course”.
Mt Jagged Wines
Dubbed as Victor Harbor’s version of ‘the cube’, a new $10m cellar door, restaurant and function centre will soon grace Adelaide’s south.
Mt Jagged Wines has lodged plans with Alexandrina Council for a 12m-high, two-storey building on Victor Harbor Rd.
The plans proposed a 500sq m proposed development would have floor to ceiling windows, an elevated viewing area, a wishing well and a 75 seat restaurant.
The development would replace an existing cellar door at the 59ha property.
Mt Jagged Wines winery manager Sky Yu said the development would “be a luxury one-of-a-kind cellar door and restaurant to the Southern Fleurieu region of South Australia”.
Moculta
One of the country’s best wine regions is set to welcome many new luxuries this year and while the following is a far cry from the ‘slug’, it’s set to be in a class of it’s own.
Six luxury suites and a cellar door are to be built among a small vineyard on the corner of Truro and Shannon roads in the Barossa Valley for the cool amount of $3.5 million.
Speaking with The Messenger in August, project manager Sonia Mercorella said the unique part of the development was how the proposed suites would be situated within the vineyards.
The cellar door was set to represent Adelaide-based Noble Road Wines and be operational from Friday to Sunday from 11am to 4pm, but would be available by appointment only.
It would double as a function centre expected to hold weddings and parties.
Beer No Evil and Lone Gum Farmhouse
It’s the taphouse set to ignite a current industrial area in Adelaide’s south, with one of the owners already keen to get locals through the door.
Beer No Evil’s Paul Sparkes beamed with excitement as he spoke about the new Lonsdale taphouse, which he will share with Ryan Bickley’s Lone Gum Farmhouse.
“It’s really exciting, we have had about three different spaces fall through so to finally have landed here with Ryan, it’s incredible,” Mr Sparkes said.
“We really want this to be a place locals can enjoy and hopefully make the drive worth it.”
The new site, which was conveniently an old brew house, can host up to 200 people across two levels, and also contains a commercial kitchen and a retail section.
Robbers Dog Distillery
Sometimes grabbing a drink in a quirky bar can up the vibes, but in an ambulance depot?
Robbers Dog Distillery has been serving up a variety of alcoholic beverages including vodka, gin and rum in Mount Pleasant since 2019 and such is the demand that they have had to expand to the area’s ambulance depot.
Owners Rob, 54, and Cath Davies, 52, said the irony of turning an ambulance station into a distillery is not lost on them as their current site used to be a bank.
“I love the irony of it, same as we bought an old bank that closed because it got robbed three times,” Mr Davies said.
The need to expand was partly due to a lack of space in the couple’s home, which is out the back of their current distillery premises, Mr Davies said.
“Where we are currently located, will stay as our bar and our shop venue, our plan is to move our distilling operation to the old ambulance station and to make the alcohol there and move it to the bar,” he said.
While the couple admit there are still a number of items they need to work out with council, they hope to have the site up and running by the end of the year.
Tin Shed Distilling Company
The award-winning Tin Shed Distilling Company submitted a development application in December for a new facility at Nairne, set to produce gin, whisky and rum.
If successful it would see the old freezer on the former Chapman’s Meatworks site on Princes Highway transformed into a manufacturing facility, operating seven days.
It would also satisfy a “demand for a sophisticated drinking environment” in the Adelaide Hills, according to Tin Shed Distilling’s Ian Schmidt.
“The Welland site has been good, but we have outgrown it and the site has very limited appeal as a cellar door location,” he said.
Mr Schmidt said the Adelaide Hills location was in a state of disrepair but also a prime location.
“The site overlooks Nairne and will be fitted out as a working distillery with a goal of operating, as close to carbon neutral as possible, as a truly sustainable distillery. “
Little Bang Brewery
It’s the South Australian brewery that needs no introduction.
Little Bang Brewing Company’s “multimillion-dollar” plan to open a microbrewery, restaurant, cafe and bottle shop in the old Boiler House, at the Tonsley Innovation District will be a welcomed sight to Adelaide’s south.
Little Bang co-chief executive and head of brewing Oscar Matthews said to say he was excited about the plans for a new seven-day operation was an understatement.
“This expansion is going to give Little Bang more opportunities to push boundaries with our beer, and our brewing operation,” Mr Matthews said.
“We see this space becoming a creative hub and an incubator of new beers, seltzers and more.”
The Stepney-based craft brewer aims to open the site by mid-2024 and will also allow for smaller experimental creations, such as seltzers, to be brewed on-site.
Little Blessing Brewery
Laura’s former Baptist Community Church is only a few moons away from being converted into boutique brewery and taphouse, aptly named the Little Blessing Brewery.
Craig and Catherine Blesing are the couple behind the development and were originally in the market for a shopfront to expand his home brewing passion when the church became available as it’s congregation had moved into a shopfront on Herbert St.
In a strange turn of events, Mr Blesing has found out he’s connected to the church.
“We had signed the contract to buy and then one of the founding member’s relatives came up to me and said ‘do you realise we’re related’,” Mr Blesing said.
“One of the 12 founders was Mr Walter and his wife was Mary Blesing, my great aunt. For me, it was almost like it was a sign it was meant to be.”
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