Laggan Brewing Co – a brewery in a village

I’m spending Easter with my family in Boorowa. My brother’s opened a wine bar there. Boorowa is 110km NNW of Canberra and 330km WSW of Sydney. I was prepared to add a few k’s to the trip if there was something worth detouring for – and the Laggan Brewing Co came up as somewhere worth visiting.

If you are going to Laggan, you may as well visit Taralga, which is a village of 467 people that was settled in the 1820s. Nice main drag with well restored stone buildings. It’d be rude not to visit the beautiful Taralga Hotel. Built in 1867, it is grand place and it has been looked after. Plenty of different rooms and you can drink out the front. The Taralga Crisp Lager is brewed by Rocks Brewing, but a unique is a unique.

20 minutes later and you are in the village of Laggan. Smaller again than Taralga, Laggan’s population is 356 people. That would have to make NSW’s smallest town to have its own brewery. We were surprised when we discovered a brewery in Dalmeny on the South Coast. (I’ll write Big Niles one day). But Dalmeny is comparatively huge at 1967 people. The Deepwater Brewery in Deepwater was looking good at 450 people (couldn’t visit – it was closed), but at 356 people I think Laggan’s the winner.

I was lucky I hotfooted it to Laggan. I was there on the bell of 12pm, third in line and within 5 minutes – the queue was 20 deep. It be maybe that it was Easter, or it maybe that the brewery is only between 12 and 4pm on Saturday and Sunday. The punters poured in. The Brewery is on the same grounds as the Laggan Pantry, which is a top class fine dining restaurant using all local produce – so that also draws a crowd.

Everyone was ordering the tasting tray – $17 for 6 tasters. A good beer rainbow from the straw coloured pale to a red ale, a brown ale and a smooth Porter at the end. You’d be mad not to order one of the gourmet platters that are pre-prepared. I went the brewery platter with pickled onions (so underrated), slivers of roast beef and a big slice of terrine. Just a very pleasant way to spend an afternoon.

The beers are all good. The Old Barracks Brown Ale and the Redgrounds Red Ale lead the way, being great examples of their styles. Laggan Brewing Co has been going since 2018, but judging by the single figure Untappd check-ins it maybe that the locals like to keep it a secret. I can’t say I’d heard of Laggan or its brewery until I started researching for this trip.

The Laggan Hotel is also worth sticking your head into. They have a Laggan Brewing lager on tap, as well as their own house lager brewed by CUB. It is big country out here, but there are plenty of gems to be found if you look.

The Taralga Hotel: 24 Orchard St, Taralga, NSW.

Laggan Brewing Co: 1 Peelwood Rd, Laggan, NSW.

Laggan Hotel: 3 Peelwood Rd, Laggan NSW