Barossa Valley Brewing

These days, beer lovers still tend to return from trips to the USA enthused by the beers they've sampled on their travels. But they also know they can lay their hands on some great local brews too. It wasn't always the case, however, as Denham D'Silva learned when he spent time Stateside studying and working as a merchant banker. When in the US he could sample an array of flavoursome craft beers; on his return to Oz it was the same old, same old. So he did what any sensible person would do: he started a brewery.

Originally opened in 2005 at the Chateau Yaldara winery, it later moved into its own home after Denham bought a beautiful old building on the edge of Tanunda that had previously been home to a restaurant. He erected a new building at the rear to house an impressive five vessel Bavarian Brewery Technologies brewhouse from California, fitted an eight tap bar inside the original home and his dream for Barossa Valley Brewing was complete.

Today, it's one of the most picturesque of all Aussie microbreweries to visit. Visitors are encouraged to enjoy their schooners and tasting paddles of beer or glasses of Barossa Valley wine in the shade of the trees on the lawn or on the deck completed in late 2013 that allows you to peer into the brewery as the brewer goes about his business.

Since the end of 2013, a number of brewers have worked at Barossa, including for a period James Collison, a successful home brewer who, just as Denham abandoned a career in high finance to start a brewery, turned his back on life as an engineer to brew beer. He did so under the guidance of brewing director Neal Cameron, head brewer at the Australian Brewery, and kicked off a new spate of experimenting at the brewery, even building a 100-litre pilot system to play around on so he doesn't always have to brew 1800 litres of whatever takes his fancy.

His successors now have a far larger brewery in which to play – as well as more toys. A new shed has been attached to the original brewery building as Denham adds a contracting side to the business.

It's not the only thing that was new in 2016, as Barossa Valley Brewing underwent a significant branding overhaul. Some beers were renamed, the labels were given a colourful new direction and, most significantly, the beers were packaged in cans instead of bottles.

Now year round, half a dozen Barossa Valley beers are always on tap at its Tanunda home alongside a non-alcoholic ginger beer and a locally-produced cider, while the kitchen serves up sharing plates designed with beer in mind. Given it's located in one of the country's foremost wine regions, there are regular beer vs wine dinners too. Not that there's rivalry with the local vintners; it's quite the opposite with joint projects, such as the Threesome beer-wine hybrid, frequently taking place. After all, they do say it takes a lot of beer to make a good wine.

Name
Barossa Valley Brewing
Address

2A Murray Street
Tanunda
SA 5352

Phone
08 8563 0696
Open Hours

Thurs to Sun: 12pm to 10pm

Tours

Sat & Sun: 12.30pm


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

Barossa Valley Brewing Regulars

Barossa Valley Brewing Aussie Pale Ale

Published April 5, 2018
Barossa Valley's head brewer Tom O’Reilly tends to favour a naturalistic approach to his brewing. And a bit of native Australia makes up this beer, an Aussie pale ale with a difference. It was his idea to add lemon myrtle picked fresh from the Adelaide Hills late in the ferment alongside a load of Galaxy hops, with the intention of creating a thirst quenching lawnmower beer with a twist. Very pale in appearance, pouring a hazy straw to light golden in colour, the lemon myrtle is really quite punchy… Read more
Style
Pale Ale with Lemon Myrtle
ABV
4.1%

Barossa Valley Brewing Indian Summer Session Ale

Published March 23, 2017
The Barossa Valley is well known wine country, home to some of the best wineries and vineyards in the world. People swarm the region weekly to load up on the latest vintages and tour around in style, often making a stop at Barossa Valley Brewing for something a little different. Now, drinking wine all day can tend to send people sideways if not careful and that is where the Indian Summer Session Ale comes in. The idea was to create a beer with the full hoppy flavours of the brewery's gold medal-winning… Read more
Style
Mid-strength
ABV
3.5%

