Bridge Road Brewers

Budding young winemaker Ben Kraus headed to Italy at the start of the Millennium to learn more about the art of making wine. Somewhere along the way, he got distracted on the ski slopes of Austria and ended up working at Tiroler Bier, a traditional microbrewery in Innsbruck, and returned to Australia a brewer, steeped in the traditions of the amber nectar.

Founding Bridge Road Brewers in his dad's Beechworth backyard, he quickly established himself as one of Australia's finest craft brewers and later installed his brewery at the High Country town's old Coach House and Stables. There, visitors can sit among wooden clad tanks sampling a wide range of beers (and occasionally cider) while watching the brewers at work.

Ben didn't just bring brewing skills back from Europe, however, he brought his Austrian partner Maria, who bakes the best pretzels this side of Munich ' perfect for soaking up your beer.

An everpresent at the High Country's festivals, Bridge Road Brewers also hosts regular events of its own, from lederhosen-laden Oktoberfests to their celebration of the region's hop harvest, The High Country Hop. In late 2009, Ben began expanding into the neighbouring warehouse and entered the international export market in a bid to fly the Aussie craft beer flag overseas. It's an expansion that seems to be never-ending, whether that's installing a new brewhouse, more tanks, Australia's first foeder at a brewery, or the dozens of new beers that leave Beechworth every year.

Always on the lookout for new ways to brew and to spread the word about craft beer, Ben was been at the forefront of Aussie brewers taking part in collaborations, flying to Norway to brew with Nøgne Ø, then welcoming the brewer Kjetil Jikiun back to Beechworth, sending one of his brewers to brew at the UK's Thornbridge and also collaborating with Mikkeller. In 2012, he also began inviting staff from Australia's top beer bars to concoct their own beer ideas and bringing them to the brewery to help make them.

Indeed, innovation and grand marketing concepts are as much part of the Bridge Road Brewers story as the beers. Ben and his team have celebrated Aussie hops more than any other brewer, even creating The High Country Hop Festival at harvest time, while their messaging about independence arguably reached their high water mark when he declared the brewery its own micronation.

It's a winning combination of fun and creativity, aided in no small part by the warm and family-friendly nature of the brewpub, that has kept Bridge Road Brewers at the vanguard of the Australian craft beer world even as the number of other breweries has swollen by hundreds. Long may it continue.

Name
Bridge Road Brewers
Address

Old Coach House
Ford Street
Beechworth VIC 3747

Phone
(03) 5728 2703
Open Hours

Lunch: 7 days from midday to 3pm
Dinner: Thurs to Sun from 6pm to 8.30pm
Brewery door open daily from 11am

Tours

Each Saturday at 11am

Current Cabal offers

Free Pint? That's Right!


This is a directory listing. To find out more, head here

The Specials

Bridge Road Brewers New Sky IPA Vol. 3: Triple Dry-Hop Hazy
Bridge Road New Sky IPA Vol. 2: Spectrum Super Cold
Bridge Road Brewers New Sky IPA Vol. 1: Double California
Bridge Road Brewers B2 Bomber Mach 12.0
Bridge Road Hazy Harvest & Dark Harvest (2022)
Bridge Road Eggster Triple Choclate Ale
Bridge Road Christmas Beers 2021
Bridge Road Brewers Watermelon Sour
Bridge Road Brewers NEeD Vol.6: TDH Dip Hop IPA
Bridge Road Raspberry Sour With Passionfruit
Bridge Road Brewers NEeD Vol.5: Cold IPA
Show 106 more

Bridge Road Brewers Regulars

Bridge Road Brewers Free Time

Published March 22, 2021
The rise of alcohol-free craft beer has been a rapid and swift one at the start of the 2020s, with the new decade bringing with it booze-free breweries and established operations looking to add either very-low or no-alcohol offerings to their lineups. Among those longstanding breweries to turn to alcohol-free kis Bridge Road Brewers, with the Beechworth brewery adding Free Time to their core range early in 2021. With no bitterness and a cloudy, golden appearance, Free Time very closely resembles… Read more
Style
Alcohol-Free Pale Ale
ABV
<0.5%

Bridge Road Brewers Outsider Lager

Published February 7, 2021
Bridge Road’s founder Ben Kraus flies back to Australia after nearly 18 months in Austria. Next minute, Bridge Road add a German style lager to their core range. Clean and clear with a loose white head, Outsider almost tastes like a helles that Ben might have snuck† into his suitcase and brought back with him. A gentle sweet cereal flavour is balanced with subtle spice bitterness, all wrapped up in a body that’s soft and slick like satin bedsheets. But while they've managed to capture a classic… Read more
Style
Lager
ABV
4.5%

Bridge Road Brewers Mayday Hills Hoppy Sour

Published June 4, 2020
Am I the only one who sees the words “Hoppy Sour” and can’t help but expect a hoppy kettle sour? I blame the meteoric rise of kettle sours over the past few years for this - my brain has been conditioned to expect this as the norm. But Bridge Road’s newest addition to the Mayday Hills series is not a kettle sour; as with all other Mayday Hills beers, it’s fermented in an oak foedre, and develops its sourness from the yeast and bacteria therein. So, while my brain had the misguided expectation… Read more
Style
Foedre-Fermented Hoppy Sour
ABV
3.8%

Bridge Road Brewers Mayday Hills Table Beer

Published January 3, 2019
The releases from Bridge Road's Mayday Hills series – beers fermented with a strain of Brettanomyces in an oak foeder – have come thick and fast. And, as of summer 2018/19, the Beechworth brewery has decided to introduce one to its year round lineup. In some ways, adding such a beer – particularly one sitting sub-4 percent ABV – to your core range might seem a pretty radical move, yet we've entered a time in which gently soured, farmhouse-inspired beers sitting around mid-strength territory… Read more
Style
Table Beer
ABV
3.8%

Bridge Road Brewers Little Bling

Published March 13, 2015
First there was Bling. Then came Bling Bling. Next up was the new, improved Bling. And now there’s Little Bling, as Bridge Road adds a third blingy string to its roster of IPAs (not counting the rather lengthy list of single hop IPAs, such as Galaxy, Summer, (St)Ella, Vic Secret, even Pride of Ringwood, of course). The Little Bling is, as the name suggests, the smallest of the Bling family but equally eye-catching in its choice of clothing, opting for a mildly hallucinatory skin of vision-wobbling… Read more
Style
Session IPA
ABV
3.5%
Stockists

Bridge Road Brewers

Nationwide at good beer venues in bottle and on tap

Bridge Road Celtic Red Ale

Originally brewed as a one-off for Beechworth's annual Celtic Festival, it proved such a hit Ben had no choice but to make it a year round addition to his range. This rich, deep red ale in the Celtic tradition has a powerful malt body displaying both roasted and toffee characteristics with a hint of nuttiness. It's topped off with minimal bitterness from noble hop varieties.… Read more
Style
Celtic Ale
ABV
5.3%

Bridge Road Beechworth Pale Ale

The beloved Beechy Pale has been flying the flag for Aussie brewed American style pale ales longer than most and remains one of the finest and most enduringly popular examples of the modern style. Originally inspired by the hoppier variations to come out of the States, it's a beer that's been in constant and steady evolution for well over a decade. What's remained consistent through the tweaks in hop selection is, well, its consistency: a beautifully balanced blend of fruity hops – melon and gentle… Read more
Style
Pale Ale
ABV
4.8%

Bridge Road Bling IPA

A big, brash number crammed full of modified malts and hops in Bridge Road's recreation of the classic British style. Back in its earliest incarnations, it was a pretty traditional recreation of English IPAs too, heavy on the rich malts as well as piling on the hops. It's changed over the years, leaning more closely to American, paler in hue and with hops more of the citrus and pine ilk. Indeed, today the Bling sits well within a family of Blings at Bridge Road, from big brother Bling Bling at the… Read more
Style
India Pale Ale
ABV
5.8%

Bridge Road Chevalier Saison

A superb recreation of the classic Belgian farmhouse style, this captures all of the delicate spices and fruit essences you would want in a Saison and was deservedly shortlisted for Best Victorian Beer at the 2010 Australian International Beer Awards. Its part citrusy, part spicy aroma comes from the particular yeast strain used as well as the addition of different fruits, including - on occasion - locally farmed quince. Fantastically refreshing and with a tart, dry finish, it's great with a wide… Read more
Style
Saison
ABV
6%

Bridge Road Robust Porter

A delicious combination of mocha and chocolate flavours and aromas already made Bridge Road's Robust Porter a great beer for the colder months or as an accompaniment to sweet desserts: big without being heavy. A tweak to the recipe in 2016 just added more deliciousness. The brewers adopted some of the malt profile from the Dark Harvest originally created in collaboration with Mikkeller and added in oats and a dash of vanilla. This added smoothness helped the beer take out the Best In Show at the… Read more
Style
Robust Porter
ABV
5.2%
Awards

Best In Show – 2016 Sydney Royal Beer & Cider Awards

Bridge Road Brewers Beechy XPA

Bridge Road's Beechy XPA is the Beechworth brewer's first ever beer. Sort of. That was the Australian Ale, a beer that's updated its look, had its recipe tweaked and changed its name at various times, evolving most recently into Beechy. When it did, it gained one of the brewery's most fun labels too, one suggesting Ned Kelly has taken a dip in a High Country water hole. In time for summer 2018/19, it's evolved again, albeit in format this time around as it becomes the latest Bridge Road beer available… Read more
Style
Summer Ale
ABV
4.4%

Bridge Road Brewers Specials

Bridge Road Brewers New Sky IPA Vol. 3: Triple Dry-Hop Hazy

Published December 5, 2022
I’d never heard the phrase "new sky" before, so I googled it. The first page of results gave me a number of video clips for songs, a solar energy company, and a new-and-improved kind of durable yarn. I’m going to go ahead and guess that Bridge Road aren’t referencing New Sky yarn – although it is described as "surprisingly light", "soft" and "delicious". No, for Bridge Road’s New Sky series, it’s more of a new horizons, dawn-of-a-new-day type thinking.… Read more
Style
TDH Hazy IPA
ABV
6.3%

