La Sirène Brewing

Late in 2011, a buzz started spreading around the Melbourne beer cognoscenti that there was a hot new beer in town, a saison that had appeared all of a sudden. Bearing the name La Sirène and packaged in champagne bottles decorated with artwork of an elegance not usually found in the beer world, it was impressing all who tried it. Being avowed saison fans at The Crafty Pint, we hunted down its maker, brewing consultant Costa Nikias, and were soon sharing a coffee with him.

He told us how he and a mate, James Brown, who had met while studying winemaking, had decided to turn their passion for Belgian style ales into a small commercial venture. They'd done it properly too: hunting down via contacts in Europe their own unique saison yeast strain, which they purchased from a family in a small European village and air-freighted to Australia. The first sample failed to survive the trip intact; the second didn't, taking up residence in a lab at the university where microbiologist James worked.

It was quite the tale, but would the beer match up? We moved to a suitably elegant location (OK, the boot of Costa's old school Merc in a Collingwood side street), he pulled a chilled bottle from the boot along with two beautiful stemmed, branded glasses and out poured this glowing orange nectar with the most towering of fluffy white clouds as a head. Let's just say the beer matched up: a delicate, subtle yet complex delight that rivalled any saison ever produced in Australia.

We became instant advocates, encouraging friends to try it whenever they saw it. Which, over time, wasn't that often.

With Costa spending most of the time focused on his brewing consultancy business and James busy at the university, their trips to brew at Jamieson Brewery, in the Victorian High Country, were few and far between. For them, despite the acclaim – which only grew with each new release – it was a hobby as much as a passion. At least for a while.

In 2013, Costa decided it was time to give the people what they wanted. In between fitting them for others, he installed his own brewery in an old tank-building factory in the Melbourne suburb of Alphington, James departed and Costa's wife Eva stepped in. Since then, the focus has switched increasingly to La Sirène, output has grown significantly, more warehouse space has been leased and a rather large amount of oak barrels have been gathered. The barrels have been selected by their cooperage rather than for what was once inside them, a legacy of Costa's time in the wine industry (and his geek like obsession for detail).

For the most part, the beers tended to be variations on a theme: a wild saison, Super Saison, the Fleur Folie honey saison, an annual Saison Noel. But increasingly, the La Sirène wings have been spreading. A Belgian stout featuring cocoa, vanilla and hazelnuts called Praline took out People's Choice at the 2014 GABS festival before an experiment with spontaneous fermentation, barrels and cherries led to a delicious Kriek. And since then little has been off limits, whether that's been releasing highly-hopped farmhouse pales, sessionably low ABV wild ales in cans, or all manner of wild and spontaneous ales celebrating their local environment.

The beers are lapped up by beer lovers and those who don't usually drink beer in equal measure, with fine dining restaurants finding a home for the beers. The experts agree too, with the original Saison (now Flor Saison) taking out Champion Belgian and French Ale at the inaugural Craft Beer Awards.

Setting out to brew nothing but Belgian farmhouse style beers in Australia is a ballsy move. Sending those beers into the world in clothing more akin to wine equally so. Yet, with Australians warming to such styles and having set impeccably high standards, it looks like paying off in spades. That the brewery is ten minutes walk from Crafty Towers – and now comes complete with a bar open on weekends – doesn't hurt either.

That said, since the bar opened in October 2022, the team has been on something of a roller-coaster, to put it mildly. They were suddenly locked out of their building with fellow tenants two months later and, while they're back in at time of writing, their future there remains in the balance.