Barossa Valley Brewing Chan van Damme

Published March 23, 2017
This beer was born from the merging of two very different cultures: Belgian and Vietnamese. Made in collaboration with the brewery's local Vietnamese restaurant, Ferment Asian, the idea was to make a beer for the restaurant's taps that uses its garden’s fresh ingredients. Lemongrass was used to create the aroma while Sichuan pepper was added instead of the standard coriander. As for the name, that came from another melding together of sorts: famous martial artists and actors Jackie Chan and Jean-Claude… Read more
Style
Spiced Witbier
ABV
4.4%

Barossa Valley Brewing French Saison

Barossa Valley Brewing's version of a European farmer's ale, originally brewed for farm workers as a thirst quencher on a hot summer's day. This Saison is brewed using cracked coriander and crystallised ginger and the finest German malts and hops. This beer is one of the owner's favourites when looking to quench a thirst but still excite the palate. It has been brewed so as to be a thin, dry beer with the complexity from the spices. The French Saison yeast adds acidity and additional aroma, a beautiful… Read more
Style
Saison
ABV
5.2%

Barossa Valley Brewing Hop Heaven Easy IPA

This is a beer that's been on quite the journey, starting out as Barossa Valley Brewing's take on the West Coast USA pale ales under the banner Organic Ale before becoming Hop Heaven Organic Ale then Hop Heaven Easy IPA. One thing it's maintained over the years is its appeal as a lively, aromatic, fruity beer, picking up some high profile gold medals along the way. In its most recent iteration, the booze content has been moved to 4.7 percent ABV, while the nigh on copper colour hints at a pretty… Read more
Style
Session IPA
ABV
4.7%
Awards

Gold – AIBA 2016 & 2017

Barossa Valley Brewing Barossa Pils

For years, Barossa Valley had a German-inspired pilsner in their lineup; these days, it's a beer influenced by the Czech classics albeit with a twist, one that sees them ferment the beer at a slightly higher temperature than is typical for lager yeasts to draw out some fruity esters. For the main, however, it's pretty much what you'd expect from a pilsner, heavy on noble hop characters – deeply floral, almost musty and perfumed – with a fair amount of malt sweetness and a relatively full body.… Read more
Style
Pilsner
ABV
4.7%

Barossa Valley Brewing I Can't Believe It's Not Bacon

Another update on a former beer from the Barossa team, this replaced Barossa Smoke in the lineup, dropping the alcohol content but retaining a focus on smoked malts to create a beer of the ilk made famous by the brewers of Bamberg. It pours a deep amber and fires off aromas that are more in the smoky than meaty territory often associated with such beers, like bacon in which the rind has been cooked to a crisp rather than given a light toasting. There's a sharp edge to the smokiness too, one reminiscent… Read more
Style
Rauchbier
ABV
5.5%

Barossa Valley Brewing Canis Major IIPA

There's long been a double IPA in the Barossa Valley Brewing oeuvre, both under the straight Double IPA name but more often as Canis Major. It's a beer that's picked up its fair share of glory over the years too, from a Best Beer In Show gong at the Royal Adelaide Beer Awards in 2014 to a gold at the 2017 Craft Beer Awards. It's evolved a little over time too, but essentially remained in "throw everything at it" territory. Thus, while you'll pick up a fair whack of citrus, pine and resin… Read more
Style
Double IPA
ABV
8.0%

Barossa Valley Brewing Specials

Barossa Valley & Friends Limoncello Sour & Lotus Pale

Published March 17, 2023
The folks at Barossa Valley are always working alongside local artisan producers, with Ambra Spirits joining the gang here. They're South Australian spirit producers that use old Italian recipes passed down over generations. For Limoncello Sour, their Limoncello was added to a lightly soured base beer, bringing bright, zesty lemons to the party. The rind comes through on the nose alongside a little rosemary, while there's some initial syrupy lemon sweetness within the light body which harmonises… Read more
Style
Limoncello Sour & Hazy Pale
ABV
5.0% & 5.8%

