Mildura Microbrewery

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danbeer

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Howdy.

Has anyone heard anything about someone starting a microbrewery in Mildura?

I have heard several roumors, and am keen to find out if it's true or not.
 
Stefano De Pieri opened a micro next door to his eateries
There was too many simularly styled aussie style lagers on for my liking but the Hoey style Xmas white was quite good & refreshing in the heat , the Malle bulle "heavy" was like a lighter flavoured JS amber and the beer of the month pilsner wasn't bad either.
 
mikem108 said:
Stefano De Pieri opened a micro next door to his eateries
There was too many simularly styled aussie style lagers on for my liking but the Hoey style Xmas white was quite good & refreshing in the heat , the Malle bulle "heavy" was like a lighter flavoured JS amber and the beer of the month pilsner wasn't bad either.
Yes - the beers are all pretty commercial and a bit boring:
Sun Light (light beer, obviously)
Desert (aussie lager)
Mallee Bull ('heavy')
Honey Wheat

The setup is far bigger than necessary to supply all the outlets of 'The Grand' so bottles will be available all around Victoria at least pretty soon.
 
I would be disappointed if the honey wheat is no better than Beez Neez
 
I had the great pleasure to feast my eyes on this great place on the weekend so thought i'd post some stuff.

Firstly I was amazed at how the grand hotel with all its bars and resturants seem to take up the greater portion of a whole block in the heart of the city centre.
Waltzing on up the street from the river end not knowing what to expect of the brewery at first sight on entry i'am blown away by how the whole joint looks everybit several million bucks, the brewery is really on show taking the space of what must have been the stage area in the time it used to be a theatre. Fronted by a 6 foot high glass wall is a feast for the eyes, it all is set out like a stage show itself and is all very modern and state of the art with what seems to be a no expensive spared brewery. First thought was wow if a brewery was a pink floyd stage show this would be it, minus the lights of course, i think you get the idea. The brewhouse being on the right hand side just left of and a bit behind two very large vessels which i gather are the liquor tanks. The bottling line is at the front on the left with the fermentation vessels just behind that and the conditioning tanks on a upper level above and back a bit from everything else with a giant screen in between. I didn't have my camera or phone with me to take pics as i was in for a big nite and new there would be a good chance of a cowboy from mildura trying to pick a fight with us and me waking the next day with a black eye and all my possesions stolen, true to my expectations several local idiots did indeed try it on much later in the evening outside a couple different venues but we narrowly avoided any punches.

Anyway back to the brewery, the beers were all of a good standard for the most part and pretty much as expected. They had 7 beers on tap in two 9 tap rigs, the venue itself i thought was very classy with a bit to much white combined with small amounts of darker black and brown colours, i thought it lacked a bit of humanity and was slightly sterile but still very very impressive looking and again looked every bit like millions of dollars.
I tried all the beers but i'll just post a couple thoughts on a few.
On tap was mallee bull supposedly one of there best sellers at 5.6% which i have had before in bottles and quite enjoyed, medium to full munich malt style cloying aspect to it with some sweetness which maybe could have either been dryer or have more bitterness to back it up or even both but really its a good beer and if its selling a lot then who am i to say anything?. This i think had a bit of cara malt in there aswell as the melonoidin flavours.
Stefano's pils made slightly in the nrth german style i thought, made with saaz. The hop character was a little earthy and the aromatics were not quite there and the balance was not quite dry and bitter enough for a actuall north german pils being it was a bit sweet. Generally you'd expect the aroma to hit you in the face in such a beer as soon as the tap is opened but it wasn't quite there. The bar staff seemed to all know a lot about each beer and one bird told me that they themselves were not all that happy with the saaz hops they recieved in the last supply, anyway i did enjoy this beer all the same but could pick some recipe improvements but technically like all but one of the beers it was spot on and nice and clean other than the slight dissapointing saaz character and balance being slightly sweet instead of dry bitter. Still a reasonable amount of bitterness in there and for their customers i think its made exactly right.

The stout was nice and clean but i thought maybe a little to bitter with some burnt malt adding to the bitterness aswell as what seemed to be quite a big hop bitterness, a bit of aniseed in there to maybe? after a 4.5 hour drive and working for a bit and a pack of ciggarettes i knew doing justice to all the beers might not quite happen. Apparnatly there is mollases used in this but i couldn't pick to much of a flavour from it, only just enough malt character to come close to balancing the burnt/bitter character, only thought was it could do with less of the bitterness from both the roasted grains and the hops but in all i did enjoy it and went back for more the next day before the drive home.

The dessert premium was the only real dissapointment and only beer i picked a real technical fault as such in being it did seem to be a bit 'stale' oxidized, ie a slight musty/dry cracker/cardboard aroma aswell as that there was some unrippened apple aroma i picked in it, Still in all i enjoyed every beer finding generally they were all quite well done and nice and clean. This beer just seem to lack some 'freshness'

Another beer was simply called 'red lager' which was again quite enjoyable, nice and clean but with no great highlights, sllght dry malty flavoured beer with some hop character but honestly my pallete was pretty well shot by then, it certainly didn't have the full german munich malt style flavour as the malle bull had. still a nice beer i'd drink again and again.

I think i remembered those beers correctly but after there i did go out playing hard till 5am with a couple band members at some place called 'the rock' or something after venturing onto omalleys irish git bar first were some friends from adelaide were also playing in their band.

Anyway it is everybit well worth checking out if your in the neighbourhood, the staff seem to know there stuff and it looks amazing and the beers are of a reasonbly awesome standard, remembering they aim to sell to a varriety of people and i think they do what they do exeptionally well overall. With that in mind i rate this place very highly. Last notes would be it does seem to be mostly brewing clean lager beers and indeed the stout could have even used the same lager yeast as the other beers but i'am not sure on that at all.

Check it out if your in mildura for the awe factor alone to see the brewery in all its stage pressence is enough to have you grinning and i'am sure amoung all the beers you will not be dissapointed.

Top darts

Boozed, bruised and broken boned
Jayse
 
Some serious S/S bling at Mildura.

Ugly_Cat_058.jpg

What's interesting is that they use just 1 yeast for all their brews, except the 1 special they put on each month which use a specialised yeast....

cheers Ross
 
Anyone coming to Mildura feel free to contact me.

I live and work up up here.

I used to go to the brewery a lot but now they have too many faulty beers too often.
 
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