Name
La Sirène Brewing
Address

2 Wingrove Street
Alphington
VIC 3078

Phone
0422 517 210
Open Hours

Wed to Fri: 5pm to 11pm
Saturday: midday to 11pm
Sunday: midday to 6pm
Subject to change


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

La Sirène Brewing Regulars

La Sirène FUNQ IPA

Published November 26, 2020
La Sirène founder Costa Nikias always said he'd never brew an IPA. But, like the team at Moo Brew and the late Sean Connery, it's a case of never say never again as FUNQ becomes the brewery's latest farmhouse can. That said, it's not your typical IPA so he could qualify on a technicality. They've clearly thrown plenty of hops at this densely hazy beer, and they present themselves in a twofold manner: there's much in the way of sweet mango (the flesh closest to the seeds) and overripe pineapple,… Read more
Style
Farmhouse IPA
ABV
5.8%
Stockists

Now available nationwide

La Sirène Citray Sour

Published March 18, 2018
When La Sirène launched their first can, the Urban Pale, it helped bring the Alphington brewery to a new audience. Now, with their second canned release, one imagines they may help bring sour beers to a new audience. It would be in keeping with their mission, as stated on the cans, to create "Farmhouse For The People". Let's start with the cans, as you're not going to miss them when you walk into any bottleshop with them in stock. Featuring similar stylings to the Urban Pale and the brewery's… Read more
Style
Sour Ale With Oranges
ABV
4.5%
Stockists

Available nationwide

La Sirène Paradoxe

Published October 18, 2016
Given the founder of The Crafty Pint has a soft spot for saisons, it's been rather serendipitous that La Sirène decided to build its brewery around 900m as the crow flies from the rear of Crafty Towers. It allows for fairly regular trips to the brewery, usually when there's a new beer coming out. And, pretty much without fail, once the new beer has been sampled, founder Costa Nikias can't resist pulling out samples of as-yet-unnamed beers (and sometimes things other than beers) to tease. In the… Read more
Style
Sour Ale
ABV
4.8%
Stockists

Now part of the year round lineup

La Sirène Farmhouse Red

Published October 18, 2016
During the 2016 Good Beer Week festival, we got something of a surprise. Midway through a throughly enjoyable beer, cheese and whisky event at Boilermaker House featuring La Sirène beers, we picked up what we believed was the brewery's Farmhouse Red and found it had turned sour. Surely, they'd have noticed... It turns out this was a precursor to what became a new addition to the brewery's core range: a soured sibling to the Farmhouse Red, which then became the replacement Farmhouse Red. The original… Read more
Style
Sour Red Ale
ABV
6.5%

La Sirène Flor Saison (formerly Saison)

There's much to be said for announcing yourselves to the world in style. Whether it's the Stone Roses opening their first album with the thinly-veiled menace and arrogance of: "I don't have to sell my soul, he's already in me." or Wayne Rooney's debut hat-trick for Man Utd against Fenerbahce (feel free to enter your own non-Manchester-based examples here), such opening salvos tend to stick in the mind. In the world of Aussie craft beer, few have fired an opening salvo to match that of… Read more
Style
Saison
ABV
6.5%
Awards

Best French / Belgian Style Ale - Craft Beer Awards 2014

La Sirène Wild Saison

Is the Wild Saison an even finer drop than La Sirène's original? The beer uses a Brettanomyces strain alongside La Sirène's in house saison yeast and the result is a beer of even more complexity and possibly even a greater degree of refreshment. Brettanomyces, or "Brett" for short, is often credited in its various forms with lending beers certain "off" characteristics and highly "Brett-y" Belgian styles are often described as having barnyard or horse blanket like aromas.… Read more
Style
Brett-Fermented Saison
ABV
6.5%

La Sirène Farmhouse Red

The original Farmhouse Red was the first beer to step a little outside saison territory for La Sirène, albeit remaining firmly within the boundaries of the French / Belgian farmhouse. For a long while, it was the only beer in their range of a darker hue, with the deep ruddy brew playing home to some "secret" floral ingredients and myriad aromas and flavours. Work your way through a bottle with friends and you could complete a Bingo full house even on a card as laden with descriptors as… Read more
Style
Farmhouse Red
ABV
6.5%