Barossa Valley Brewing Hazy Hop Focus: Eclipse

Published August 11, 2022
Sometimes you don't need to say much to let people know what to expect from a beer (admittedly, a rarity with this site...). This single hop Hazy from Barossa Valley Brewing is a case in point. It looks and smells as it should with the orange juiciness delivered with a style-suitable rotundity and even the bright orange label an indicator of what Aussie Eclipse hops bring to the party. So, if you like very fruit forward, sweet-and-pithy-more-than-bitter hazies, this NEIPA will put a smile on one's… Read more
Style
Single Hop NEIPA
ABV
6.3%

Barossa Valley Brewing Rocky Road

Published June 15, 2022
Barossa Valley Brewing have caught the eye with many great beers released over the years, across multiple styles, but when it comes to GABS beers they tend to stick to the sweet stouts. And in 2022 it's no different as they punch out a Rocky Road-inspired imperial. Added to the boozy base stout are toasted coconut, vanilla, raspberry and peanut butter, which combine to produce a decadent beer. With Barossa Valley Brewing saying it's been a rocky road over the past few years and now is the time sit… Read more
Style
Rocky Road Imperial Stout
ABV
9.1%

Barossa Valley Brewing Belgian Strong Ale

Published May 7, 2022
When it came to marking his 50th birthday with a beer, Barossa Valley Brewing founder Denham D'Silva decided to head back to the early years of his beer journey: back to those he enjoyed while living in Brussels as an 18-year-old. The style he landed upon is one any visitor to the Belgian capital simply has to enjoy at least once from a goblet at one of the city's cafés: a golden strong ale. As with many classics from the old world, they're beers that on paper look simple enough: good malt, hops… Read more
Style
Belgian Golden Strong Ale
ABV
8.5%

Barossa Valley Brewing Double Mosaic NEIPA

Published April 8, 2022
From late 2020 onwards, Barossa Valley Brewing have spent considerable time exploring hops via their Hop Focus NEIPA series in which hazy beers with soft bases are packed with a single hop. It all kicked off with Mosaic; now, in 2022, the South Australian brewers have decided to turn things up a little with a Double NEIPA series served in 440ml cans. The first release sits at 9.5 percent ABV and, fittingly, they've launched it with Mosaic, which delivers quite a sticky level of mango, peach and… Read more
Style
Double NEIPA
ABV
9.5%

Barossa Valley Brewing West Coast Juicy

Published December 22, 2021
After a few years in which IPAs with their genesis in the breweries of the eastern states of the US gobbled up much of the ground previously occupied by West Coast IPAs, there's been a fightback by the brighter, leaner, more bitter old-timers. At the same time, there are plenty of brewers who've shrugged their shoulders and wondered: "Why not both?" It's turned out some rather delightful results too: vibrantly aromatic, juicy hop forward beers with an underbelly of drying bitterness. With… Read more
Style
Juicy IPA
ABV
6.0%

Barossa Valley Brewing Celebration Ale IIPA

Published October 4, 2021
Barossa Valley Brewing have experienced repeated success at the Adelaide Beer & Cider Awards in the past and in 2021 took things to the next level. Their run of awards began in 2014 when their Canis Majoris IIPA claimed Champion IPA and Best In Show, before being retired years later. When they took out Champion Small Brewery at the 2021 awards, their brewers were asked which beer they'd like to bring back and the IIPA was a clear favourite. The reboot tagged Celebration Ale isn't lifted straight… Read more
Style
IIPA
ABV
8.0%

Barossa Valley Brewing Barrel Aged Blonde

Published July 6, 2021
When you brew beer in the heart of one of Australia’s top wine regions, there are some pretty clear advantages. For one, there are the tourists such a place brings and the high chance they might be looking for something different during a day spent sampling shiraz. But there’s also the wealth of well-kept barrels that have spent years soaking up wine and ready to be filled with beer. It's that part of their region Barossa Valley Brewing have utilized with their Barrel Aged Blonde, which uses… Read more
Style
Barrel Age Blonde
ABV
5.9%

