On Thursday the 19th of October I visited the Eden Brewery in Mittagong in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales. This brewery opened in January of this year and is owned and operated by a husband and wife team of Jacob and Deb. Before opening the brewery they worked in the care and missionary field in Papua New Guinea and Cairns. However, Jacob has a history of home brewing stretching back to a time when he was too young to buy beer legally.
The brewery consists of a 1000 litre brewhouse and six 1000 litre fermentation tanks. The beers are available at the brewery as well as being on tap at the Imperial Hotel in Bowral, the RSL in Mittagong, the Oak Barrel in Sydney as well as a few restaurants.
The brewery has seven beer taps, two of these are used for their most popular beers and the others rotate through seasonal brews. Two of the seasonal beers that they have made and were not available while I was there are a Pecan Maple Beer and an ANZAC biscuit beer. They both sounded fantastic and sold out rather quickly.
The brewery had their first attempt at bottling one of their beers recently with the use of a mobile bottling line as part of a collaboration brew. The beer that was bottled was their Phoenix D. Kottbusser. This is an ancient style of Pilsner that is made from a recipe that predates the German Purity laws, it contains honey, molasses, oats and wheat in the brew. These bottles are available at the venue. They also have growlers and squealers available for take away.
The brewery is as Earth friendly as they can be including having their used grain used as stock feed. They are also very charitable with 10% of their profits being donated to Oxfam. On Sunday there is food available at the brewery from a changing variety of food trucks.
The beers that I sampled were:
Birch Wit, 5.2% abv, this is a Belgian wheat beer with a hazy straw colour and a wheat and yeast aroma. It is very true to the style and has a great wheat flavour.
Phoenix D. Kottbusser, 5.0% abv, this ancient style Pilsner has a golden colour and a malt aroma. It has a nice sweet malty taste and then a gentle bitterness on a crisp dry finish.
Argania Bock, 4.4% abv, this dark Lager has an amber colour and a subtle caramel malt aroma. It has sweet malt palate with hints of caramel on a crisp finish.
Peach Sour, 2.8% abv, this kettle soured beer has a cloudy straw colour and a subtle sour aroma. It has a light peach fruit flavour and then a gentle sour finish.
Palm Pale Ale, 4.5% abv, this is an Australian Pale Ale with a golden colour and a tropical fruit and passionfruit aroma from the Galaxy hops used. It has a sweet fruity initial taste and then transitions into a nice bitterness on the finish. Very good and easy drinking.
Hopped Mahogany, 5.2% abv, this is a collaboration brew with Neil Cameron. It is a Black Hopped Lager style with a dark brown colour and a subtle sweet malt aroma. The flavour is of sweet caramel malt and then a gentle bitter finish. Excellent!
The beers that I sampled were all very enjoyable. The Eden Brewery is a great venue and they are turning out some fantastic beers. I strongly recommend visiting this brewery if you have the opportunity.