Bridge Road New Sky IPA Vol. 2: Spectrum Super Cold

Published October 19, 2022
What is a Triple Dry-Hopped Super-Saturated Cold IPA? It’s a fair question to find on the side of a beer can and you can’t blame someone for not knowing the answer. The solution to that riddle is the second instalment in Bridge Road’s New Sky IPA series, with Vol. 2: Spectrum Super Cold. The IPA makes full use of Hop Product Australia’s Spectrum -a hop liquid specifically designed for dry hopping. Here it features in the shape of Eclipse, Citra and Mosaic, while further doses of Citra, Mosaic,… Read more
Style
Cold IPA
ABV
6.9%

Bridge Road Brewers New Sky IPA Vol. 1: Double California

Published August 8, 2022
Clearly, releasing one series of IPAs isn't enough to satisfy the hopheads at Bridge Road Brewers. Maybe living so close to one of Australia's hop-growing regions has caused lupulin to somehow embed itself into their DNA to the point they simply NEeD to keep devising new variations on the India pale ale theme. (Interestingly, I can't recall the last time I typed India pale ale in full. I wonder how many new-to-craft drinkers don't actually know what IPA stands for anymore. Anyway...) Having notched… Read more
Style
West Coast DIPA
ABV
8.0%

Bridge Road Brewers B2 Bomber Mach 12.0

Published June 11, 2022
And once again, like clockwork, Australia's finest imperial Belgian black IPA returns to herald another orbit around the sun by Bridge Road Brewers. The Beechworth brewery keeps throwing out new ideas with such regularity – let's declare an independent micronation, how about a bar made of cardboard – it's easy to forget just how long they've been around. The launch of this beer marks 17 years since Ben and Maria poured their first beers, making Bridge Road easily one of the oldest brewing companies… Read more
Style
Imperial Belgian Black IPA
ABV
10.1%
Stockists

Also available in limited edition packs featuring two bottles, a Teku glass, a stubby holder and tote.

Bridge Road Hazy Harvest & Dark Harvest (2022)

Published April 8, 2022
There aren’t too many independent Australian breweries that have been around for 14 years and far fewer (if any...) have been continually making beers with fresh hops for that long. But Bridge Road are such a brewery, with Ben Kraus having first driven down the road to Myrtleford to get his hands on Hop Product Australia’s hops from the bine back in 2009. While there is an important air of continuation to such beers, 2022 sees some significant changes too, with both the Beechworth's brewery's… Read more
Style
Fresh Hop Beers
ABV
6.4% & 6.6%

Bridge Road Eggster Triple Choclate Ale

Published March 25, 2022
Bridge Road’s Magical Easter Unicorn has undergone a metamorphosis and come out the other side as Eggster, a triple chocolate ale. Did someone at the brewery stop believing in the magical Easter unicorn? Did the constant encouragement for customers to decapitate chocolate bunnies catch the attention of PETA? Or did Bridge Road simply want an excuse to start hiding tinnies of beer around the backyard? Whatever the reason for the change, Eggster is a similar beast but with boosted chocolate character.… Read more
Style
Chocolate Ale
ABV
6.0%

Bridge Road Christmas Beers 2021

Published November 23, 2021
When we wrote up last year’s iterations of these beers, we gave false health information within the first eight words of the write-up. We apologise for any damage caused. We are in the process of firing the writer responsible,† and will do our best to avoid blunders like this in the future. Fat Man, Red Suit, Big Sack is now in its eighth year with the titular festive giftgiver right there on the can’s label – it appears the elves haven’t managed to oust their unkempt boss, and I, for one,… Read more
Style
Red IPA & Pavlova Beer
ABV
7.5% & 7.3%

Bridge Road Brewers Watermelon Sour

Published October 28, 2021
What’s your preferred method for cutting up watermelon? Do you do the triangular wedges that look like pizza slices? Or the variation on the wedge, where you trim off some of the rind to make pine tree shapes? Are you a melon baller, or a melon cuber? I’d be interested in hearing the method preferred by the Bridge Road brew team, since they hand-cut four tonnes – that’s about 700 melons – to go into their Watermelon Sour. Although whatever method they used to cut what they describe as “a… Read more
Style
Watermelon Gose
ABV
4.3%

Bridge Road Brewers NEeD Vol.6: TDH Dip Hop IPA

Published October 15, 2021
Our beer industry sees so many new variations on styles and processes, seemingly each with its own acronym or set of initials, that even a self-respecting beer writer can get confused. I’ve been seeing the word DIPA for enough years that when I saw DIP HOP TDH on Bridge Road’s latest NEeD IPA, I began to interpret it as Double India Pale Hop Triple-Dry-Hopped. But this, fair reader, is not what it means. The name refers to dip-hopping – a process we’ve written about here – and the TDH in… Read more
Style
Triple Dip Hopped DIPA
ABV
8.5%

Bridge Road Raspberry Sour With Passionfruit

Published September 16, 2021
Bridge Road's regular tins of sour beers are becoming the kind of beer release you can set your calendar to, knowing that when one arrives, you probably better ensure you've flipped over for another month. For September, the fruit given a chance to shine is raspberry and passionfruit, though it's the former of those that really gets the spotlight in Raspberry Sour With Passionfruit. Even the vibrantly pink appearance lets you know you're on a path led by the berry and it's that fruit that really… Read more
Style
Fruit Sour
ABV
4.3%

Bridge Road Brewers NEeD Vol.5: Cold IPA

Published August 24, 2021
Cold IPAs are making their way onto the scene as a clean style, bringing a touch of tidiness and refinement to the world of IPA – something like a cross between a lager and an IPA. But Bridge Road’s latest entry in the NEeD series shows that refined doesn’t have to mean dainty and delicate. It might have something to do with Bridge Road’s twist on the style; rather than using a lager yeast for this cold IPA, they’ve used an ale yeast but fermented the beer at a lager temperature. The result… Read more
Style
Cold IPA
ABV
7.0%

Bridge Road Hazy Pale

Published August 10, 2021
When I saw the serene clouds on the can, I figured Bridge Road’s Hazy Pale would super relaxed. I figured wrong. Idaho 7, Simcoe and Citra all provide a rush of aroma like running through an orchard in springtime - ripe peach and nectarine fills the nose, with a hint of candy sweetness following. And when you start to drink, it doesn’t let up - that’s when the confectionery jumps forward to join the fruits in full. This is when orange fruit drink and rosewater join in as well, like the Talus… Read more
Style
Hazy Pale
ABV
6.0%

Bridge Road Blood Orange Sour

Published July 14, 2021
Another month, another gose from Bridge Road. This one has blood orange in the mix, and it brings all kinds of fresh delights to the senses. To the eye, a slightest blush. Golden with a touch of pink. To the nose, a heady rush. Whether you describe it as sour orange or grapefruit, it’s a wonderfully zappy smell. To the mouth, a gentle tang. There’s orange, there’s sour, there’s salt, but the overarching theme is crisp refreshment. If you take small sips, it’s extremely easy drinking. If… Read more
Style
Gose
ABV
4.3%

Plonk Dark Beer Box

Published July 13, 2021
Whether you’re a brewery or booze retailer, reaching 15 years is an important milestone and worthy of a celebration. Canberra’s Plonk have done just that, working with six breweries to create seven unique dark beers sold in a special Winter Beer Box of 12. That’s quite a few numbers to get your head around and quite a bit to unpack (not to mention beers to enjoy) so let’s get stuck into what’s inside. Starting with the lightest in terms of ABV, but certainly not one that’s light in flavour,… Read more
Style
Various Styles
ABV
Various ABV

Bridge Road Brewers NEeD Vol. 4: Tangerine West Coast

Published June 28, 2021
Does anyone else eat an orange, then go from room to room squeezing the strips of peel to spritz that sweet, sweet orange oil aroma throughout the house? Just me? Well, have a try sometime. Smelling Bridge Road’s NEeD IPA Vol. 4 is like spritzing the peel of five different orange-coloured citrus fruits over the house (no lime, lemon or ruby grapefruit here). In truth, the brewers only added one citrus fruit - tangerine - but paired it with a hop bill that works to boost the citrus quality while… Read more
Style
West Coast IPA
ABV
7.0%

Bridge Road Brewers B2 Bomber Mach 11.0

Published June 11, 2021
Sixteen years of beers brings us to the eleventh in Bridge Road Brewers' B2 Bomber series of birthday beers. Arguably what's most remarkable about the series – other than the typically high standard of the beers as they've evolved over the years – is how little else like them has appeared over the decade since the first one took flight. A black Belgian double IPA was a rarity then and remains one now, even with the B2 Bomber's cult status. Clearly, not too many brewers fancy throwing dark malts,… Read more
Style
Black Belgian Double IPA
ABV
9.3%

Bridge Road, Range Brewing & Sailors Grave DDH Oat Cream Mango Pale

Published May 21, 2021
For quite some years, Bridge Road Brewers hosts a hop harvest festival in Beechworth, the High Country Hop. As part of that, they now invite some other brewers to join them to pour beer at the festival and join them in a collaborative brew. For 2021, Range and Sailors Grave were the friends who came along and added their experience, talent and creativity to the mix (unfortunately Range missed 99 percent of the festival, having been required to spend most of it in their hotel room awaiting a COVID… Read more
Style
DDH Oat Cream Mango Pale
ABV
5.8%

Bridge Road Brewers Passionfruit Sour

Published May 7, 2021
The fruited sour train at Bridge Road Brewers isn’t slowing anytime soon with this passionfruit-packed and guava-guided sour joining the club in May 2021. The brewers have been working on getting fruit into sour beer longer than most too, as with their Belgian inspired and cherry-aged The Creek, but this recent run of tinned sours are brewed quicker and are a little more about speedy refreshment more than quiet contemplation. And that's what we’ve got with Passionfruit Sour, where the heavy use… Read more
Style
Fruit Sour
ABV
4.3%

Bridge Road Brewers Harvest Hazy & Dark Harvest 2021

Published March 30, 2021
Snap lockdowns aside, March 2021 is starting to feel a whole lot more normal than 2020. For one, beer festivals are back, including The High Country Hop which not only returned at the end of the month but was bigger than ever, having moved from the carpark at Bridge Road Brewers to the Beechworth Historic Precinct Reserve. The festival’s return also heralds the arrival of Bridge Road’s longrunning fresh hop beers, which have been brewed for far longer than other breweries have been exploring… Read more
Style
Fresh Hop IPAs
ABV
6% & 6.6%

