A visit to the Six String Brewery and the Bungalow

I remember reading all about Six String Brewing Co’s difficulties in getting to market. As their website alludes, they were beset with bureaucratic interference for a very long time. Well, after a visit to their brewery and solid sessions of their Pale Ale and their Dark Red IPA – we should all be very grateful that Six String persisted. A long weekend up the Central Coast gave me the opportunity to visit the Brewery and see how it all ended up. It’s clearly ended up very well. So well in fact that my first attempt to visit was thwarted by a “House Full” sign.

Luckily I wasn’t staying too far away and I was able to visit a couple hours of later. The brewery and drinking area is very roomy. I wonder if another bureaucrat is having somewhat of a lend, because the capacity is listed at 50 people. They’re kidding aren’t they? Anyway, there’s no shortage of elbow room to tilt back a few. We ordered a couple racks to try the four perennials and the four seasonals. Six String has done a good job of getting on some taps in Sydney (Harts and 33 Degrees to name a couple), so many of these were familiar to me – but my brothers-in-law were new to it all. The Celtic Fusion is truly a great beer and was unanimously applauded. Their foundation Dark Red IPA is also a doozie with a rich, balanced, deep flavour. One of the brothers-in-law was so impressed that he went and bought the growler. Soul Porter was also a very solid beer that should become a permanent fixture.

It’s great to see local businesses supporting one another. For dinner, we all went to The Bungalow Lounge and Tapas in Ettalong. The Bungalow is owned by my brother and sister in law (different side of the family!) and offers a terrific range of cocktails. Lucky for me, Paul also has a tap going and the beer du jour was none other than Six Strings Pale Ale. The Pale Ale is very sessionable and worked well with pretty much all the Tapas that came our way. You’d have to go along way to find better meatballs that those put out by Suzi. I don’t need much of a reason to go to the Central Coast – but here are two more very good reasons to head up the Freeway.