Lot 100

Lot 100 is set on a sprawling 84-hectare agricultural property, the site of a $4.5 million production facility and cellar door for the five brands: Mismatch Brewing, Adelaide Hills Distillery, Vinteloper, Hills Cider Co and Ashton Valley Fresh.

The soaring pitched roof is contoured with timber panelling that extends down the walls. Underfoot is a schmick polished-concrete floor (with heating for winter). Overlooking production on both sides is a mezzanine bar. Visitors can join masterclasses, tastings and blend-your-own workshops. Beneath it, a science lab allows the team to test yeast strains and varieties not normally used in brewing. There’s a sprawling courtyard at the entrance and a deck out back. The whole site fits 500 people comfortably.

At the bar there are 40 taps. Twenty-six pour Mismatch, 12 pour Hills Cider Co and four pour cocktails made with Adelaide Hills Distillery spirits. A dedicated tasting-flight menu makes navigating it all manageable. Each brand has two or three paddles to choose from. Anything you can drink here, you can also take away.

Food wise, meats are cooked over a fire pit burning hot with local red gum. The “from-the-pit” offering is different every day, but you might get a flank steak, rotisserie-cooked baby chicken or porchetta. The menu is “Italian-ish” and “99.9 per cent” local. Expect Greenslades chicken, Richard Gunner meats and Samtass fish. Pizzas are fired in a wood oven and antipasti plates are draped with meats from San Jose Smallgoods and cheese from Woodside Cheese Wrights and Section 28. There’s also a great big ball of burrata and a few handmade pastas daily.

The restaurant doubles as a cellar door for the group’s wine labels (made off-site). There’s a focus on the unreleased, the never-seen-before, the back vintages, the trophy-winning wines, and larger formats, such as magnums and double magnums. Groups coming for lunch can order big bottles of wine for the table.

The idyllic property is dotted with haystacks and grazing cows. Much of the land is lined with apple orchards that supply Hills Cider. Hop vines are cultivated for Mismatch’s beer here, and a kitchen garden supplies the restaurant. The production facility is a 35-hectolitre brewhouse and distillery with some “small-batch cider tinkering”.

A $500,000 wastewater treatment plant supplies water to much of the property. When you’re dealing with booze such as beer and gin, which is mostly water, its impact on the final product is huge. An ethos of low waste is a recurring theme and a value shared by all five brands.