Bridge Road Brewers Mango Sour With Lime

Published March 30, 2021
A month or so after loading some 500 kilograms of berries into a beer, in the month of March Bridge Road again filled their brewery with the same amount of fruit to create Mango Sour With Lime. Like Very Berry Sour, the “Sessional Sour Beer” really pushes the limits of how beers meant to look, with it appearing far closer to a juiced mango over juiced malts in the glass (I know you don’t quite juice malts: please don’t email). Mango Sour is not quite as syrupy as the path many breweries are… Read more
Style
Sessionable Sour Ale
ABV
4.3%

Bridge Road Brewers NEeD Vol.3: Hazy

Published March 22, 2021
They aren't slowing their hop journey at Bridge Road with the NEeD IPA series beers coming out in a rapid succession and three beers and twelve hop varieties into it, they haven’t used a hop variety twice. Volume 3 is a Hazy that’s a little tamer than its predecessors. But don’t expect it to be boring - while the can is a simple beige with an apricot blush (perhaps with a Hex colour code of #FFC77D for those among you who are design-inclined), the glowing beer inside shows off Idaho 7, Loral… Read more
Style
Hazy IPA
ABV
6.5%

Bridge Road Brewers Very Berry Sour

Published February 19, 2021
To bid summer 2020/21 farewell, Bridge Road have packed 500 kilograms into a beer to create a Very Berry Sour. Released in a bright purple and pink tin, the beer itself isn't quite as brightly coloured in the glass though its red and pink tint isn't far off - and probably as close to bright purple as you’d want something you put in your mouth to be. Those kilos of fruit that were thrown in are a blend of boysenberry, blackberry, raspberry and strawberry that sit atop a gose base and while Very… Read more
Style
Berry Gose
ABV
4.3%

Bridge Road Brewers NEed Vol.2: West Coast IPA

Published February 5, 2021
Two months after opening their NEeD IPA program with Hazy Double, Bridge Road bring the second instalment in the series with a West Coast. It’s stacked high with hops, but shares precisely zero of the varieties of the first NEeD; here, you'll find Strata, Amarillo, Simcoe, Centennial, Columbus and Warrior waiting to fill your face with lupulin. Like many of the new wave of West Coast IPAs, it doesn’t bust your lip with a violent uppercut of hop flavour and bitterness; it’s more of a wrestle,… Read more
Style
West Coast IPA
ABV
6.9%

Bridge Road Brewers Peach Sour

Published December 5, 2020
At the same time as their quirky, year round, foeder-fermented Mayday Hills number Hoppy Sour makes the move into cans, a sour of a rather more straightforward nature makes its way from Beechworth's Bridge Road into the nation's bars and bottleshops. Peach Sour is a beer that, put in simple terms, does exactly what it says it's going to do. It looks like peach flesh put through a fine blender, smells of peaches, comes with a tangy, tart edge, fair fizzes on the palate, where fruit and cleansing acidity… Read more
Style
Peach Sour
ABV
4.3%

Bridge Road NEeD IPA Vol.1: Double Hazy

Published November 20, 2020
Screw the preamble. Bridge Road are starting a new IPA program, and the first tinnie off the line has gone off like a stick of dynamite in a fruit stand – it’s packing Mosaic, Galaxy and El Dorado hops, as well as Sabro hops two ways. Glowing gold with a sea foam head, the Hazy Double hits the nose as a huge bowl of mango drizzled with coconut cream. But in the mouth it refracts into a plethora of tropical flavours: imagine you’re stuck in the stocks, helpless before a crowd of rowdy people… Read more
Style
Double Hazy IPA
ABV
7.6%

Bridge Road Fat Man, Red Suit, Big Sack & Magical Christmas Unicorn

Published November 6, 2020
Tis the season to be jolly, COVID's defeated, you can go on holiday. (Look, it almost rhymes and it's early, OK?) Which in Bridge Road's world means the launch of the Christmas advent calendars they pioneered in Australia, plus the return of two seasonal beers. Fat Man, Red Suit, Big Sack makes a first appearance in cans, in which you'll find a red IPA that's all about the specialty malts – clotted cream toffee, syrup sponge cake batter, toasted brittle, caramel tart. That's not to say it’s not… Read more
Style
Red IPA & Vanilla Bomb
ABV
7.5% & 7.3%

Bridge Road Brewers Raspberry Sour

Published October 27, 2020
When a brewery declares the amount of an ingredient added to a beer – hops, fruit, whatever – without putting it in the context of the size of the batch, it doesn't actually mean a great deal. That said, 500kg of raspberries sounds like a lot and as soon as you tip your can of Bridge Road's new gose-style release into a glass you're reassured that it is a lot. This isn't some liquid with a faint hint of pink; this is crimson red and almost thick enough for you to believe there’s raspberry matter… Read more
Style
Raspberry & Lime Gose
ABV
4.3%

Bridge Road Brewers Nitro Imperial Blueberry Sour

Published August 10, 2020
From Jimmy's Bake Shop Isolation Cake via their Mountain Lager and Robust Porter, the nitro-doser has been getting a solid workout at Bridge Road's Beechworth home. And here it gets a fourth shot in the sort of beer that wouldn't have existed a few years ago and certainly wouldn't have been considered for nitro treatment until recently either. First things first: while "Imperial", this fruit sour actually sits at a relatively sedate 6 percent ABV. Where they haven't held back is on the… Read more
Style
Nitro Imperial Blueberry Sour
ABV
6.0%

Bridge Road Brewers Nitro Robust Porter

Published July 24, 2020
The team at Bridge Road Brewers always tend to be at the front of the queue, if not leading it, when it comes to trialling anything new, be that ingredients, techniques, promotional tools, you name it. Right now, while nitro beer in cans isn't new, they're exploring its possibilities in more beers than, as far as we're aware, anyone else in Australia. One of the brewery's longstanding mainstays is the latest to get the treatment, and it's not as if the OG Robust Porter hadn't been getting fuller… Read more
Style
Nitro Robust Porter
ABV
5.2%

Bridge Road Brewers B2 Bomber Mach 10.0

Published July 1, 2020
It might not have been Bridge Road's first anniversary brew but the B2 Bomber sure struck a chord, not just with drinkers but with brewery founder Ben Kraus and his team too. From the off it was a beer that stood out from the crowd – look back over the past decade and you won't find too many other imperial Belgian black IPAs in anyone else's back catalogue. And why might you want to look at a decade? This – Bridge Road's 15th birthday – is the tenth release of the beer. It's one that's always… Read more
Style
Imperial Belgian Black IPA
ABV
10.0%

Bridge Road Brewers Jimmy's Bake Shop Isolation Cake with Nitro

Published June 4, 2020
The first time I went to the Brisbane German Club almost a decade ago, I saw a beer on the menu that had “banana bread” listed among the tasting notes. As someone who’d had very limited experience of wheat beers up to that point, I was intrigued, and ordered "the banana bread beer". I hadn’t known exactly what to expect, but I certainly got impressive banana bread flavours and a new memory. I’ve since tasted plenty of wheat beers with "banana-y" flavours, and have become… Read more
Style
Nitro Dunkelweizen
ABV
6.9%

Bridge Road Brewers Beer Aid

Published April 28, 2020
Such has been the speed with which 2020 has piled challenge upon challenge onto the world, it can be easy to forget it's only weeks ago that communities across Australia were fighting and dealing with the catastrophic fires sweeping much of the country. Not only have Bridge Road Brewers not forgotten, they're eager to give something back to the firefighters who helped tackle the threat to the Victorian High Country, even as they deal with the COVID-19 crisis on top of losing their busy summer tourism… Read more
Style
Pale Ale
ABV
4.8%

Bridge Road Brewers The Harvest Fresh Hop IPA & Dark Harvest 2020

Published April 9, 2020
For breweries in bushfire-impacted regions, it's been hammer blow upon hammer blow in 2020. No sooner had Victoria's High Country brewers seen the risk from fires recede than COVID-19 took hold, meaning plans to welcome visitors back to the region for their annual High Country Hops festival were scuppered by the ban on all non-essential travel. And no matter how much you love wet hop beers, well, it's not going to pass as essential. Thankfully, the pandemic hasn't stopped festival founders Bridge… Read more
Style
Fresh Hop Beers
ABV
6.0% & 6.6%
Stockists

Available widely or from the brewery's online store

Bridge Road Brewers Fruit Salad Gose & Brettanomyces Apricot Sour

Published March 6, 2020
There’s no clearer a reminder of how diverse the beer world has become than when a single brewery releases two beers that from a distance look so similar but up close are worlds apart. Bridge Road have done just that with two fruited sour releases, with both even arriving in different vessels: stubby versus tinnie. First up, there’s the Fruit Salad Gose, which comes inside a tropical fruit tinnie. I picked up an impressive amount of mango on the aroma but upon drinking that side of things was… Read more
Style
Fruit Sours
ABV
4.3% & 4.2%

Wheaty Brewing Corps Apricot's Hour & Blank Czech Pilsener

Published January 12, 2020
To close out 2019 with a bang, the Wheaty Brewing Crew invited long-time friend and collaborator Ben Kraus from Bridge Road Brewers into their house to play with something fruity and sour one more. The fruit of choice this time around was Swan Reach Apricots, with South Australian Bridge Road sales rep Dave lending a hand to pit and slice 40kgs of fresh fruit for the fermenter. The fruit sour saison was then dry-hopped with Aussie HPA-016 and US Amarillo for added stone fruit characters, while the… Read more
Style
Apricot Sour & Czech Pilsener
ABV
3.9% & 5.1%

Bridge Road Hazy Bling IPA

Published July 23, 2019
Bridge Road’s Bling is an elder among Australia’s hop forward releases; it's both one of the country's oldest continually produced IPAs and, as a result of taking some cues from the UK rather than the US, it looks a little darker too. With a rich mix of malts, the beer edges far closer to red IPA territory than many of its peers. And, while the Beechworth brewery has been a pioneer when it comes to brewing some styles locally, hazy IPAs haven't been at the forefront of the Bridge Road release… Read more
Style
Hazy IPA
ABV
6.5%
Bitterness
40 IBU

