5 top places to stop for a handcrafted beer or spirit in Victoria’s high country
After a long day of hiking, cycling or touring, there is nothing better than sitting back with a cheeky ale or spirit - and Victoria’s High Country is teeming with a new breed of craft breweries and distilleries.
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Eucalyptus leaves, hazelnuts, mountain pepper and gum tree honey are among the flavours sparking inspiration in a new breed of brewers and distillers dotted across Victoria’s High Country.
Pristine mountain water and a steady stream of cool climate produce provide constant fodder for makers of handcrafted beer, cider and spirits.
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The High Country provides a natural playground of places to hike, cycle or tour.
And after a day in the great outdoors, there’s nothing better than sitting back with a cheeky brew.
We round up the best breweries and distilleries worth stopping at in Victoria’s high country.
REED & CO DISTILLERY
For Rachel Reed and Hamish Nugent, the chefs behind Bright’s Reed & Co Distillery (15 Wills St), local flavours are fundamental to their Remedy Australian Dry Gin.
“We wanted to create a gin that reminded people of where we are … the alpine Australian bush,” Reed explains.
“We make our gin with Eucalyptus citriodora (lemon-scented gum), fresh pine needles, fresh mountain pepper and mountain pepper leaf … and we add desert limes grown over in Glenrowan, and lemon verbena, hazelnuts and honey, all grown locally, and first harvest green tea from Tawonga.
“A lot of people smell our gin and say, ‘wow, it’s just like the bush’.
“Other people think of camping holidays. It’s exactly what we were after.”
Reed and Nugent opened the distillery in 2017 after almost a decade of running acclaimed kitchens in the High Country, most recently Tani Eat & Drink in Bright.
Now Reed & Co serves Remedy gin cocktails and other local gems in a small casual restaurant where everything is cooked in a wood-fired oven, including a deliciously smoky Murray cod from Buffalo River.
Their next gin project will be a simpler concoction, with fewer botanicals and the punchy citrus flavour of yuzu, now grown commercially in Eurobin in the nearby Ovens Valley.
Reed & Co Distillery, 15 Wills St, Bright.
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BRIDGE ROAD BREWERS
Beechworth’s Ben Kraus, founder of Bridge Road Brewers (50 Ford St), has also tapped the local yuzu harvest for a citrusy seasonal beer.
“We have a range of beers called Mayday Hills, where we’re always experimenting with something local and seasonal,” Kraus says.
“One-off beers might have elderflowers, first harvest green tea, citrus fruits like chinotto, rhubarb or even caper leaves.
“When fruit’s out of season, we’ll work with local companies like JimJam and make an orange marmalade IPA, or a strawberry jam IPA, using 100kg of preserves.”
Eight breweries operate in the High Country, each exuding its own personality and style.
Beer fans meandering along High Country Brewery Trail can see the sprawling Rostrevor Hop Gardens, visible from the Great Alpine Rd at Eurobin.
Hops have grown in the foothills of Mt Buffalo since the 1890s, giving local brewers the opportunity to brew fresh hop beer during the March harvest.
Bridge Road Brewers, 50 Ford St, Beechworth.
BRIGHT BREWERY
Scott Brandon, of Bright Brewery says the Rostrevor Hop Gardens trial about 3000 new varieties every year.
The hops business is booming, with the farm doubling in size in the past year.
“We are so lucky to have the hops gardens just up the road,” Brandon says.
“They have varieties that are in huge demand worldwide because their flavours are so unique.”
Bright Brewery, 121 Great Alpine Road, Bright.
HURDLE CREEK STILL
Locally farmed malt, barley and oats are also the main event at a rural distillery in the King Valley run by Wendy Williams and her partner, Simon Brooke-Taylor.
They opened Hurdle Creek Still in an old corrugated iron shed just south of Milawa in 2016, milling their own grain and mashing it into triple-distilled base spirits.
They then infuse their gins with local and native botanicals, many of them grown on the farm.
Gin fans are welcome to visit Hurdle Creek’s distillery and watch the whole process – while sampling the finished product.
Hurdle Creek Still, 216 Whorouly-Bobinawarrah Rd, Milawa.
RUTHERGLEN BREWERY
Over at Rutherglen, Fiona Myers and Gavin Swalwell grow their own backyard hops to hand-craft small batch beers at their Rutherglen Brewery, housed in a shed behind their popular Main St restaurant Taste@Rutherglen.
“We harvest our hops in time for the High Country Festival in March,” Myers says.
“We also make bread and pizza dough with our spent grain… and we grow our own vegetables.
“If we can make good beer and cut back waste that has to be a good thing.”
Rutherglen Brewery, 121C Main St, Rutherglen.
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