La Sirène Fleur Folie

The Fleur Folie is La Sirène's step into Saison Miel territory, in other words honey saison. Its name means "blossom madness" although the beer itself is far from crazy. The leatherwood honey lends a soft honey sweetness to a beer in which the aromas are less about the lively floral fruits of the straight Saison and more about delicate pepper and spice. Alongside the soft sweet flavours are an earthiness from the hops before the beer wraps up with a tart dry finish.… Read more
Style
Saison Miel
ABV
6.5%

La Sirène Praline (Cans)

The surprise hit of 2014? The Praline was the beer Costa Nikias conceived for the year's Great Australasian Beer SpecTAPular at the Royal Exhibition during Good Beer Week, an event that sees more than 100 brewers come up with something brand new. Of the 100-plus beers of all shapes and sizes tapped in 2014, the Praline was the one that drinkers loved the most, taking out the People's Choice title. Since then, it's been regularly brewed and, almost without fail, tends to have pre-sold out before bottles… Read more

La Sirène Brewing Specials

La Sirène & Backhearts & Sparrows Biere Du Hearts

Published January 25, 2022
There’s much about the urban farmhouse brewers at La Sirène and the good booze retailers at Blackhearts & Sparrows that makes them feel like fellow travellers. The former’s Costa Nikias is a winemaker turned barrel-beer brewer, while the latter might have started out as a wine store but focuses just as sharply on beer. It means the two coming together to make a beer feels a little inevitable and the product of that affinity couldn't be much more fitting, given the shared love both have for… Read more
Style
Wild Ale With Tropical Fruits
ABV
5.5%

La Sirène & Carwyn Cellars Supernaturally Wild Ales

Published August 25, 2021
The crew at Carwyn Cellars have been working closer and closer with booze makers - even turning their hand at making their own - and La Sirène are an urban farmhouse brewery that likes to work closely with growers. So, it seems their 2021 Supernaturally collaboration might in some ways beer inevitable over supernatural. To find out more about how the beer came to be, you can read this story but in short: in February 2021 the collaborators headed to Sunland Fruit Orchards near Cobram to secure some… Read more
Style
Fruited Wild Ales
ABV
4.2% & 5.8%

La Sirène Reserve Saison & Cuvée de Bois 2020

Published May 13, 2021
La Sirène have taken their original Saison to many places in the decade since the first batch took local drinkers by pleasant surprise. Even the beer bearing the tag of their original Saison is a rather different beast these days, although not as far from the starting point as these two variations on a theme. Reserve Saison 2020 is the third iteration of a beer that first appeared in 2018, and again the liquid is a blend of various vintages of their Saison aged in Burgundian barriques and hogsheads.… Read more
Style
Barrel-Aged Saison & Wild Ale-Wine Hybrid
ABV
7.0% & 6.2%

La Sirène Cuvée Bleu 2020

Published January 17, 2021
Anyone lucky enough to attend the first Blobfish Festival – a celebration of all things sour, wild and funky – in 2019 would have found much to tantalise their taste buds. Of the many beers to delight mine was a blueberry-laden, barrel-aged affair from La Sirène, an offering so delightful I sent a few mates over to give it a go. It seems the brewers were fans too, with a new version of the beer returning as the Alphington operation's last limited release of 2020. The backstory to this version… Read more
Style
Barrel-Aged Wild Ale with Blueberries
ABV
7.5%

La Sirène Coolship Collection: Time & Place and Age & Beauty

Published November 23, 2020
They've been experimenting in so many ways over the past decade at La Sirène that you can never be too sure what's going to be leaving the brewery next. Case in point: we'll be writing about their new IPA – a style brewery founder Costa Nikias said he'd never brew – in the same week two more beers from their Coolship Collection hit the site. Presented in typically elegant La Sirène fashion, and clearly of a kind, both started out as wort allowed to cool overnight in the brewery's coolship with… Read more
Style
Coolship Wild Ales
ABV
6.0% & 5.5%
Stockists

