Last Saturday we set out to visit some the of the awesome craft beer breweries in the inner north of Melbourne Australia.
The plan was three people, three hats, one beer at each of 5 venues (Technically speaking four breweries and a bar) and all wrapped up in 3 or 4 hours, but we somehow we ended 9 people, still three hats, a visit to someone's apartment only one veneue where we had a single beer and a uber ride home 10 hours after we started.
The Plan was hatched on Christmas Day, my wife had 'gifted' this brewery crawl to her brother, I had had tacked myself on, because, well I like beer and as we had also all received hats for Christmas it was decided we would wear those hats. Why did it take until mid February to do this - Well Covid, holidays etc etc.
The Venues were carefully planned to minimum walking - the whole journey was 1.7km (about a mile for you Americans) from start to finish it started at the furthest point from my Wife's Brother's apartment and weaved it's way back to a Bar which was about 80 metres from there.
So let's go on a Journey
Stop 1: Bodriggy Brewing Company
This is by far the biggest venue we will be visiting - it's sits in a huge old garage which has been turning into a brewery at the rear, kitchen, big taproom, and a upstairs dive bar (downstairs in the shot below are the tiolets, a nice us of the pit that was used for working under vehicle. And why is the brewery called Bodriggy? well before it was a garage the building was a stone masons called 'Bodriggy Manor' which is weird.
As for the beers here, well there were two; A very Gimmicky Strawberry Mango smoothie sour (Pictured Above) which tasted like a drink I used to drink as a 7 year old, and the much nicer imperial stout called 'The People's Elbow' which had to be drunk as my Wife's Brother - let's call him Stu (becuase that's his name) is a WWE fan
Here's a photo I stole off the interwebs of the venue
From there it was a short walk across the road to...
Stop 2 - Range Brewing
This place couldn't be more different to Bodriggy, it is all Scandi Minimilism, maybe I should steal another photo from the web, hang on (photo by Danielle Fulford by the way) ...
Range are all the rage at the moment, they put out an amazing amount of beers and they are all darn good, and perfect for a pub crawl they do tasters so it was time for three tasters to be ordered:
Mine is the closest to camera and is a Imperial IPA called Jump Up and get down and it was absolutely superb, fresh hoppy, fruity and amazing. We were planning just one taster as we were already behind schedule but then we received a text message from a couple of friends and a few texts later it was agreed they would be there to meet us in 20 minutes so there was northing left to do but sit back order another beer another IPA called 'Smile with your Eyes' and wait for them to join us
Now a Party of 5 (I like to think of myself as the Matthew Fox character) we headed off on the biggest walk of the day, across Hoddle street from Abbotsford into Collingwood through some back streets and to our next brewery....
Stop 3: Molly Rose Brewing
Named for the owner's two grandmother's Molly and Rose this is a great little brewery located in a small warehouse, it started with a lot of yeast based saisons and some barrel aged thingies, but recently has branched out a little to IPAs and even so Alcohol free beers, which was helpful because through some more texting on the walk we added three more people to the journey, one a non drinker and one a baby (the baby will not be drinking beer, non alcoholic or otherwise don't worry)
Thankfully it was also super sunny by now because it was so busy at Molly Rose that we needed to sit outside - thanks COVID for giving every bar in Melbourne a series of Parklet's to sit in, time to steal another photo (this time thanks to concrete playground)
This of course did give a lovely golden glow to my Nectaron which was a lovely fresh NZ IPA (I was on a bit of a IPA binge in this section of the day - it was late afternoon and we were in the sun, I mean what's a man to do:
from there it's time for
Stop 4 - Fixation Brewing.
Just around the corner and we have Fixation, a I finally remembered to take a photo so no more stealing required
We were planning on staying here long, the various people we had picked up along the way had to go to either a) Dinner plans or b) to put a baby to sleep so we were planning a single round and then they would depart and we would continue our journey so I ordered up a 'It do be like that' West Coast IPA and after spending a fair amount of time wondering if I had the right beer because it was quite dark really enjoyed it.
Now how I check if I have the right beer is looking at the photos from the other check-ins on Untappd, so which looking at this I have a little bit of a look a my 'friends' check-ins and say to my Wife 'I think we just missed Pat at Molly Rose' He has just checked in a beer there
This is odd because Pat is someone we haven't seen for maybe 2 years and he lives in Sydney about 1000km away from where we are. Whilst we are discussing how maybe he was inside at Molly Rose and we were outside and therefore that's why we didn't see him he walks into Fixation and to the bar.
I of course call out to him and he our recently shrunk pub crawl is back up to four people. How it's possible to run into someone who lives 1000km away quite by accident is one of those weird things that happens when you are out and about (and borders are open and people a travelling for work again, which Pat was).
So waylaid for a hour or so whilst we catch up we order another beer, Our second wrestling themed brew of the day 'The Whole Cone Hogan' IPA we are running even further behind. Pat has people to meet for dinner, and we have another bar to get to so we part ways.
And then it's...
The Final Stop - Near and Far
It's actually a bar, but it's close to Stu's house and has amazing beer so I'm happy.
The dark beer is Plentiful Ruins, a black IPA from English brewery Left Handed Giant brewing and it was amazing, as were the other four beers I had there, plus they had a nice green neon light which helped with my whole urban cowboy look.
Given it was now approaching 9pm it seemed like a reasonable time to get some Pizza and head back to Stu's place to eat it.
So there to you 5 venues, a brewery crawl that went not at all to plan, had special guests pop in and out and some amazing beer, who could want to more.