Bridge Road & Friends Beer Glamp Beers 2019

Published June 27, 2019
The Kraus clan may be heading to Austria for a year spent living with Bridge Road Brewers co-founder Maria’s family, but husband Ben ensured he stayed busy right up until departure day, not only declaring their brewery an independent nation but also launching the Beer Glamp series. Inspired by Sierra Nevada’s Beer Camps, this saw his brewery team joined by Hop Nation, Wildflower and winemaker Patrick Sullivan for a couple of brews in the lead up to the 2019 High Country Hops festival. The NEIPA… Read more
Style
NEIPA & Pilsner
ABV
6.9% & 4.4%

Bridge Road Brewers Saisons de Wilde

Published June 7, 2019
When Bridge Road Brewers use the tag "de Wilde", it means you've got a bit of side-by-side experimentation ahead of you. In this case, it's four saisons side by side once you've opened up your four-pack featuring the original Chevalier Saison then three other versions barrel fermented with wild yeasts sourced from active chardonnay ferments at three of the brewery's favourite wineries then aged in oak for 12 months. Chances are you know the original beer well, but what of the others? Let's… Read more
Style
Saison Variants
ABV
5.8%

Bridge Road Brewers Nitro Mountain Lager

Published May 29, 2019
Carbonation, nitrogenation – who cares as long as there’s bubbles and the beer is good right? WRONG. Unless you’ve been under a rock or in the National Party Room, the Earth is experiencing a little something called human-induced climate change. And the culprit? Carbon dioxide. Now, we’re not suggesting that the gas fizzing up your favourite beer is responsible for catastrophic ecological collapse, we’ll leave that up to the experts. But do you know what isn’t going to be responsible… Read more
Style
Nitro Vienna Lager
ABV
5.0%

Bridge Road Brewers The Harvest Fresh Hop IPA & Dark Harvest 2019

Published April 4, 2019
Bridge Road's fresh hop twosome have become as much part of the annual hop harvest in Australia as the hops themselves. While scores of brewers across the country release all manner of fresh / wet hop beers these days, nobody has been releasing them every year for as long. The Beechworth brewer started out with a single Harvest Ale before adding the Dark Harvest – originally brewed with Mikkeller overnight – and then boosting the former to become The Harvest Fresh Hop IPA. Due to timing and availability,… Read more
Style
Harvest Ales
ABV
6.0% & 6.6%

Bridge Road Magical Easter Unicorn

Published April 4, 2019
Many moons ago (well, 2015), Bridge Road released the Magical Christmas Unicorn, a vanilla ice cream-inspired beer designed to be enjoyed as a dessert tipple. The beer’s become a regular fixture in the brewery’s roster of beers since and now, with Easter on its way, another unicorn has joined the clan. This one’s been given a chocolate twist to better fit the idea it should be hidden in the garden for any grown up Easter egg hunters. It’s an impressively decadent beer with a rich creaminess… Read more
Style
Chocolate Ale
ABV
6.0%

Bridge Road Brewers & Africola Chinotto Saison

Published November 30, 2018
For the third release in its Restaurant Series of collabs, Bridge Road Brewers technically collaborated with the team at Adelaide's Africola. But they managed to enlist the help of a restaurant rather closer to home too, obtaining chinotto fruit from Michael Ryan at Beechworth restaurant Provenance. The citrus was added to a Belgian saison base with the aim of creating something to match the Adelaide venue's South African BBQ style cuisine. What you get is a pale gold pour, unlike the soft drinks… Read more
Style
Chinotto Saison
ABV
5.0%

Bridge Road & Three Blue Ducks Send It Session IPA

Published October 22, 2018
It's funny how these things work. You don't see many sour 'n' smoky Lichtenhainer style beers around then two land from Victorian brewers in a couple of weeks. And now we've had two sessionably minded releases come our way in quick succession bearing the name Send It. However, while Black Hops' "Gold Coast inspired session ale" looks to keep things simple, there's a bit more to cover here. For one, it's the second release in Bridge Road's Restaurant Series of hookups with, you've guessed… Read more
Style
Passionfruit Session IPA
ABV
5.0%

Bridge Road Brewers Mayday Hills Jam & Yuzu

Published October 9, 2018
The Bridge Road brewing team continues to plunder the bounty of its local region for the Mayday Hills series, with JimJam Foods and Mountain Yuzu the latest co-conspirators welcomed aboard. The former provided strawberry jam, which was added to a light farmhouse ale that had been fermented with Brettanomyces in the brewery's foeder; lactose (milk sugar) was introduced along the way too. Little surprise, then, when you're met with big, sweet, sugary jam aromas, supported by a little citrus. There's… Read more
Style
Foeder Fermented Fruit Beers
ABV
5.9% & 6.5%
Stockists

Beer DeLuxe Albury

Sovereign Liquor

Westgarth Liquor

Vin Wine and Spirits

Cellar and Pantry

ACT

Page Bottler

Plonk Fyshwick

More stockists...

Bridge Road Hopped Cola & Mayday Hills Apple

Published August 8, 2018
If you wanted to highlight the many ways Bridge Road Brewers like to approach the world of beverage making, this pair wouldn't be the worst place to start. One isn't even a beer (or wine or cider, both of which have left the Beechworth brewery at times in the past). Hopped Cola is Bridge Road's second non-alcoholic hopped drink, following in the footsteps of Lemon, Lime & Hop Bitters and taking a similar approach. To a pretty full and sweet cola they've added Galaxy hops, which themselves take… Read more
Style
Apple & Cinnamon Red Ale
ABV
6.5%

Bridge Road & Movida Grisette

Published August 6, 2018
Bridge Road Brewers has brewed beers with dozens of beer venues over the years as part of its Bar Series. The Beechworth brewer has also looked to work with restaurants over the years, whether on dinners, beer launches or just being part of a push for more diverse beer lists, often via its Chevalier Saison. So its Restaurant Series, launched with this beer created in conjunction with Melbourne's Movida – and in the same vein as Edge Brewing Project's work with the likes of Brae – feels like a… Read more
Style
High Country Grisette
ABV
5.0%

Bridge Road Single Hop Series 2018

Published August 2, 2018
Ben Kraus and his Bridge Road Brewers team have been pushing the cause of Aussie hops more than any other local brewer for the best part of a decade now, with their Single Hop IPA series just one way in which they've created greater awareness for varieties grown by Hop Products Australia (HPA) in their part of the world (and Tassie). With the HPA lineup altering in recent years, they've had to switch up the hops in the series and have decided to tweak the base recipe for the quartet too, making the… Read more
Style
Single Hop IPA Series
ABV
6.0%

Bridge Road B2 Bomber Mach 8.0

Published June 10, 2018
Same Same But Different... Fans of Bridge Road Brewers who've joined them for the launch of every B2 Bomber from 2011 onwards will be aware that, at heart, the beer has been the same since that first flight. Hoppy, dark and roasty, fruity and based upon a Belgian yeast. Is it an imperial Belgian black IPA? Is it a hoppy Belgian imperial stout? Does it matter when it's so warmly welcomed by beer aficionados with a fondness for giving their olfactory system a workout? Those fans will also know the… Read more
Style
Imperial Belgian Black IPA
ABV
11.5%
Stockists

Available at good beer retailers nationwide

Bridge Road Mayday Hills Death By Lightning

Published April 25, 2018
The naming regime for Bridge Road's Mayday Hills range gets more and more abstruse with each passing release. The past few have opted for images of the most unusual ingredient in the beer – raspberries, honey, elderflower – instead of words; here, we have a man being struck down by a lightning bolt. So, at risk of creating a situation akin to the time we took Hargreaves Hill founder Simon Walkenhorst at his word that a just-released IPA was called Melanie "because it's really melony"… Read more
Style
Sour Amber Ale
ABV
6.2%

Bridge Road Bling De Wilde Series

Published April 23, 2018
Bridge Road Brewers put out a phenomenal amount of beers each year – especially when you consider how many of them are released in bottles as well as on tap. Many of them are experimental, with the brewery exploring new techniques, ingredients, hybrids and the like, in part to see how they turn out but also with an educational aspect; their single hop IPAs can help people understand the characters of different hops, for example; releases like this offer insight into how different yeasts, bugs and… Read more
Style
Wild Fermented IPAs
ABV
5.8%

Bridge Road Mayday Hills Elderflower & Raspberry

Published March 19, 2018
Such has been the rate at which Bridge Road Brewers have been releasing the Brett-and-foeder fermented Mayday Hills beers – we're almost into double figures and it's not even 18 months since Yee Hah! kicked things off – we've not been totally on top of things. So, we'll wrap up two in one go here; sure, Elderflower has been out a while but there's likely still bottles out there and it's one of our favourites in the series to date. And what about it took our fancy? Well, as our notes say, it's… Read more
Style
Brett & Foeder Fermented Ales
ABV
6.0% & 7.7%
Stockists

Available at specialist retailers nationwide

Bridge Road Brewers Mayday Hills Marmalade

Published October 25, 2017
The Mayday Hills series of beers celebrating Bridge Road Brewers' local region is into its second year now, with Marmalade – beer number seven – continuing its simple naming regime. Marmalade features (no prizes for guessing) marmalade, specifically one made from oranges local to Beechworth by Jim Jam Foods especially for the brew. Prior to them being added, the beer went through the same process all Mayday Hills beers do – fermented with Brettanomyces in the brewery's large oak foeder. The… Read more
Style
Brett Citrus IPA
ABV
7.5%

Bridge Road Brewers & 8 Wired Saturday

Published August 10, 2017
The fun with foeder continues apace at Bridge Road Brewers with the latest release combining a few past projects in one. The base beer fermented with Brettanomyces is a pale ale, similar to the first beer to have passed through the brewery's tower of oak. To the mix has been added locally foraged botanicals collected in conjunction with High Country gin producers Reed & Co, as with previous release Thursday. And an old sparring partner of Bridge Road's, 8 Wired founder Søren Eriksen, was involved… Read more
Style
Spiced Brett Pale Ale
ABV
6.0%
Stockists