La Sirène direct

La Sirène Oak Season

Published August 17, 2020
It's not that long ago that the vast majority of brewers in Australia doubted cans were the future for craft beer. Some were still investing more than a third of a million in bottling lines just a couple of years back. And yet here we are with a barrel-aged, blended wild ale inside them. What's more, it registers at not much weightier than a mid-strength. Oak Season is a beer that punches above its weight, however, with much to be discovered within this palest of liquids. It possesses a creaminess… Read more
Style
Barrel-Aged Wild Ale
ABV
4.0%

La Sirène Barrel-Aged Praline 2019

Published August 17, 2020
Praline is one of those beers that's steadily been creating its own little family dynasty. Not bad for a beer La Sirène's founder Costa Nikias only wanted to brew once... A few weeks after the original recipe debuted in cans, here comes another barrel-aged variant as part of the brewery's Tank 3 limited specialty series. There's a blueberry / blackberry fruitiness riding atop the base beer's familiar aroma, which is the precursor to an acidic dark berry jam like character that, if anything, intensifies… Read more
Style
Barrel-Aged Belgian Stout
ABV
6.5%

La Sirène What The Farmhouse & Beer With Jeff & Blueberry Noir

Published March 29, 2020
Given the limited amounts of each that have been released and the fact we've taken a little while to post this, this trio might require a bit of hunting down. But none is the sort of beer with which you want to sample just enough to put together a write up and pour the rest away; they all warrant time dedicated to them. What The Farmhouse is another La Sirène beer featuring both spontaneous fermentation and a spot of blending, with a young, acid forward farmhouse ale coming together with a wild… Read more
Style
Oak-Aged Wild Ales
ABV
5.0% & 7.2% & 6.0%
Stockists

La Sirène Cellar Door (open Saturdays)

Or online store

And select good bottleshops

More stockists...

La Sirène Praline (Sour Version)

Published January 16, 2020
If you were asked to come up with an example of a cult beer in Australia, La Sirène's Praline would fit the bill. Thrust into the limelight by its success at GABS 2014, the Belgian style stout featuring organic vanilla pods, cacao nibs and hazelnuts helped bring the Alphington brewery to the attention of many local drinkers. But it's also been something of a millstone around their necks; attend a La Sirène event and, if it features, it's likely to be with a caveat as it's the only beer in their… Read more
Style
Sour Stout
ABV
6.0%

La Sirène The Beginning

Published September 25, 2019
Anyone who’s spent a moment with Costa Nikias will likely have heard him speak about his love for La Sirène’s home in Alphington. It's in a small industrial pocket nestled by parklands and the Darebin Creek, making for a warehouse and surrounds where unique natural microbes tie the La Sirène beers to a physical space. Now, nearly a decade on from the brewery’s conception, La Sirène have launched a new series that aims to capture those environs and moment in time in the sort of elegant package… Read more
Style
Spontaneously Fermented Ale
ABV
5.5%

La Sirène La Funq & Elemental (Autumn) & Vin Folie Chambourcin

Published August 14, 2019
Across a few winter weeks, La Sirène have released three more beers from their barrel program. Each has its distinct character yet they all share common traits, none more so than the delightfully refreshing and cleansing acidity the comes from the Alphington brewery’s evolving house character. It comes from the mixed culture derived in great part from the atmosphere that inhabits and surrounds their brewery and offers both that refreshing underbelly to so many of their beers as well as subtle,… Read more
Style
Barrel-Aged Farmhouse Ales
ABV
6.6% & 4.4% & 7.6%

La Sirène & Bannockburn Vineyards Convergence

Published June 7, 2019
One of the advantages of being at the top of your field has to be the relative ease with which doors must open for collaborations. In this case, Costa Nikias got to work with one of his favourite wineries, Bannockburn Vineyards in the Geelong region. The Convergence in question isn't just between beer and wine but between La Sirène's wild house yeast and that of Bannockburn, with the liquid undergoing fermentation in one of the latter's old 500 litre puncheons. It goes without saying when a limited… Read more
Style
Farmhouse Ale
ABV
5.8%
Stockists

Audacious Monk Cellars

Corks Crew Cellars

Decanters By The Bay

Small Patch Wines

Valhalla Taproom

More stockists...