Barossa Valley Brewing NEIPA: Mosaic

Published December 21, 2020
The arrival of Barossa Valley Brewing’s NEIPA also signifies the launch of a new series of beers. Each release will focus on a specific hop, invited to show off their aromas and flavours atop a NEIPA base, with Mosaic the first variety to be given the royal treatment, and the beer's arrival coinciding the brewery's 15th birthday. Hip hop hooray. Pouring with an appealing heavy haze and a bright orange colour, Mosaic's tropical and stone fruit aromas announce themselves boldly: a blend of mango… Read more
Style
Single Hop NEIPA
ABV
6.3%

Barossa Valley Brewing Imperial Red IPA

Published August 28, 2020
Barossa Valley Brewing love brewing limited releases in a year, while their core range is locked down and solid. However, there's also a select few beers that find themselves in the middle. They aren’t brewed just once, and they aren’t quite in the core range. And that's where the Imperial Red IPA sits. Inspired by their well known Canis Major IIPA, it takes the West Coast IPA elements of Canis and adds a toffee kicker. It seems the brewing team have nailed the brief too, starting with the deep,… Read more
Style
Imperial Red IPA
ABV
8.0%

Barossa Valley Brewing COWIT-20

Published June 3, 2020
Sometimes when the world is all doom and gloom, we need a little bit of fun in our lives, a little reminder to look at a situation as glass half full. Cue Barossa Valley’s latest, COWIT-20, a spiced herb beer that looks to shine a light on the positives that have come from the pandemic. Positives such as fuel dropping to under a dollar a litre [And the fact we barely need to use it – Editor], pollution noticeably improving in some cities, wildlife returning to otherwise empty canals and streams… Read more
Style
Spiced Witbier
ABV
4.5%

Barossa Valley Brewing Peanut Butter Chocolate Coffee Milkshake

Published June 3, 2020
The Barossa Valley brewing team had a little bit of spare time on their hands and decided to experiment with two of their most popular darker beers – the Chocolate and Coffee Stout and Peanut Milkshake Stout – melding the peanut butter sweetness of the latter with the richness of chocolate and coffee in the former. The coffee comes from local provider Bean Addiction, the peanut introduced via PB2 powder – dehydrated peanut. It makes for an experience close to the perfect dessert stout, as… Read more
Style
Peanut Butter, Chocolate & Coffee Milk Stout
ABV
6.5%

Barossa Valley Brewing Harvest Heaven 2020 Wet Hop Ale

Published April 24, 2020
For the third year in a row, the Barossa Valley Brewing team ventured into the Adelaide Hills to help farm hops for their wet hop release. Within two hours of pulling them off the vine, they were in a fermenter filled with fresh wort, imparting their fresh juiciness into the beer. The result is a beer that allows you to take a mini holiday to a tropical island, even while in lockdown. Barossa Valley’s Wet Hop IPA possesses a few different elements compared to some other SA wet hop releases, which… Read more
Style
Wet Hop IPA
ABV
6.0%

Barossa Valley Brewing Peanut Chocolate Milkshake

Published May 31, 2019
These days, with some parts of the beer world like a year round GABS, the festival beers brewed for the annual beer circus come in all shapes and sizes. You'll always find those with odd ingredients, funky sours, turbid IPAs and those pushing the extremes of booze content. Yet there remains a place for the sort of beers the earlier runnings of the festival helped gain some limelight: sweet stouts. And this, kind of, at least, is where Barossa Valley Brewing's 2019 entry sits. As the name suggests,… Read more
Style
Peanut Butter Chocolate Porter
ABV
6.5%