Bridge Road Brewers

Bridge Road Brewers B2 Bomber Mach 7.0

Published June 26, 2017
We're not quite sure when – or if – there will come an anniversary at Bridge Road Brewers upon which it becomes impossible to up the ante for what's been its birthday beer for the past seven years. But, clearly, this year isn't that year as the B2 Bomber returns, shiny and green, with the brewery claiming they've increased the levels of malt and hops once more in what is probably best described as an imperial Belgian black IPA. The gelatinous beast clocks in at a round 10 percent ABV and is best… Read more
Style
Imperial Belgian Black IPA
ABV
10.0%
Stockists

Bridge Road Brewery

And good beer outlets nationwide

Bridge Road Brewers Wild Red Series

Published June 5, 2017
The team at Bridge Road Brewers has long enjoyed putting out collections or series of beers designed to examine what results from the switching of one particular ingredient. It can be fun and educational at the same time. They've done it with hops, yeasts and barrels and, here, they're back doing it with yeasts and fermentation again – and to quite an extensive degree. They started out with a beefed up red ale as the base before splitting it four ways, filling four sets of refurbished barrels with… Read more
Style
Yeast Series
ABV
Various
Stockists

Bridge Road Brewers

Bridge Road Brewers Mayday Hills Thursday

Published May 30, 2017
Bridge Road Brewers is already up to beer number five in its Mayday Hills program, beers that are fermented with Brettanomyces yeast in the brewery's large oak foeder and celebrate the produce of the region around Beechworth. Thursday represents another leap in concept from the previous four, this time by virtue of being the first dark ale in the series, one which features spent gin botanicals from Reed & Co's Remedy Gin. The botanicals were added to the boil and during fermentation on two separate… Read more
Style
Spiced Brett Dark Ale
ABV
7.5%
Stockists

Bridge Road Brewery

The Public Brewery

And select good beer outlets in VIC, ACT, NSW & QLD

More stockists...

Bridge Road Bar Series: Grain Store Newy Beech

Published May 1, 2017
If you've had the pleasure of spending an evening at Newcastle’s Grain Store during one of their beer degustations, you’ll know they deliver the kind of spread that has the table heaving with as much goodness as you could wish for in a single sitting. A brewery that has long been a favourite guest at said table is Bridge Road Brewers and for the annual feast just gone they went the extra mile – or 450 miles, as the case may be – by collaborating on a beer to be served at the event. Being… Read more
Style
Red XPA
ABV
5.5%

Bridge Road Brewers Harvest Fresh Hop & Dark Harvest 2017

Published April 10, 2017
If you made it along to High Country Hops in Beechworth, this pair should allow you to complete no less than nine Bridge Road beers made with fresh hops in 2017. The brewery had a bar at its annual festival pouring six versions of its Golden Ale late hopped with experimental varieties, all created to allow the team to choose which hops would make an appearance in these two commercial releases. And, due to the hops that were chosen being harvested too late to be ready to pour at the festival, you'd… Read more
Style
Fresh Hop Harvest Ales
ABV
4.8% & 6.6%
Stockists

Bridge Road Brewery

And other good beer stockists

Bridge Road Brewers Mayday Hills Black & Blue

Published March 17, 2017
Bridge Road Brewers has released a number of beers in pairs in the past couple of years. Each time, the idea has been to highlight the manner in which one change to ingredients can alter the final beer, be that the choice of barrel or yeast with which the two beers are developed. This time around, for the third release in the Mayday Hills series – beers that are fermented in the oak foeder at the Beechworth brewery using nothing but Brettanomyces yeast strains – the sole difference between Black… Read more
Style
Brett Fermented Fruit Beers
ABV
6.5%
Stockists

Bridge Road Brewery

And select good beer outlets

Bridge Road Brewers Bar Series: Brewski's Steamy Fingers

Published March 15, 2017
It's pretty commonplace these days to find venues and breweries getting together to brew beers. It wasn't so in 2012, back when the innovators at Bridge Road launched the Bar Series to do just that. Five years on, they're at it again, with the first venue to join them at the brewery being Brisbane's Brewski. Head brewer Ben Kraus and bar owner Matt Emmerson (pictured on brew day) wanted to make a beer that has something of the bar's home state in and decided on a saison featuring finger limes from… Read more
Style
Flavoured Steam Ale
ABV
4.9%

Bridge Road Brewers Mayday Hills T

Published January 16, 2017
It's a case of T for two as Bridge Road Brewers release the second beer in the Mayday Hills range. For those that missed the launch last year, these are beers that are being brewed in the Beechworth brewer's new foeder, which you can read about here. They will all be fermented with nothing but Brettanomyces yeast; the first release was the fruity and fulsome Yee Hah! pale ale and here T is an IPA that features the addition of green tea from High Country neighbours, The Alpine Tea Co. Given it's boozier… Read more
Style
Oaked Brett IPA with Green Tea
ABV
7.4%
Stockists

Bridge Road Brewery

And good beer stockists nationally

Bridge Road Brewers Beer 101 & IPA Pack

Published November 23, 2016
Bridge Road Brewers has always been keen to serve up a slice of education with its beers. Over its decade and more in brewing, there have been releases such as the Single Hop Series showcasing many of the country's hop varieties (with other experimental varieties highlighted in the annual Harvest Ale beers before everyone else started releasing them), a Variety Pack and an IPA Pack. And now, with Christmas approaching, updates on two of them are out and about. The Variety Pack has become Beer 101… Read more
Style
Various styles

Bridge Road Brewers Yee Hah!

Published October 19, 2016
Always on the lookout for new ideas, it was while touring the States that Bridge Road Brewers founder Ben Kraus became enamoured with the idea of installing a foeder at his Beechworth home. These are large oak vessels, most famous in the beer world thanks to Rodenbach but becoming more popular elsewhere. While Rodenbach ages its base beer for up to three years in its 294 giant foeders before (usually) blending with younger beer, in the States Ben saw many brewers simply using them as an extra fermentation… Read more
Style
Brett Pale Ale
ABV
6.0%
Stockists

Bridge Road Brewers

Beermash Cellars

More stockists...

Bridge Road Brewers B2 Bomber 6.0

Published July 27, 2016
Bridge Road Brewer's anniversary beer has become one of its most eagerly anticipated. The B2 Bomber is now into its sixth year and remains the same while changing each year. It's always a combination of dark malts, heaps of punchy hops, a Belgian yeast and heaps of booze. And each year the brewers look to cram more of pretty much everything into it. It's no different for Mk 6.0, for which the brewers added more malt and more hops – 12 different malts and 11 hop varieties including, for the first… Read more
Style
Imperial Belgian Black IPA
ABV
10.0%
Stockists

Bridge Road Brewers

Bridge Road Brewers Harvest & Dark Harvest 2016

Published April 8, 2016
For the past few years, Bridge Road Brewers has been at the forefront of the push for greater recognition for Aussie hop varieties, particularly those developed by Hop Products Australia (HPA). Alongside its range of single hop IPAs, the brewery's annual harvest beers play a great role in introducing people to the flavours and aromas of varieties being grown in the Victorian High Country and Tasmania. Usually, they feature one or more as-yet-unreleased varieties. However, with the Rostrevor hop farm… Read more
Style
Harvest Ales
ABV
5.8% & 6.6%
Stockists

Bridge Road Brewery

Bridge Road & Doctor's Orders Berliner Weisse Pack

Published January 12, 2016
Tis the season of the Berliner Weisse. And why not, as when done well, there's little more suited to a hot Aussie summer (or refreshing one's palate mid sampling session). One of the first brewers to play around with the style here, Darren Robinson of Doctor's Orders, has joined forces with one of the country's foremost collaborators to create not one, not two, not three, but four of them. The original Berliner Weisse (whose few remaining brewers must be looking at what's happening globally with… Read more
Style
Berliner Weisse
Stockists

Bridge Road Brewers

Bridge Road Magical Unicorn Christmas Beer

Published December 17, 2015
Not content with creating a 24 beer advent calendar with a bunch of his Aussie brewing peers, Ben and his team at Bridge Road have gone and created a Christmas beer too. Originally conceived for last night's Grain Store Christmas dinner, the challenge was to create a beer for dessert. The challenge was also given to Modus Operandi, who came up with a spiced pudding porter. With the Bridge Road offering a vanilla custard / ice cream inspired affair, the two beers were served together. As a standalone,… Read more
Style
Dessert Beer
ABV
7.3%
Stockists

The Cherry Tree Hotel

Rupert on Rupert

Bridge Road & Friends Christmas Countdown

Published November 5, 2015
In recent years, we've seen various versions – usually homespun such as this by 250 Beers – of craft beer calendars. The idea is that each day you open a box / drawer / door and inside is a tasty beer for you to enjoy as you countdown the days to Christmas. Now, continuing to plough their furrow as Australia's innovative packagers nonpareil, Bridge Road has gone and done it with real style. They've put together the Craft Beer Christmas Countdown: a properly packaged and suitably colourfully decorated… Read more
Style
Fun
ABV
Various
Bitterness
Nothing bitter about this
Stockists

Dan Murphy's

Bridge Road Brewers – in person or via their online store

Bridge Road Craft Beer Variety Pack

Published September 29, 2015
It was on a trip to the States in 2014 for a festival at Firestone Walker that Bridge Road's Ben Kraus conceived yet another idea for educating the masses about craft beer. The man who has already launched IPA packs both in the form of IPAs packaged with an IPA glass and Hops packs featuring four different single Aussie hop IPAs* spotted variety packs on sale in the craft beer sections of supermarkets and figured he'd launch his own. The toughest part, he says, was deciding which beers to put in… Read more
Style
Various
ABV
Various
Stockists

NB: As of the day this is posted, packs were still on their way to venues. Expect to find them on shelves from early October

Bridge Road & Beer DeLuxe Little REDemption IPA

Published August 25, 2015
We're coming to suspect that Ben Kraus and his team at Bridge Road are operating a series of hidden underground breweries as well as the one that you can see when you visit their Beechworth home. How else to explain the fact that we seem to list plenty of new releases from them (not to mention the regulars they keep pumping out in-house and the small batches that only go to Posse members) and yet still seem to miss some? Either that or Fairy Gary has been spreading some magical beer dust over the… Read more
Style
Red IPA
ABV
5.0%
Stockists

Beer DeLuxe Albury

Bridge Road B2 Bomber Mach 5.0

Published July 16, 2015
To mark ten years of brewing at Bridge Road, the Beechworth mob did what they've done in the past for their anniversary: they brewed the B2 Bomber. But bigger than ever before. The beer would fit into a category along the lines of double black Belgian IPA. Or one marked "Gauntlet Beer". "What's a Gauntlet Beer?" you may ask. "Something we came up with about a third of the way through the bottle," we might answer. "Why?" Well, because it's the sort of beer that… Read more
Style
Double Black Belgian IPA
ABV
9.5%
Stockists

Bridge Road Brewers

Royal Mail

Cinema Nova

New Sydney, Hobart

And in bottle at good beer stockists nationwide

More stockists...