La Sirène Cuvée de Bois 2018

Published May 3, 2019
Late in 2017, La Sirène released their first Cuvée de Bois. It was a beer with such an involved genesis our write up ended up a little like a mini-thesis. The beer has returned in autumn 2019: still a beer-wine hybrid featuring free run juice and whole bunches of chardonnay grapes from the Geelong region, still a mixed fermentation farmhouse ale and still a Solera style blend of various French oak-aged barriques of the brewery's OG Saison. Yet, while the debut was one best appreciated by palates… Read more
Style
Beer-Wine Hybrid Farmhouse Ale
ABV
6.2%
Stockists

Bar Torino SA

Beer 360

Big Ears Geelong

Camberwell Cellars

Cellar 161

Chas Cole Cellars Geelong

Decanters By The Bay

Penny Young

More stockists...

La Sirène Wild Wit

Published March 27, 2019
The team at La Sirène has been building its barrel collection for so many years and filling them with so many different liquids now that deciding which beer to release next must be similar to being a kid in a toy store with permission from their parents to choose absolutely anything, but just the one thing. For autumn 2019, the urban farmhouse kids opted to empty ex-Chardonnay barrels from Burgundy that had played host to a white ale since way back in 2015. The idea was for the white ale to act… Read more
Style
Chardonnay Barrel-Aged White Ale
ABV
4.8%

La Sirène Season Ale

Published March 15, 2019
For their third can release, Season Ale, Melbourne-based urban farmhouse brewery La Sirène have arguably opted for a more traditional approach than with the beer's predecessors. While Urban Pale saw Costa Nikias and his team bring a heap of hops to the hazy farmhouse party and, in Citray Sour, combine the juiciest of fresh oranges with a delightfully refreshing acidity, here you've got something more akin to the saisons upon which the brewery first made its name. When it first appeared in March… Read more
Style
Farmhouse Session Ale
ABV
4.0%

La Sirène Reserve Saison 2018

Published September 13, 2018
Since he first started draining the barrels that fill much of his Alphington brewery, Costa Nikias reckons he's released upwards of 20 different barrel aged beers. There have been spontaneous ferments, dark ales, fruit blends and more besides. Yet he'd never released a version of his flagship beer, the original Saison (albeit a beer that has evolved organically since its origin), that had spent time on oak. That's been remedied for spring 2018, with the release of Reserve Saison, a blend of beers… Read more
Style
Barrel Aged Saison
ABV
7.0%

La Sirène Farmhouse Noir

Published August 17, 2018
As winter 2018 draws to a close, La Sirène has added another beer to its core lineup. It's one with a suitably wintry hue that's the closest the brewery has come to its much-loved Praline in terms of colour. Any similarities with that decadent stout pretty much end there, however, as this sits within their farmhouse lineage as the next step along from their delightful, vinous Farmhouse Red. The label suggests serving at 7C but it seems to benefit from being allowed to get warmer still; it maybe… Read more
Style
Dark Farmhouse Ale
ABV
6.0%

La Sirène Barrel Aged Wild Tripelle 2016

Published July 12, 2018
La Sirène’s Wild Tripelle series sees the brewery exploring 100 percent spontaneously fermented beers, one in which the Alphington operation lets the indigenous bugs and bacteria surrounding its home on the edge of Darebin Parklands go to work on a Belgian tripel base. For winter 2018, they've released the 2016 vintage, an iteration that's spent far longer maturing than the previous two: more than 20 months slowing developing, initially in the brewery's coolship, later in oak barrels. The oak… Read more
Style
Spontaneously Fermented Tripel
ABV
8.0%