Barossa Valley & Beer From Ben & Bucket Boys Gose Duo

Published April 22, 2019
This collaboration between Barossa Valley Brewing, Beer From Ben and Bucket Boys started with love. When Benjamin Miller was visiting the Barossa Valley to propose to his partner, he stopped in to the brewery for a beer and struck up a conversation with owner Denham D'Silva. It continued over the next few weeks via email and phone, before the pair decided a collaboration needed to happen. So Ben brought in his brewing buddy, Jay Cook from Bucket Boys, and suddenly there were three in the bed... The… Read more
Style
Fruit Gose
ABV
4.8% & 5.0%

Barossa Valley Brewing Hazy Heaven Wet Hop NEIPA 2019

Published April 1, 2019
For the past couple of years, come harvest time, the Barossa Valley Brewing team has ventured to the Hills Hop farm to pick hops fresh from the bine. This time around, they got their families involved and managed to get their hands on close to 60kgs of mainly Cascade flowers. These were rushed back to Tanunda where the brewers had already begun work on the 2019 Wet Hop NEIPA. Less than an hour after being picked, the hops were added to the beer, ready to allowing resinous oils work their magic.… Read more
Style
Wet Hop NEIPA
ABV
6.5%

Barossa Valley Brewing NAIPA

Published January 18, 2019
Barossa Valley Brewing feels like a brewery that flies under the radar somewhat when it comes to those nudging the envelope. Go back over the years and you'll find honey beer, beer-wine hybrids, fruit beers and more besides. Even their core range Aussie Pale Ale comes with a dose of lemon myrtle. Here, they're playing around again, admittedly a little tongue-in-cheek, as they look to create a new spin on one of the styles du jour: turning NEIPA into NAIPA – Native Aussie IPA – thanks to the addition… Read more
Style
NEIPA with Davidson's Plums
ABV
6.5%

Barossa Valley Brewing Chocolate Coffee Stout

Published July 20, 2018
The Cosmos can work in funny ways. For some reason (it was having the word "segue" pop into my head, if you really want to know), the tasting notes for this beer rapidly started incorporating references to drivetime DJs before moving into Smooth FM territory. Said note-taking done, I picked up the can to see what the brewers had to say and they were all about Barry White's Smooth FM suited crooning. So, you can probably imagine where this is going... The gold medal winning beer from the… Read more
Style
Chocolate Coffee Stout
ABV
7.0%
Awards

Gold – Craft Beer Awards 2017

Barossa Valley Brewing Vitamin Beer

Published June 11, 2018
When it comes to each year's GABS, it seems most brewers creating a festival beer take one of a few approaches: start with a style du jour and do something extreme or unusual with it; find the least likely ingredient they can and put it in a beer (belly button fluff, whale vomit, snails and so on); or create a sweet, sweet dessert beer in the hope of winning over drinkers in the space of 85ml. Here, however, Barossa Valley Brewing seems to have set out to design a beer to help balance out the sugary… Read more
Style
Super Food Ale
ABV
7.0%

Barossa Valley Brewing Hop Haze Heaven Fresh Hop NEIPA

Published March 29, 2018
The change from summer to autumn in Australia heralds the start of the hop harvest and, with it, an ever-growing number of fresh hop beers featuring hops ripped from the bine and added to the brew as fast as possible. In 2018, Barossa Valley Brewing teamed up with Adelaide Hills hop growers Hills Hops and decided the best way to showcase their hop was via a New England IPA. The brew team helped pick Marc Guyatt’s hops, taking his entire Cascade crop back to the Barossa Valley. Within two hours… Read more
Style
Fresh Hop NEIPA

Barossa Valley Brewing Choc Cherry Barrel Aged Stout

Published May 20, 2016
Originally brewed for GABS 2016, the Choc Cherry Barrel Aged Stout underwent a few transformations as it matured. The initial choc cherry stout base beer was brewed in collaboration with the team from Adelaide bar NOLA. This was then tweaked before being fed into port barrels to obtain added flavours. After GABS, the remaining stout stayed in barrels until it was ready to be unleashed once more on the world. The long maturation process has resulted in a depth of flavours, with this rich, midnight… Read more
Style
Barrel Aged Cherry Stout
ABV
6.5%

