Moon Dog brewing to open a tropical brewery bar in Preston

A northside brewery is taking over a warehouse in Preston and will deliver a paradise complete with waterfall and lagoon. Here’s what’s inside.

Moon Dog’s Duke St Abbotsford brewery and bar will move to bigger premises in Preston.

An industrial lot in the heart of Preston is the last place you would expect to find a tropical, lagoon-filled paradise.

But that’s exactly what the brains trust at hit independent brewery Moon Dog are creating.

Expected to host 725 people, the massive live music venue will feature a waterfall, lagoon and rainforest walk.

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Constructed in an old manufacturing plant, patrons will enjoy an outdoor beer garden with retractable roof, full restaurant menu and a window into the brewery itself.

Co-founder Josh Uljans toured the world investigating the best venues for live music and beer.

And Marketing manager Brook Hornung said the Preston warehouse would match them.

“We see this sitting alongside those as a ‘come to Melbourne, you must visit type venue,’” he said.

The Leader toured the 12,000sq m site, which will contain the label’s new bar, brewery, and bottling and packaging operations.

The bottling centre will easily accommodate the loading of a semi-trailer inside and takes up around a fourth of the total warehouse space.

“Initially it was just like, this is too big,” Mr Hornung said.

But after they fell in love with the site it was just a matter of scaling up.

Currently located in Duke St, Abbotsford, the crew will transfer their brewery operations to Preston.

But the bar and function room at Abbotsford will stay.

Mr Hornung said at their current rate of growth they would hit capacity by the end of the year and the new location would allow them to grow five times in size.

“It’ll be really awesome for people to properly understand the size of the operation,” he said.

“It feels like we’re just scratching the surface.”

The roof of this old manufacturing facility will have to be removed to accomodate the new brewing tanks.

And the expansion will not only mean more of the same favourites like Old Mate pale ale and Beer Can lager but more experimentation too.

“The brewers are really excited to experiment more. At the moment we’re pretty much just keeping up with demand,” Mr Hornung said.

The team will christen their new venue with two events in the upcoming Good Beer Week.

The first will be one stage music and beer festival titled A Day on the Cans, featuring Aussie acts British India and Ali Barter.

Later that night the brewery will host Melbourne City Wrestling for a night of chair smashing and beer drinking.

The bar is expected to be open to the public in September.

@richardapearce