La Sirène Barrel Aged Wild Saison & Praline

Published May 14, 2018
If you've dropped into La Sirène's brewery in recent times, you'll be aware the team there is amassing quite the collection of barrels. If you haven't but you're a fan of the brewery, you'll be aware they've been emptying and releasing a fair few of them too. Now, with Good Beer Week and GABS rolling around for another year, they've unleashed two more. They're barrel aged versions of two of the brewery's best-loved beers, one of which is the Wild Saison that was La Sirène's second release, back… Read more
Style
Barrel Aged Saison & Belgian Stout
ABV
6.5% & 6.0%
Stockists

Find them at select venues during Good Beer Week

La Sirène Brewing Saisonette & Fleur Folie 2017

Published December 7, 2017
Not new beers here, more the latest evolution of a couple of La Sirène seasonal releases out in time for summer. The Saisonette is the brewery's lowest ABV saison variant, one brewer Costa Nikias suggests may be most like the original farmhouse beers of the style of all in his broad array. It's a suggestion with added weight now the beer is brewed with the latest iteration of the La Sirène house yeast, containing, as it does, a mix of cultures, including those native to the brewery and its surrounds.… Read more
Style
Saison variants
ABV
3.8% & 6.0%

La Sirène Cuvée de Bois

Published December 6, 2017
The final Avant Garde limited release of 2017 from Melbourne's urban farmhouse brewer La Sirène is another highlighting the direction founder Costa Nikias is keen to follow – and another that's been quite some time in the making. It's a blend of three separate beers: the original Cuvée and two older, barrel fermented saisons. The former started out as an open fermented farmhouse ale that was co-fermented with chardonnay grapes from Coldstream in the Yarra Valley and left to naturally sour. The… Read more
Style
Barrel Aged Wild Ale
ABV
6.2%

La Sirène & Seven Seeds Seven Sirens

Published November 13, 2017
There must be something in the air this spring, this being the third coffee beer with a difference to come our way in less than two weeks. This time around, it's one that's been a long time in the making, with near neighbours La Sirène and Seven Seeds coffee roasters building towards this collaborative release in stages. Having decided to work together on a beer, they first held a structured cupping session to select an appropriate coffee, landing upon a range from Honduras (from a micro-lot from… Read more
Style
Coffee Farmhouse Ale
ABV
6.5%
Stockists

Mr West

And other select good beer outlets

La Sirène Brewing Belle D'Orange

Published October 17, 2017
On a recent visit to La Sirène's brewery, it's fair to say we were taken aback by one beer. OK, so there were plenty of tasty beers sampled that day but one that was pulled from the tank packed an unexpected amount of pizzazz. It was the Belle D'Orange, so named because it started out as the brewery's Belle French ale before spending 11 months in French oak with a stack of whole Navel oranges for company. Once drawn from the tank where it was undergoing final conditioning before release, you could… Read more
Style
Barrel Aged Citrus Farmhouse Ale
ABV
4.8%
Stockists

And select Melbourne venues

La Sirène Brewing Forêt Sauvage

Published September 21, 2017
When you're a brewery like La Sirène, it's good to have time on your side. Outside its core range of saisons and farmhouse style ales is an ever-growing and diversifying series of projects incorporating spontaneous fermentation, barrel ageing and much more besides. Some of them were kickstarted several years ago, in the early days after the brewing company built its brewery in Alphington, giving the brewers liquids that have been evolving for years to play with, sometimes blending them, racking… Read more
Style
Barrel Aged Wild Cherry Ale
ABV
8.0%
Stockists