Bridge Road & Modus Operandi Rye Ale Rumble

Published June 26, 2015
When the crew from Modus Operandi drove south from Sydney to Melbourne for Good Beer Week 2015, they made a small detour towards Beechworth and the home of Bridge Road Brewers. They say the main purpose of their visit wasn’t just to drink beer and eat Ned Kelly pies, though there’s no way to tell if that’s the truth. However, while there, they did at least take part in a double collaboration. The way it worked was that the same base beer, using the same malt profile that included a dose of… Read more
Style
Red Rye IPA
ABV
7.1%
Stockists

Bridge Road Brewers

Modus Operandi Brewery

Limited kegs to select craft beer venues nationally

More stockists...

Bridge Road & 8 Wired Nieuw Bruins

Published June 16, 2015
If you're in any way interested in beer, it's hard not to be excited by the times in which we live. While around 60 percent of sales within the "craft" market may be made up of pale and golden ales, there's so much else going on – particularly on the fringes. And particularly on the fringe where people are playing with yeasts and bacteria. It's probably the most risky area in which to experiment but one that is producing some fascinating results. Among the most fascinating is this pair… Read more
Style
Barrel-Aged Wild Fermented Brown Ale
ABV
8.3%
Stockists

Bridge Road Brewers

Good beer stockists nationwide

Bridge Road Harvest Ale & Dark Harvest 2015

Published April 3, 2015
These days, you'll find plenty of people brewing their own variants of wet hop or fresh hop beers come harvest time, utilising hops taken from the farm in their beers on the day they are picked without drying or processing them first. Australia's most notable exponent of such beers has been Bridge Road Brewers who, for a number of years (eight, they reckon), has taken full advantage of their proximity to one of the country's largest hop farms to use unreleased, experimental varieties in the annual… Read more
Style
Fresh Hop Beers
ABV
4.4% & 6.6%
Stockists

Bridge Road Brewers

Good beer venues across the country in bottle and limited kegs

Bridge Road Chevalier Saison le Printemps

Published December 17, 2014
We wouldn't be surprised if Bridge Road founder Ben Kraus surveys the contemporary beer world and allows himself a wee chuckle now and then. For years, his was pretty much the only saison available (there had been Matilda Bay's Barking Duck; Temple brewed one for a while) and now they're all at it. We're not complaining as Crafty has been an advocate for the style for years too; not only does a good one have, as Ben insists, appeal for newcomers to craft beer as well as enough interest for aficionados,… Read more
Style
Elderflower Saison
ABV
6.0%
Stockists

Bridge Road Brewers

Good bottleshops nationwide

Bridge Road Brewers 1000

Published December 3, 2014
The anniversaries are coming thick and fast in the Aussie beer world right now. Among a run of major anniversaries comes this, the 1000th brew by Bridge Road, less than ten years after the first took place in the original brewery a couple of kilometres from the Beechworth brewery's current home in the Old Coach House. To mark the occasion, founder Ben Kraus was always going to go big and, having already released an imperial porter, various high alcohol barrel-aged Belgian beers and a double IPA among… Read more
Style
Imperial Stout
ABV
11.2%
Stockists

Bridge Road

Good beer venues nationwide

Bridge Road Brewers B2 Bomber Mach 4.0

Published August 8, 2014
One of Bridge Road's most popular annual releases is back in its fourth incarnation. The B2 Bomber first took to the skies to mark the brewery's birthday back in 2010. Ever since then (barring one exception) it has been the birthday brew, evolving (well, being beefed up is probably more accurate) each year. It's a melding of styles that takes in black IPA and Belgium, with the former meaning plenty of dark malts and punchy hops, the latter providing a fruity, herbal yeast character. Last year saw… Read more
Style
Belgian Black IPA
ABV
8.6%
Stockists

Bottles:

Grape and Grain Morrabbin

Olinda Cellars

Slowbeer

Barny's

Beer Cartel

The Park Hotel

Kegs:

More stockists...

Bridge Road One Autumn Sunday Morning Somewhere Three Hours North of Melbourne / Fat Man Red Suit

Published July 7, 2014
It's just as well there's no self-imposed, Twitter-like character limit at Crafty Towers. If there was, we'd pretty much have exhausted it with just the names of two new limited releases from Bridge Road. One, which left the brewery late June, was given the dubious honour by Bridge Road's senior brewer Steve of "the worst beer name ever". Said name is One Autumn Sunday Morning Somewhere Three Hours North of Melbourne and the beer is the collaboration with Leo from Birra del Borgo and Tobias… Read more
Style
Black Session IPA / India Red Ale
ABV
Various

Bridge Road Brewers IPA Pack

Published June 8, 2014
Bridge Road Brewers continue their ongoing mission to educate the world about all things hops with a new partnership that has been struck up with glassware manufacturer Spiegelau. The Beechworth brewery has just released a rather eye-catchingly packaged three-pack of its Bling IPA in which the space for a fourth beer is instead taken by one of Spiegelau's specialist IPA glasses, first released last year after being developed in conjunction with American breweries Sierra Nevada and Dogfish Head. Having… Read more
Style
IPA
Stockists

Specialist bottleshops, Dan Murphy's and BWS nationwide

Bridge Road Brewers Enigma New World Pilsner

Published April 28, 2014
The new and experimental hop lovers at Bridge Road Brewers have managed to snag a swag of the latest variety to be put into commercial production by Hop Products Australia. Enigma has been rushed through the development process, which can usually take a decade or more, faster than any other hop variety in HPA's existence. You may recall reading about it a few months ago on this site when HPA's hop breeder Simon Whittock let slip about Enigma in an interview at a time when it was still supposed to… Read more
Style
New World Pilsner
ABV
5.0%

Bridge Road Dark Harvest 2014

Published April 21, 2014
The second of Bridge Road's annual wet hop releases is back. First brewed with Mikkeller in 2012, it's called Dark Harvest for two reasons. The beer was originally brewed at night, partly due to the Danish gypsy brewer's schedule while in Australia (including this and this for newcomers to The Crafty Pint), and is also deep brown - almost black - in colour. The original beer used an experimental hop variety from Hop Products Australia that gave the beer an incredibly distinctive choc orange aroma… Read more
Style
Wet Hop Ale
Stockists

Kegs:

Brother Burger & The Marvellous Brew

The Terminus

Two Row

The Local Taphouse St Kilda

[The Local Taphouse Darlo](/beer/

More stockists...

Bridge Road Harvest Ale 2014

Published April 10, 2014
The annual Bridge Road Harvest Ale release has become an event of note for both beer lovers looking for a hoppy new drop and the hop growers at Hop Products Australia, who learn much about how some of their experimental hop varieties will perform. Each year, head brewer Ben Kraus selects a different, as-yet-unnamed hop variety from the Rostrevor Farm just down the road from his Beechworth brewery, picks the entire crop and throws it into a beer as it is, still fresh and wet from the bines. This year,… Read more
Style
Wet Hop Ale
Stockists

Unblended kegs:

Woodlands Hotel

The Terminus

Goldmines Hotel

The Catfish

Raccoon Bar

Builders Arms

Spotted Mallard

More stockists...

Bridge Road & Nogne O Aurora Borealis II

Published February 12, 2014
Given the extraordinary lengths that Bridge Road and their Norwegian brewing buddies went to to create the Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis beers – involving brews on either side of the planet, and unrefrigerated shipping of said brews from one side of the world to the other in barrels via ship – they will presumably be rather chuffed with their reception. Aurora Australis is currently the highest rated Australian beer ever on Ratebeer and Aurora Borealis scored a top 10 finish in the recent… Read more
Style
Barrel-Aged Tripel
ABV
9.1%
Stockists

Bridge Road

And at good craft beer-supporting bottleshops.

Bridge Road / Grain Store Tony Brown

Published September 10, 2013
Of all the things a particularly active anti-alcohol campaigner could wish for, having a beer named in their honour is probably not that high on the list. But clearly a chap by the name of Tony Brown has been enough of a success at operating at Newcastle's one man "fun police" that in coming up with a name for the Brown Ale they've brewed with Beechworth's Bridge Road, the team at the Grain Store could think of nothing more suitable. As they told us: "This beer is quite the opposite… Read more
Style
American Brown Ale
ABV
6.3%
Bitterness
60ish IBU
Stockists

Grain Store

Josie Bones

Beer DeLuxe

Norfolk Hotel ( Fremantle)

The Scratch

Archive (Brisbane)

[New Sydney Hotel](/beer/bar/new-sy

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Bridge Road B2 Bomber Mach 3.0

Published July 19, 2013
It used to be the case that Bridge Road's Ben Kraus would conjure up a new beer for his brewery's birthday every year. But, given how much everyone loved his B2 Bomber when it first appeared as a kind of Black Belgian IPA, it seems that it's now become the beer to mark each anniversary, albeit with a tweak year on year. And why not? It's the highest rated Australian beer on Untappd, after all, and is a beer with character that develops interest over time. That said, you may want to crack the Mach… Read more
Style
Black Belgian IPA
ABV
8.2%
Stockists

Bridge Road

Berry Bottleshop

The Park Hotel

The Wheaty

Banks Fine Wine

Belgian Beer Cafe, Eureka

Grape and Grain

Olinda Cellars

More stockists...

