Travel authority Lonely Planet has named Perth, Melbourne and Wellington as Oceania’s top three beer towns.
Working with a worldwide network of beer-loving travel writers (and well-travelled beer journalists) Lonely Planet selected great taprooms and bars in the finest breweries that travellers can visit in more than 30 countries across Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, and Oceania.
Melbourne: “It shouldn’t be a surprise that Melbourne excels at brewing, selling and drinking craft beer. It’s clearly Australia’s ale capital, with breweries ranging from the mainstream (Mountain Goat) to the obscure but brilliant (La Sirène), and a ton of great indie beer bars in such neighbourhoods as Brunswick and Fitzroy.”
Perth: “Home to some of Australia’s first craft brewers, Matilda Bay and Little Creatures, and one of its most lauded, Feral Brewing in the northeast, Perth thoroughly deserves its place here.”
Wellington: “It might be wet and windy for much of the year in Wellington but there are always sunny fruit flavours in a pint glass to banish the blues with New Zealand’s distinctively tropical take on pale ale and IPA. Wellington has an extremely strong array of breweries and craft beer bars, making it a compact and cool city to tour.”
Australia is also represented in the book by breweries in Beechworth, Berriedale, Bobs Farm, Bright, Hobart, Margaret River, McLaren Vale, Swan Valley, Sydney, and Woodend; while Auckland, Blenheim, Dunedin and Hamilton join Wellington in the book’s New Zealand selections.