And select Victorian beer venues

La Sirène Copper & Vine

Published September 8, 2017
A visit to the brewery this week confirmed just how much is on the go at La Sirène's "urban farmhouse" brewery. Step away from their already diverse core range – the hoppy as anything Urban Pale and the array of saisons and other farmhouse style beers, plus Praline, of course – and there's all manner of paths being trodden. There's the monthly single hop saisons in kegs, various short run barrel aged and blended releases, beer-wine hybrids and spontaneously fermented ales at various… Read more
Style
Single Barrel Aged Saison
ABV
6.0%
Stockists

Mr West

And select beer venues around Melbourne

La Sirène Harvest Ale

Published November 10, 2016
Brett sure is becoming a popular chap in Aussie beer circles. Having played around with various strains of Brettanomyces in a number of beers over the years, often as part of a blend of yeasts or picked up from the atmosphere around the brewery, La Sirène has now added a 100 percent Brett-fermented beer to its lineup. Its Harvest Ale is ostensibly a pale ale, one with a simple malt bill that allows the "wild" yeast to become the focus, albeit sharing the stage somewhat with tropical Galaxy… Read more
Style
Brett Pale Ale
ABV
5.1%
Stockists

And select tap points around Melbourne

La Sirène Urban Pale

Published November 8, 2016
The term "farmhouse" in brewing is one that can get purists' knickers in a twist. Some claim that unless you're brewing on a farm, using ingredients from the farm, then you can't make farmhouse ales, even if your inspiration and intention is to recreate historic beer styles that are often bundled together under that banner. Few could doubt that Costa Nikias at Melbourne's La Sirène takes inspiration from a particular time and place in beer's history: he obtained his original yeast strain… Read more
Style
Hoppy Farmhouse Ale
ABV
5.2%
Stockists

Beermash Cellars

La Sirène Wild Tripelle II

Published August 31, 2016
The Wild Tripelle series is Melbourne based brewery La Sirène's first foray into 100 percent spontaneously fermented beer. For the first release last year, the brewers left their hopped, sweet wort open to the elements in their brewery for months, allowing the native bacteria and yeasts in the air to spark fermentation and add character, before ageing the beer until it was at a point where they felt it was ready for release. For a beer tagged "wild" it wasn't actually that wild, instead… Read more
Style
Spontaneously Fermented Ale
ABV
8.0%

La Sirene Avant Garde range

Published August 5, 2016
They don't like to sit still too long at La Sirène, the Alphington based "urban farmhouse" brewery. In addition to finessing its impressive and expansive core range, it produces a seasonal Botanique range experimenting with herbs and spices, has released barrel-aged and spontaneously fermented beers and, last month, filled its custom built coolship for the first time. And, alongside all that, the brewery has just unveiled a trio of table beers going under the Avant Garde banner, each featuring… Read more
Style
Farmhouse Ales
ABV
3.8% to 6.5%

La Sirene Imperial Praline

Published February 19, 2016
It's fair to say La Sirene's Praline got off to a reasonable start in life. The first dark beer from the Melbourne farmhouse ale lovers debuted at GABS in 2014 and took out the People's Choice. Drinkers were wowed by its layering of hazelnuts, cacao and vanilla and, as a result – and not necessarily planned – the brewery quickly added the beer to its year round offering. Clearly, they're glad they did and are rather enamoured of the beer and its success too as they've decided to give it a bigger… Read more
Style
Imperial Belgian Chocolate Stout
ABV
8.0%
Stockists

And other quality beer outlets

La Sirene Wild Tripelle

Published January 25, 2016
Last year, Costa Nikias of Melbourne's farmhouse ale specialists La Sirene announced he was intending to construct a coolship inside the shed where he stores many of his oak barrels. The aim was to be able to spontaneously ferment several thousand litres of wort using the native yeasts and bacteria that exist in the nearby Darebin Creek and Parklands, thus creating an "urban farmhouse" ale. The coolship has been designed and built and is awaiting full installation and more suitable weather… Read more
Style
Spontaneously Fermented Tripel
ABV
8.0%
Stockists