Bridge Road Bar Series: New Sydney Best Little Elixir In Town

Published June 12, 2013
The Bridge Road Bar Series rolls on and keeps on taking stylistic lurches all over the place. It's a reminder of just how much variety there is in the beer world these days and how different folks have vastly different passions. Stepping up to the oche this time is the crew from Hobart's awesome New Sydney Hotel and, continuing the unnecessary darts metaphor, they've chosen a style that would have been to the liking of The Crafty Pint's rotund, booze-lovin' childhood hero Jocky Wilson: an imperial… Read more
Style
Imperial Pilsner
ABV
7.7%
Stockists

Josie Bones

Beer DeLuxe

Norfolk Hotel ( Fremantle)

The Scratch

Archive (Brisbane)

New Sydney Hotel

[The Wheaty](/beer/ba

More stockists...

Bridge Road Australian Ale - RETIRED

Published May 15, 2013
Ben's first beer under the Bridge Road banner remains an accessible starting point to his range. A balance of sweet malt and hop flavours give way to a slightly fruity finish for an eminently sessionable beer.… Read more
Style
Golden Ale
ABV
4.4%

Bridge Road Bar Series: The Wheaty Weisse Ohne Schuss

Published April 12, 2013
"At The Wheaty we love Hops. So we decided to brew a Sour." An early entry for the best raison d'etre for a beer in 2013. But would you expect anything less from the ladies at Adelaide's premiere beer, whisky and good times joint? This is the latest release in the Bridge Road Bar Series, for which the Beechworth brewery brings bar staff from the nation's leading beer venues to their home to create a beer. According to the Wheaty team, this is a beer, "to all intents and purposes, that's… Read more
Style
Berliner Weisse
ABV
3.0%
Bitterness
Less than 5 IBU
Stockists

April 12 at

The Wheaty

Others to follow, which are likely to include:

Josie Bones

Beer DeLuxe

Norfolk Hotel ( Fremantle)

[The Scratch](/beer/bar/the-scratch-b

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Bridge Road Harvest / Dark Harvest 2013

Published April 8, 2013
The Bridge Road Harvest Ale is developing quite a tradition. Now in its fourth year, it sees the brewery's founder head to his local hop farm in the VIctorian High Country (at Rostrevor) and pluck an as-yet-unreleased experimental hop variety to be used in extravagant amounts in a one-off seasonal release. This year, however, there's been a slight change as there weren't enough hops of one variety to produce a beer to similar specs as before so two were used, two separate beers were brewed, then… Read more
Style
Fresh Hop Ales
ABV
Various
Stockists

Bridge Road

Cookie

Others TBC

More stockists...

Bridge Road Bling Bling Imperial IPA

Published March 21, 2013
He doesn't tend to do things by half, Ben Kraus. Not only does he like to brew collaborative beers with international stars, where he might engage in things such as brewing wet hop beers in the dead of night, sending beers in wine and whisky barrels by sea across the planet or adding wild yeasts from wineries to beers, but he's happy to take beers in all directions and into anywhere that will have him. As such, when the Bling Bling Imperial IPA – a bigger brother to his long-standing Bling IPA… Read more
Style
Imperial IPA
ABV
8.5%

Bridge Road / EDGE Waldo

Published March 12, 2013
You may recall a story fairly recently about a new collaborative brewing effort that crosses hemispheres. It told the tale of how Australian importer and brewer Adam Betts, from Northdown Beer, had hooked up with Christian Skovdal Andersen of Beer Here to create a series of brews. You may even have tasted the beers they put out under the joint Northdown/Bere Here banner, such as the Cool Hops lager and Victoria's Secret wheat beer. Now the pair have launched EDGE Brewing Project, a new brewing company… Read more
Style
Berry Saison
ABV
6.5%
Stockists

Kegs

Bridge Road

The Wheaty

Fox Hotel

The Alehouse Project

Junction Beer Hall

Belgian Beer Eureka

Bottles

More stockists...

Bridge Road / Nogne O Aurora Borealis

Published January 25, 2013
We promised we were going to sample this beer on the eve of its launch so we could pop a listing up before it is poured at Slowbeer. But then we thought: "This is the kind of beer that needs to be enjoyed in the right place at the right time and not necessarily on a Thursday evening watching the tennis." Why? Well, how many beers do you know with the sort of genesis enjoyed by the Aurora Borealis? Along with its sibling, the Aurora Australis, it has been months in the making, months that… Read more
Style
Barrel and Ocean-Aged Quadrupel
ABV
14.9%
Stockists

Bridge Road

Slowbeer

Others TBC

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Bridge Road / Local Taphouse 13 Hours On A Bus

Published December 21, 2012
It worked for the Yeastie Boys with their awesome Gunnamatta IPA, so why not invoke the spirit of Paul Kelly for another beer. With the sixth beer in the Bridge Road Bar Series featuring staff from the Local Taphouse venues in St Kilda and Darlinghurst, they decided to borrow a line from the singer's classic From St Kilda to Kings Cross for their Black India Saison that uses 13 ingredients, including spices in the form of juniper, nutmeg and cloves plus hops in the shape of Nelson Sauvin, Falconers… Read more
Style
Black India Saison
ABV
7.2%
Bitterness
30ish IBU
Stockists

Josie Bones

Beer DeLuxe

Norfolk Hotel ( Fremantle)

The Scratch

Archive (Brisbane)

New Sydney Hotel

[The Wheaty](/beer/ba

More stockists...

Bridge Road / Archive Tennessee Stud

Published December 3, 2012
We're a little late posting this one as it slipped out of Beechworth unnoticed at Crafty Towers, so we can't be sure what's left where. But for the sake of completeness, here's the fifth in the fast-moving Bar Series, this time featuring the input of the crew at Brisbane's Archive. They tell us: "We wanted to create something that reflects our varied backgrounds, collective love of our industry and that of delicious beer. Malty and hoppy, bold but beguiling, flavoursome but still sessionable,… Read more
Style
Oaked Brown Ale
ABV
5.5%
Bitterness
40ish IBUs
Stockists

Josie Bones

Beer DeLuxe

Norfolk Hotel ( Fremantle)

The Scratch

Archive (Brisbane)

New Sydney Hotel

[The Wheaty](/beer/ba

More stockists...

Bridge Road / The Scratch Scrotch

Published November 5, 2012
It's easy to see how the name for this beer was conceived. It's a Scotch Ale from a bar called The Scratch. That said, knowing the guys that run the Brisbane bar, it wouldn't surprise us if they actually decided they wanted a beer that sounded like crotch and worked from there... Either way, the fourth release in the Bridge Road bar series, following beers produced with Josie Bones, Beer DeLuxe and The Norfolk Hotel, is a strong Scotch Ale that's spent time soaking up the characteristics of American… Read more
Style
Whisky Aged Scotch Ale
ABV
6.9%
Bitterness
20ish IBU
Stockists

Josie Bones

Beer DeLuxe

Norfolk Hotel ( Fremantle)

The Scratch

Archive (Brisbane)

New Sydney Hotel

[The Wheaty](/beer/ba

More stockists...

Bridge Road Bar Series: The Norfolk Cecil

Published October 24, 2012
The third beer released as part of the Bridge Road Bar Series, where the Beechworth brewers invite members of staff from top beer bars across Australia to come up with a beer and brew it with them. The Cecil is the work of the team at Freo's Norfolk Hotel and was designed as a Red Brewed with a combination of Cluster, Sauvin, Zythos and Falconers Flight hops, the outcome wasn't quite as red as intended - "a lesson to be learnt for us here at BRB," says head brewer Ben Kraus, but makes up… Read more
Style
Red(ish) IPA
ABV
6.5%
Stockists

Josie Bones

Beer DeLuxe

Norfolk Hotel ( Fremantle)

The Scratch

Archive (Brisbane)

New Sydney Hotel

[The Wheaty](/beer/ba

More stockists...

Bridge Road Bar Series 1: Josie Bones Revolution

Published September 12, 2012
A few weeks back, Bridge Road kicked off its Bar Series, a project that will see it invite staff from some of the country's top beer bars to come up with their idea for a beer then travel to Beechworth to brew it. Each beer is then sold at the brewery and all of the participating bars. You can read more on it here or save your time for drinking instead and head to the venues that will be tapping beer number one. It was dreamt up by the team at Josie Bones and is an Australian Pilsner. The theory… Read more
Style
Australian Pilsner
ABV
5.1%
Bitterness
40
Stockists

Josie Bones

Beer DeLuxe

Norfolk Hotel ( Fremantle)

The Scratch

Archive (Brisbane)

New Sydney Hotel

[The Wheaty](/beer/ba

More stockists...

