Beer. The world’s most popular alcoholic beverage and the third most popular drink over all after water and tea. Brewed by the ancient Chinese, Babylonians and Egyptians, this popular amber fluid has become an important part of nearly every society on the planet. And today I’m lucky enough to be down here at McLaren Vale to check out a new beer company that’s about to become South Australia’s third largest.

The McLaren Vale Beer Company is based at the famous Salopian Inn. A fitting venue really, as refreshments have been served to weary travellers and thirsty patrons here since 1851. Viticulturist and now Head brewer Jeff Wright is proud to be once more queuing up the kegs in this historic venue.

Pete: Jeff, we’re in wine country – what made you start a brewery here?

Jeff: Oh, it’s a great location, McLaren Vale is so close to Adelaide for tourist trade coming down, it’s a great wine region, 60 odd wine cellar doors around the place at the moment, everyone loves an ale after the end of a day wine tasting so we thought great spot for it.

Pete: The McLaren Vale Beer Company has only been around two and half years, but there’s no doubt these boys are on a rapid rise. In fact they’ve just started work on a brand new million dollar complex down the road in Willunga.

Now I’ve heard that this brewery is set to be South Australia’s 3rd largest, how much will you produce?

Jeff: It is, going to be the 3rd largest in the state. It’s still a fair jump down from Coopers; we’ll be brewing in a year what Coopers brew in a week. We’ll be looking at somewhere between million and 1.3 million litres of beer produced out of the brewery down here.

The idea about brewing beer and for the Australian market especially is what’s referred to as sessional beers, so you have 1 and you want another 1 and quite often you’ll have 3 or 4 after that so there’s no point making a beer that you can sell 1 of, because anyone can do that. It’s return sales that we’re looking for, and our beers fit that range nicely.

Currently there are 4 beers up for tasting – Vale Ale (their Premium Dry Lager and recent award winner, having been voted the number 1 lager in Australia – in the Hottest 100 Craft beers of 2010), Vale Dry – a dry and mildly hoppy lager, Vale India Pale Ale, brewed in an American style using a combination of 3 hops from 3 different countries and Vale Dark, a clean crisp dark beer. I got Jeff to run me through the range.

Jeff: So American style dark lager, brewed using some falconer flight hops from the US, a bit of coco, a bit of chocolate coming through.

Pete: Yeah, chocolate, definitely.

Jeff: Nice, easy drinker.

And just like wine tasting you can sniff, swirl and sip your way through each brew to find a favourite. However, un-like wine tasting – there’s no spit! Jeff tells me it’s important to swallow the beer to get the entire palette and flavour experience – well okay - If I have to! All in the name of research.

Pete: It’s really interesting a lot of the jargon is wine speak isn’t it? It’s really, really similar, the tasting process, beautiful. Thanks Jeff.

Jeff: No problems at all.

And it’s not just their beer you’ll find here, there’s also 30 craft beers available by the bottle from all over Australia. As for the food – Well you can be assured it’s still sensational at the Salopian, except now it’s more of a laidback all day experience than the fine dining experience of the past. So it’s the type of venue now where you can just walk in, if you’re coming past and it’s mid-afternoon, we’ve got an all-day menu, so if you’re keen for a burger or platter or a pizza, you can just drop in anytime grab a pint, grab a pizza, sit down outside under the umbrellas and watch the day go by.
Sounds pretty good to me! So the next time you’re heading through McLaren Vale make sure you stop in at the McLaren Vale Beer Company at the famous Salopian Inn. Look for the sign and call in for a cleansing ale or a casual bite to eat, just make sure to bring a designated driver!