Nationwide at specialist bottleshops

La Sirene Botanique Winter Seasonal

Published July 7, 2015
There's much ado at La Sirene, the Melbourne-based farmhouse style ale protagonists. The brewery is much expanded, the collection of barrels is expanding and in just a few weeks a custom built coolship will be erected in the roof of the brewery's barrel warehouse ready for a spontaneous fermentation program to commence in earnest. There will be a herb garden to follow too, with the intention being to use what's grown there in beers such as this. The brewery's winter seasonal is the second in its… Read more
Style
Spiced Saison
ABV
6.5%
Stockists

Kegs to good beer venues in Victoria, Tasmania, Queensland and Japan

We'll update when we get names of stockists

La Sirene Saison Nouveau – RETIRED

Published March 6, 2015
"Another new saison variant from La Sirene?" you ask. Well, yes and no. For some time now, the beer bearing the name Saison from the Alphington brewery that you may have seen on tap has differed from the bearing the name Saison in bottle. When putting the original 6.5 percent beer into kegs, head brewer Costa Nikias couldn't get the results he wanted in the same way so he reworked the beer to pour as desired on tap. The result was a different beer with a lower ABV and now he's decided to… Read more
Style
Saison
ABV
5.0%
Stockists

Then appearing at other good beer venues in Victoria, Tasmania and Queensland

La Sirène Botanique - Summer 2014

Published December 12, 2014
Considering how infrequently La Sirène beers used to appear on shelves and in bars in the first couple of years of the brewery's existence, the current flood of new releases is as unexpected as it is welcome. With their own brewery working overtime now and praise coming for their beers from all quarters, it feels like barely a week passes without head brewer Costa Nikias unveiling some new saison or farmhouse style beer. But, as he said when we bumped into him the other day, the creativity is coursing… Read more
Style
Spiced Saison
Stockists

And other good beer venues in Victoria, Tasmania and Queensland

La Sirène Saisonette

Published December 1, 2014
Of all the many colourful tales to be found in beer's millennia-long history, there are few that people enjoy telling more than that of the original saisons, mainly because the beer was originally brewed by farmers to water their workers at harvest time when they were given a daily allowance of up to five litres... With most contemporary saisons tipping the scales at or above the 6 percent mark, you can imagine the chaos that may have ensued. But back in the days when the beers that became saison… Read more
Style
Midstrength Saison
ABV
3.8%
Stockists

Clifton Hill Brewpub

Good beer venues across Victoria, Tasmania & Queensland

La Sirène Belle

Published November 1, 2014
As the brewery has grown, head brewer Costa Nikias has dedicated time to developing a handful of beers of a more easy-drinking nature than those with which La Sirène made its name. Among them are the draught-only Belle, described as a "French table ale". The beer uses the brewery's in-house yeast alongside pale malts to create a beer they say offers "subtle fruit characters [that] initially lead into a medium body with rich yeast characters to conclude with a beautifully crisp dry… Read more
Style
French Table Ale
ABV
5.0%

La Sirène Super Saison

As if the straight La Sirène Saison wasn't super enough... Having played around with the malt bill, yeast profile and other aspects in a number of saison variants, in late 2014, Costa Nikia decided to ratchet the volume up a little. The Super Saison is the result; effectively an imperial saison, but presumably it was felt the word "imperial" was a little aggressive for both the beer style and the brand. The beer is another winner – along with the Wild Saison, The Crafty Pint's favourite… Read more
Style
Double Saison
ABV
8.0%

La Sirène Florette

One of a handful of La Sirène beers to appear in draught only format is their faithful take on the Belgian witbier style. Pouring with the pale haze you'd expect, it uses Belgian wheat malts and heaps of fresh coriander to create a beer with soft orange citrus and spice aromas and a welcome dry finish. The brewery team recommend lining it up alongside Asian salads, Thai curries or fresh calamari.… Read more
Style
Belgian Witbier
ABV
5.0%