Best Breweries in Regional Victoria
There’s something special about drinking a beer right where it was made. And some of Victoria’s best breweries are found well outside of Melbourne.
Apart from the fact breweries serve it fresher, you’ll also often get the chance to try new and limited releases that don’t make it to pubs and bottle shops in the city.
These breweries slot in nicely to an itinerary for a weekend away, but they’re also destinations in their own right.
Related Pages
Best Accommodation in Regional Victoria
Best Country Pubs in Victoria
Best Restaurants in Regional Victoria
Best Breweries in Melbourne
Breweries
Cideries
Breweries
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Bridge Road Brewers
An 1850s-built former coach house serves as the headquarters for one of the country's biggest craft beer brands. Inside you’ll find a sprawling taproom, woodfired pizzeria, and the full range Bridge Road beers. Order a tasting paddle and get stuck in.
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Holgate Brewhouse
This converted country pub has been brewing great craft beer for more than 20 years, keeping an eye on current trends without surrendering to them entirely. Look out for its chocolate porter, one of the best dark beers in the country.
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Sou'West Brewery
New-world takes on classic European beer styles, by way of the surf coast’s rugged landscape. Drop in for a tasting paddle and tuck into the menu of pub classics, pizzas and salad bowls. Or go completely coastal with a refreshing lager and a platter of cold seafood.
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Bells Beach Brewing
The result of some engineering mates coming together to apply their skills to beer brewing. Sample craft beers made with the Surf Coast in mind, in a hidden Torquay tap room with live music and sport on the big screen.
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The Forrest Brewing Company
Malt-forward beers and barley-fed beef burgers, in a cosy cabin-like room overlooking the town’s popular mountain bike trails.
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Jetty Road Brewery
Jetty Road's vast red-brick factory space is primed for long and lazy afternoons. Come for beer-matched pub grub in the dining room, live music in the beer garden, and plenty of brewery-only seasonal styles.
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Love Shack Brewing Co.
A bohemian brewery hidden in the back of an historic theatre. It’s a fortuitous pairing – the theatre’s kitchen slings pizza, perfect for soaking up the booze in some of those big beers you’ll be sipping on in front of the roaring fire.
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St Andrews Beach Brewery
A big, family-friendly brewery on the site of a former horse-training facility. Sip from the range of approachable, big-flavoured beers in the expansive courtyard and take in the salty air.
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Bright Brewery
Experimental ales made with local ingredients, right in the heart of hops country. Take to the outdoor deck on sunny afternoons, or cosy up on the couches by the indoor fireplace over winter.
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Grand Ridge Brewery
Grand Ridge is one of Australia’s original craft breweries. Established in 1989, it’s set within the town’s old butter factory, with a charming rural pub upstairs and a solar-powered brewing operation downstairs.
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White Rabbit Brewery & Barrel Hall
The experimental sibling to craft beer giant Little Creatures has its own buzzing brewery in South Geelong. Aged ales are the specialty here, and there's a short menu of European-influenced bites to go with them.
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Red Hill Brewery
A peaceful, low-key spot that specialises in easy-drinking European-style beers.
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Shedshaker Brewing
Sample 10 different brews at this rustic, timber-panelled taproom, complemented by excellent pizza made on site.
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Tooborac Hotel and Brewery
Pies and craft beer in a bluestone pub that dates back to 1857.
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Loch Brewery & Distillery
Loch has the lot: farmhouse beers, native botanical gin, rum, brandy and fantastic single-malt whiskies. Find your favourites through its tasting flights and pints at the cosy weekend-only cellar door, which is set up in Loch’s century-old former bank.
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Ocean Reach Brewing
From classic to experimental, these ales and lagers are all made at Phillip Island’s very own micro-brewery.
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Aunty Jacks
The laid-back energy is strong at this rustic Ballarat brewery. Mismatched furniture, pub grub and quality brews abound.
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Noodledoof Brewing and Distilling
This colourful brewery-slash-distillery is intent on breaking the brewpub mould. Visit for experimental beers styles, spirits loaded with native botanicals from a nearby volcano, and a spicy menu of Asian-leaning drinking fare.
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Valhalla Brewing
This one’s for the modern-day Vikings. Valhalla’s cosy Geelong taproom is a hub for live music and easy-drinking brews.
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Aireys Pub and Salt Brewing Co.
An Aireys Inlet icon. This sprawling, hilltop pub was almost lost to a housing development more than a decade ago. Now its future is in good hands, with live music and a craft beer microbrewery ticking away inside.
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Red Duck Brewery
Just outside Ballarat, one of Australia's smallest micro-breweries is producing some of Victoria's finest ales using low-intervention brewing methods.
Cideries
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Napoleone Cider & Orchard Bar
Enjoy cold cider, Yarra Valley style, from the family behind Punt Road Wines. This family-friendly bar offers tasting flights of cider and cider-driven cocktails, alongside local beers and wines. Plus, you can build your own picnic hamper and bring your furry friends.
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St. Ronans Cider
This cosy cidery specialises in French-style cider made from apples and pears grown on-site. Hit the cellar door for a tasting paddle or blueberry wine paired with French cheese and local charcuterie.
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Mock Cider
Sample biodynamic apples and their many liquid expressions.
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Flying Brick Cider House
Take your tasting paddle out on the lawn.
Accommodation
Hart's Farm
A 10-hectare working farm on the Mornington Peninsula that uses apples from its sprawling orchard to brew a range of seasonal ciders. It also has a boutique studio that’s made for weekends away.
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Darraweit Valley Cider
An hour north of Melbourne is DV Cider, a rolling orchard of traditional apple trees planted just for cider making. Here you’ll find the DV Cider House, a bright white marquee set amongst the orchard, and the best place to sample the inventive house-made ciders.
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This family-run brewery is slowly but surely taking over the southern reaches of the state with its contemporary, smashable ales and barrel-aged sours. The Torquay brewery and taproom is where it all began, but Blackman’s has recently expanded with a much larger facility in Geelong, and a burger-slash-beer bar in Ocean Grove.
Ultra-limited beers that sell out faster than it takes to mash the next brew. While the oat cream double IPAs, farmhouse saisons and mega-hazy numbers have attracted a cult following, the core range of accessible styles sway plenty of visitors to this tiny independent’s cellar-door-style taproom.
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