Stockade Brew Co Barrel Room

Stockade Brew Co has made a name for its craft beer since launching in 2015. After winning in excess of 60 awards, the independent craft-beer producer has opened its first brewery in Sydney’s brewery capital – Marrickville.

The bar and “experimental” microbrewery has taken over a 750-square-metre industrial warehouse. Thanks to Sydney-based architecture team Rad Studio, it looks like the kind of upscale industrial brewery you’d visit in Williamsburg in Brooklyn. The 10-metre-long bar, made from the staves of 12 reclaimed oak barrels, commands the room, while a customised lightbox menu board and emerald-green leather banquet seating complete the offering.

Neatly stacked, you’ll find around 200 Woodford Reserve Kentucky bourbon oak barrels, which are poured at the bar, as well as six fermenter tanks and two brite tanks used in the brewing process.

There’s also an intimate 14-seater analysis “tasting” room that plays host to private tasting sessions, beer and cocktail masterclasses, butchery courses and beer-and-cheese pairing classes.

Alongside its core range of tap beers – The Sesh, 8 Bit, Chop Shop, Duel, and Hop Splicer – is a rotation of barrel-aged beers, which are brewed and aged onsite. First up is the award-winning imperial stouts – The Mountie Maple and Old Money. The next round will see more experimental sour beers with oaky undertones.

Behind the bar, they’ve adopted a randall, which is a double-chamber infusion system that allows the staff to tweak beer flavours with whatever they want – be it hops, coffee beans, fruit or even Skittles.

For non-beer drinkers, the brewery has teamed up with the Urban Winery Project to pour a seasonal range of red and white wines. There’s also a short cocktail list using hops-infused spirits such as moonshine, vodka and gin, all distilled on site.

Stockade also works with Eat Drink Collective to pull in a monthly line-up of food trucks, including Baby Rey’s serving American-style burgers, and Asian street-food truck Tsuru. Head brewer Dan Fardon collaborates with each truck to develop bespoke menus featuring Stockade beers as a core ingredient.