Bacchus Brewing Co opening weekend! @ Capalaba

You could nearly say that 2014 has been the "Year of the Bacchus" with the continued growth of arguably one of Brisbane's most popular breweries.

After brewing a total of no less than 50 unique beers for Brewsvegas and winning Gold at the Australian International Beer Awards for it's Sex, Drugs & Rocky Road it's finally time for their Brewery Bar to open it's doors.

The bar and tables use reclaimed bowling lanes as well as pins for lamps. As you sit and enjoy your tipple it is very clear you are in a living brewery with barrels of ageing beer and brewery equipment being the background for the venue.

There is 15 taps (14 beer) consisting of barrel aged, cask, smooth pour and regular pour with beers ranging from mid strength English style bitters to IPA's and unique beers like Sex, Drugs & Rocky Road.


Bacchus have been known to produce some really high alcohol beers and some crazy (and awesome!) flavoured ones, currently the taps are fairly tame but with 15 there is plenty of room to rotate as people become more comfortable with the beers and seasons change.

It also seems that some of the more interesting beers will be getting bottled for takeaway and on-site consumption which is very cool.


You only need to look at my Instagram for a few seconds to know I'm obsessed with IPA's and the two currently on tap at Bacchus don't disappoint.

Pug IPA emulates the fruity deliciousness of gateway IPA's like Brewdog's - Punk IPA also offering a Black IPA named "Obama" with expected smokey, fruity and hoppy goodness.

I also tried Lamington Dark Ale which I had at Eaton's Hill Beerfest earlier in the year and it continues to be an impressively tasty beer.

Leaving my Sex, Drugs & Rocky Road taster until last was a smart move as it is super delicious and oddly session-able which is scary at 8.2% abv.

For non-beer drinkers there is Alchemy Cordials available with a do it yourself soda water and cordial setup costing only a gold coin with all money going to Alzheimer's Australia.

The pricing is very reasonable with a 5 beer Tasting Paddle costing $15 and 3 standard beer sizes ranging from $5 - 10 depending on the size.

Empty Growlers are $10 and fills range from $18-$30, they also sell 2 styles of Belgian beer glasses for $10 each.

It is a bit of a trek out to Capalaba from the North Side of Brisbane but well worth it and I suspect I will be doing regular visits for growler fills once the taps start rotating. If you are a local or can plan to make a visit you won't be disappointed with something for almost everyone.

The future of craft beer in Brisbane is an ever growing and bright one for sure!

At the time the excellent food truck The Bun Mobile was there as well so check out my post about that too!

[Edit] Bacchus now do a range of tasty and delicious Pizza's so if you needed another excuse to check it out there is one!

International Hotel - Hipwood Brewery Launch

As Brewsvegas was coming to an end I realised I had been rather absent from the festivities. I made plans with a couple of mates to head to the International Hotel's Hipwood brewery launch so that I could at least have attended an event over Brewsvegas and to check out what was in store with the re-launch of the hotels internal Brewery.

I have visited International Hotel a few times for lunch and some very cheap ($5.50/pint) and half decent craft beer and do enjoy the local pub atmosphere on occasion so it made sense to head there for a few brews after work on Friday and see what the Hipwood re-brand was all about!

Hopping on the Spring Hill loop meant we were at the hotel in no time, greeted by a pretty decent looking turn out of locals and beer lovers we found a spare table and settled in.

Hefe+Pretzel = Heftzel?

I started off by ordering a pint of the Hills Hefe which flavourful and true to the Hefeweizen style pairing off well with the free pretzel we were offered to snack on, however it seems the price of beers have gone up with the launch to around $8/pint which is still cheap compared to other places but not nearly as much as it used to be!

As the launch started to ramp up we were offered more free (and delicious!) food with mini pork sliders, mini hot dogs and beer nuts which were all quite delicious.

I headed back to the bar and ordered a couple of tasting paddles(for me and a friend) to get a better idea of the rest of their beers. It was a pretty impressive looking paddle and decently priced at $12 with a taste of the 5 beers on offer.

The beers were Hills Hefe, Jimmy's Pils, Midnight Porter, Poley Oley (Pale Ale) and Red Eye (Red Ale).

My favourite was the Pale Ale and although I find the name a bit odd I didn't find the beer anything but delicious with a real big citrus punch and good hop flavour, by far the stand out here and worth having a session of.

After finishing off my paddle of beers I ordered a meal in the form of "Bacon and Eggs Pork Belly" which was an interesting combo of pork belly, mashed potato, saurkraut style red cabbage and 2 fried eggs.

It was rather tasty and had definite German food influences which match the Hipwood beers really well however I would have liked the belly to be rendered a bit more, it had some crunch but was missing that "crackling" feeling you expect.

I really like what International Hotel is trying to do with changing their "local" hotel image into a good time, good food gastro pub with in house craft beer.

I think it is ambitious but also very doable if they keep working at the beers and the food and promoting themselves. I absolutely wish them all the best in this and will no doubt visit again sometime in the near future.