Brewery One: The Yard Brewery & Smokehouse
The largest and most commercial of our stops, this warehouse also contained a smokehouse and cafe. A very professional set up that could clearly cater to large groups and even had an upstairs section as well as outside dining area.
Food menu was American style BBQ with some burgers and pizzas thrown in. I wasn't hungry as I'd just come from an excellent and large breakfast with girlfriends so I told Matt I'd just eat his chips. He had a smoked kranski with jalapinos and hot dog stuff. Slightly too much stuff really as the result was messy but tasty. The chips by the way were EXCELLENT.
We shared a tasting paddle of 4 x 145ml mini tulips; lager, ginger beer, a Czech dark beer, and a stout. Well crafted and complex beers. Also very nice coasters.
Brewery Two : Lake Mac Brewing Company
A quirky set up complete with arcade games (frogger, pac man, donkey kong, etc) and an air hockey table, this destination had quite a crowd in the beer garden. Wings, burgers, and loaded fries were menu staples of this small venue.
Our shared tasting paddle was 4 ponies of your choice and we chose the lager, Lake Mac dry cider, Irish red ale, and porter. The cider was easy drinking but I found the beers a bit to bitter/hoppy for me.
Brewery Three : Bread and Brewery
A real micro brewery with seats for around 20 people. We sat at the bar and enjoyed our mini tasting paddle in a different way - one beer at a time (5x100mls) to allow us to enjoy the flavours without distraction of what comes next. The brewer Jay and his offsider, Mason (a part time Anglo Saxon and blacksmith), loved to share their passion for brewing and story telling. Each brew came with a story. We had an oated pale ale (return to sender), a smoked amber bock (by the horns), brown ale (brownie mcbrown ale), 2 types of beer blanket (a honey and chipoltle porter), and finished up with a sour style (g'h'ose't of the coast with lemon myrtle and salt). Probably our favourite visit because it was so interesting.
Brewery Four : Not a brewery : Central Coast Distilling Co
This one wasn't on our radar until we parked outside Bread and Brewery and noticed the near neighbour. They've been open around 8 weeks but their offerings are super smooth. The cocktails looked amazing but we settled for a tasting paddle of 6x 15ml served with garnishes and Fevertree mediterranean tonic. Signature gin, pink gin, citrus shift, london dry style, chilli and fingerlime, and finally smokey chipoltle. As well as recommending which garnishes went with which gins the team gave us a little serve of nibbles. I liked the citrus shift and Matt liked the London dry so we bought both to take away.
- https://www.yardkingsbrewingco.com.au/
- https://lakemacbrewing.co/
- https://www.breadandbrewery.com.au/
- https://www.centralcoastdistillingco.com.au/
PS we stopped at Salvos at Warners Bay on the way home where I scored a brand new set of Spiegelau martini glasses for $20. An excellent end to a fun day out!