Barossa Valley Brewing The Barossa Threesome

Published February 26, 2014
The brewers at Barossa Valley Brewing have brought in the expertise of their local winemakers before. Yet they have never got their great-loving neighbours involved to quite the same extent as with their latest beer, The Barossa Threesome. Pitched as "a fusion of the best of the Barossa", the beer takes a hefeweizen base then adds Semillon and Riesling wines. The result, we're told, is a beer with "a beautiful hefe nose of banana" in which "the wines' acidity changes the… Read more
Style
Krystalweizen with wine
ABV
4.5%

Barossa Valley Brewing Bee Sting – RETIRED

Barossa Valley Brewing's original and most successful beer is the Bee Sting, a beer brewed with a hint of orange blossom honey sourced within the local region. It's a cloudy pale golden affair, with soft, floral aromas and lingering honey flavours. The base beer is Kolsch like, presenting light and relatively dry on the palate. The brewery owners reckon it goes well with Asian, barbecued meats and foods with a bit of spice.… Read more
Style
Honey Ale
ABV
5.0%

Barossa Valley Brewing Imperial Milk Stout – RETIRED

Barossa Valley Brewing's Imperial Milk Stout is a hybrid amongst stouts. The brewer has developed a stout that combines the lactose of a Milk Stout, with the oats and barley of an Oatmeal Stout and the alcohol content of an Imperial Stout. It features chocolate and caramel pils malt in its recipe, has an IBU of 68 and is 7 per cent ABV, which for non-beer geeks means it's a very big stout. Brewer's notes… Read more
Style
Imperial Milk Stout
ABV
7.0%
Bitterness
68 IBU

Barossa Valley Brewing Double IPA – RETIRED

This beer was originally called Canis Majoris: named after the biggest sun in the universe as it is the biggest beer in the Barossa Valley Brewing range. It sees the brewers stepping up from an average of 2kg of hops per brew to a whopping 25kg of hops in each batch. The resultant double IPA took out the Most Outstanding Beer in Show title at the 2014 Adelaide Beer Awards before being rebranded to, simply, Double IPA. It possessed similarly lively hop characters to the Hop Heaven, with citrus joined… Read more
Style
Double IPA
ABV
8.0%
Awards

Most Outstanding Beer in Show – Adelaide Beer Awards 2014

Barossa Valley Brewing Organic Ale – RETIRED

The Organic Ale was Barossa Valley Brewing's second beer and the first in which they enlisted the help of some of the chefs, wine makers and sommeliers to developed this organic beer. The recipe was tweaked and changed more 30 times to create an award winning ale that is the most popular at the brewery bar. It is an American Pale Ale and uses organic malt, and hops. It is hopped five times, giving it a wonderful big hop finish and floral nose. Brewer's notes… Read more
Style
American Pale Ale
ABV
5.5%

Barossa Valley Brewing Barossa Smoke – RETIRED

A beer that takes its inspiration from far away – Bamberg in Germany, to be precise – while also making full use of what's on offer in the Barossa Valley. The Barossa Smoke is inspired by the rauchbiers of Germany but uses a local small goods maker to smoke the malts used in the brew. The result is a fine addition to the small number of such beers brewed Down Under, an amber coloured ale with some fruity raisin characters accompanying the sweet and earthy, lingering smokiness and a toasty, roasty… Read more
Style
Smoke Beer
ABV
6.5%

Barossa Valley Brewing Pilsner – RETIRED

While their Smoke looks to Germany for inspiration but adds local ingredients, for their Pilsner it's Germany all the way. This lager features all German hops and malt to create a bright golden beer with light lemon and sweet malt aromas. Flavour wise, there's a touch of straw alongside the pale malt sweetness with the hops contributing some herbal and spicy touches.… Read more
Style
Pilsner
ABV
5.0%