Bridge Road B2 Mach II

Published July 13, 2012
Bridge Road has concocted some fantastic beers for its birthday releases: a barrel-aged Imperial Porter, a black saison and the B2 Bomber among them. The last of these is probably the one that caused the most excitement among the craft beer cognoscenti, a melding of a Belgian yeast with lots of hops and dark, roasty malts. For the brewery's seventh birthday, it's been brought out of retirement and given a boost in the form of more hops. The result is the same utterly idiosyncratic nose that bamboozled… Read more
Style
Black Belgian IPA
ABV
8.0%
Stockists

Bridge Road

Others tbc

Bottles can be ordered from info@bridgeroadbrewers.com.au

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Bridge Road / Mikkeller Dark Harvest

Published April 18, 2012
When we cracked our sample of Dark Harvest, the reaction was instant. "Chocolate orange!" we cried. Then we thought that might be a stupid thing to think. But we told Ben at Bridge Road anyway, opening ourselves up to the risk of being unmasked as utter charlatans. Thankfully word came back that "the hops were a research variety that showed huge orange and mandarin characters in the paddock. Good that you got some choc orange, that was the plan." Phew! Dodged that bullet. So,… Read more
Style
Hoppy Dark Harvest Ale
Stockists

Bridge Road

Josie Bones

and other venues TBC

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Bridge Road Pride of Ringwood IPA

Published February 10, 2012
It either says we've got a long way to go to develop our nasal skills or that even the much-maligned Pride of Ringwood hop can get fruity when given the chance to shine. The traditional Aussie hop used for bitterness in many mainstream beers - and more craft ones than you might imagine - is viewed by some in the local beer world as the equivalent of a Dutch oven - and not the thick-walled one used for cooking. Yet it's been undergoing something of a revival, with Temple using it and (almost) nothing… Read more

Bridge Road Summer IPA

Published January 23, 2012
The Bridge Road crew are getting together a nice line in single Aussie hop IPAs, with the Summer following the hugely popular Galaxy and relative newcomer Stella off the rank - and with the unlikely Pride of Ringwood IPA to follow. Summer is a hop variety formerly known as Summer Saaz and has been developed by Hop Products Australia. Those who've ploughed into the Galaxy and Stella IPAs will find this one much more subtle; don't expect to be blown away by pungent aromas, instead it's a gentler, floral… Read more
Style
IPA
ABV
5.0%

Bridge Road / Ní¸gne í? India Saison (Oz)

Published October 20, 2011
The first version of the Bridge Road / Ní¸gne Ă­? collaboration to hit the shelves Down Under is the one brewed by Ben Kraus on his return from Norway, using the same recipe as that concocted with Kjetil Jikiun earlier in the year. The story is that the pair of saison lovers decided to make one with a bunch of Aussie hops that weren't available in Europe at the time of the brew. Hop Products Australia sent Stella and Galaxy varieties over and both were used to create a highly hopped, high alcohol… Read more
Style
Highly hopped saison
ABV
7.5%
Stockists

The Local Taphouse St Kilda

The Dispensary Enoteca

McCoppins

[Local Bottle Store & Provisions](/beer/bottleshop/the-local-bottle-store-provi

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Bridge Road Single Hop IPAs (bottled)

Published September 9, 2011
A handful of bars around Australia have offered their punter the chance to educate themselves hoppily courtesy of Bridge Road's single hop IPAs and now you can do it from the comfort of your favourite armchair / hammock / ditch. We doubt you need telling about Galaxy, the big cheese of Hop Products Australia's development program in recent years that's doing its thing in beers across Oz, while Stella is described as its stepsister - a cross between an Aussie and European variety. The former is all… Read more
Style
IPA
ABV
4.8%
Stockists

Bridge Road

Slowbeer

Purvis Beer

Purvis Beer Richmond

[Local Bottle Store & Provisions](/beer/bottleshop/the-loc

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Bridge Road Stella IPA

Published August 4, 2011
The odd keg (and one cask) of this beer have been floating around for the past week or so, but we thought we'd fire it up on Crafty on International IPA Day, on which it is being featured at a number of venues. The beer takes the concept of Bridge Road's Galaxy IPA, which has been brewed fairly regularly over the past 18 months, but uses a new hop variety developed in Tassie. From start to finish, nothing but Stella is used, allowing the beer to be a showcase for a hop described by Hop Products Australia… Read more
Style
IPA

Bridge Road Saison Noir

Published July 23, 2011
Bridge Road founder Ben Kraus is making a nice habit of pulling something special out of the bag to mark his brewery's anniversaries. And with this - a beer which suggests that while the first half of 2011 belonged to black IPAs the second will belong to black saisons, what with Doctor's Orders Synapse having appeared already - that tradition continues. You can plot the evolution that's led Ben here, from the spectacular Oak-Aged Imperial Porter of the fourth anniversary through last year's mightily… Read more
Style
Black Saison
ABV
6.5%

Bridge Road Dog's Breakfast (Brew 500)

Published May 17, 2011
A beer that could have been called the kitchen sink, this is Bridge Road's 500th brew - a milestone marked with a beer created in tribute to one of the brewers' favourite parts of the day: breakfast. Although black pudding, bacon and eggs were rejected as ingredients, little else was. In went fruit toast, muesli, coffee beans, loose tea, maple syrup, honey. And the result? Less crazy than one might imagine. A deep, dark brown beer, the smoked malts added to create a hint of bacon aroma are there… Read more
Style
Dark lager
Stockists

Josie Bones

Cookie

Biero

The Local Taphouse St Kilda

Beer DeLuxe

[The Local Taphouse Darlo](/beer/bar/the

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Bridge Road's The Harvest (2011)

Published April 16, 2011
When a brewer makes it clear he's adding a truckload of wet hops to his hop harvest beer - and not allowing anything but wet hops anywhere near the brew - you've got to assume he's aiming for a beer that encapsulates as best as possible the experience of grabbing a handful of hop cones straight from the vine. And from the moment you pop Bridge Road's third annual Harvest into a glass, that's what you get. Just like drinking a fresh Stone & Wood Pacific Ale is like sticking your face into a bag… Read more
Style
Hop Harvest Ale
ABV
4.6%

Bridge Road Chevalier Dunkelweizen

Published February 11, 2011
With so much attention lavished on the other two members of the Chevalier range - the Saison and Biere de Garde - the Dunkel's been shunned a little: it's like the Beechworth Cinderella that's picked on and kept out of sight by her ugly sisters (although we're not suggesting there's anything ugly about either of those beers - quite the opposite). But just as Cinderella had her little glass slipper, so the Dunkelweizen has a little trick up its sleeve, in the form of a brand new recipe from brewer… Read more
Style
Dunkelweizen
ABV
5.2%

Bridge Road Saison de Printemps

Published December 21, 2010
For their second variation on the Saison theme, the Bridge Road brew team has added elderflower and blueberries to their highly rated beer to create a one-off "Spring Saison", having twice experimented with quince. Once again, both additional ingredients are sourced locally - the elderflower at the brewery itself - and once again it's a markedly different beer to its parent. It's cloudier in appearance and has something of a blood orange tinge compared to the original's light straw colour,… Read more
Style
Fruit-infused Saison
ABV
6.0%

Bridge Road Galaxy IPA

Published November 20, 2010
NOW RELEASED IN BOTTLES! Named after the Australian hop variety that has done much to influence beer styles in Australia in recent years, the Galaxy IPA was first brewed by this Beechworth brewer last year. Using nothing but the Galaxy hop both for bittering and aromatics / flavour, the 2010 variant was unveiled for the first time on the first day of October's Microbreweries Showcase. This year there's a higher amount of dry hopping - 12kg in 800l - resulting in a lighter, less bitter beer that's… Read more
Style
India Pale Ale

Bridge Road Summer Ale

Published November 19, 2010
An exclusive release for members of Bridge Road's Posse, this is a pale Belgian ale developed as an easy drinking summer beer with a difference. It uses a basic malt recipe of Australian pale malts and two different Belgian yeast strains. According to Ben Kraus, the result is "a mild beer with minimal bitterness and a fruity finish from the yeast strains. The plan was to assess the beer after primary ferment and then decide on a hop regime for dry hopping. We have so far added Centennial and… Read more
Style
Belgian Pale Ale
ABV
4.5%
Stockists

Posse members only

Bridge Road B2 Bomber

Published August 27, 2010
The Bridge Road crew like to make a statement with their anniversary beers and the 2010 special is no exception. A true melding of styles, the B2 Bomber is a Black Belgian IPA, bringing together darker, roasted malt varieties, a swagful of hops and a Belgian yeast variety in a quite intriguing mix. The combination of aromas when the dark-as-night beer first poured from the black-labeled champagne bottle like a huge, foam-headed espresso had Crafty confused: "A bag of rubber bands?" Further… Read more
Style
Black Belgian IPA
ABV
8.5%
Stockists

Bridge Road Brewery

Slowbeer (growlers and bottles)

Royston

Beer DeLuxe

[Local Taphouse St Kilda](/beer/bar/local-taphouse-st-kil

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Bridge Road Megachile Pluto Braggot

Published July 28, 2010
The first brew devised by one of Ben's fellow brewers, Nardia McGrath, this is a recreation of an incredibly rare beer style dating from Medieval times. A full-bodied, red-blooded honey and ale combo, it mixes a fruity Belgian yeast with UK and European malts, a touch of cinnamon and nutmeg and a serious whack of Red Stringybark honey from Beechworth in a 10 percent ABV beast of a drink that's part sweet liqueur, part ale as hinted at by the hop bitterness that picks up when the spicy honey flavour… Read more
Style
Braggot
ABV
10%

Bridge Road Chestnut Pilsner - Retired

An experimental batch of lager featuring chestnuts grown locally to the brewery in 2009 proved successful enough for a new variant to return a year later as a permanent fixture on the Bridge Road lineup in 2010, this time as the Chestnut Pilsner. Clean and crisp, in part thanks to the Galaxy hops also grown locally in the Ovens Valley but also the three months this beer spends conditioning before release, it's a traditional beer style given a subtle nutty twist.… Read more
Style
Pilsner

Bridge Road Chevalier Biere De Garde

Another take on a fairly rare European style, this is comfortably the biggest beer in the Bridge Road range, other than occasional specials. Loosely based on a traditional French / Belgian farmhouse ale, it contains spices that bounce off the hefty malt backbone to create a dried fruit aroma with hints of star anise and clove, all in combination with fruity esters from the yeast strain. A complex beer that shows its full range as it warms, it's a good match for game dishes and desserts.… Read more
Style
Biere De Garde
ABV
7.5%

Bridge Road Chevalier Dunkel Hefeweizen

Having traced his family roots back to Germany, it was only right that Ben Kraus should create some of its beer styles. This one, from the southern state of Bavaria, has enjoyed a renaissance in its homeland in recent years with young Germans discovering a taste for its full aroma and flavour. With big wafts of clove and banana on the nose paving the way for a rich, roasted choc-banana flavour followed by a lingering roast bitterness. The beer underwent a reinvention in 2012 when Ben introduced a… Read more
Style
Dunkel Hefeweizen
ABV
5.2%

Bridge Road Brewers Golden Ale – Retired

While, even by modern standards, Ben Kraus from Bridge Road Brewers releases heaps of one-off and seasonal beers, for the most part his core range has remained the same for a few years, the odd tweaked recipe notwithstanding. Yet with the release of this Golden Ale, the core range is altering. Out goes his first ever beer, the Australian Ale (which will remain as a seasonal release) and in comes a new session beer. It's a gleaming bright golden affair with a light fluffy head from which candied lemon… Read more
Style
Golden Ale
ABV
4.4%