Three wonderful breweries to visit, and a nice little crawl to do if you are heading to Coolangatta Airport afterwards. I started my mini-brewery crawl at the delightful and small Lost Palms Brewery in Miami. What it lacks in size of venue it makes up for in the number and strength of its beers. Some of these absolutely pack a punch. It is probably the most eclectic and diverse range of beers packed into 10 taps that I’ve seen. From a lager and XPA to a Quad Blueberry Pancake Sout and Blue Lemonade Soda Ale. Great takeaway fridge as well. I opted for the coffee cream ale called Random Access. I’m always thrown when a coffee beer isn’t dark. A little like white port. Despite the light appearance, they haven’t skimped on the coffee. Amazing Sipper™. I took the advice of the staff and tried the Oat Cream IPA – Blue Skies. Another ripper – hazy, smooth and bursting with fruit.
Ordinarily I’d walk the 1.8km to Precinct Brewing, but it was raining all day, so I got the brewery crawler’s best friend to Uber there. What a cracking space and it is a bloody barn. I don’t think that it is unfair to say that the tap line-up is more sedate than Lost Palms. There’s a variety of lagers and pales, but there’s also a damned fine Saison and an experimental Hazy IPA to spice things up. The food menu is really, really good and my barramundi fish sticks (a special) were fabulous. The pizzas must be good because plenty of takeaway was flying out the door whilst I was there. For mine, the Honeybush Red Ale was the standout beer.
Last stop on my mini brewery crawl was one that I’d been looking forward to for some time. The Currumbin Valley Brewing Co always goes that extra yard at GABS so I was expecting some weird and wonderfuls and they didn’t disappoint. It was about 4pm on a Friday and the locals were piling in. A really great vibe. I started off slow and tried their lager, but stepped it up after that. IPAs and sours were the go. Currumbin spends as much time and creativity on its beer names and artwork as Lost Palms. If there was a t-shirt for Ripple – their Cold IPA – I’d buy it. One of the great corporate cliches is “The devil is in the details”, which is a way of saying you don’t know how something works. This a name for an IPA and devil here is in the ABV. 6.66%. Nice one.
Lost Palms Brewery: 11 Oak Avenue, Miami QLD
Precinct Brewing: 17 Christine Avenue, Miami QLD
Currumbin Valley Brewing Co: 27 Traders Way, Currumbin Waters QLD
back of the ferry 