BentSpoke Brewing

This week’s brewery is one of my absolute favourites and the first from the ACT: BentSpoke Brewing Co.

This is one of the larger and more mainstream breweries I’ve written about on this blog thus far, and you’ve probably seen a number of BentSpoke’s beers in bottle shops (they’re the cans with entire top that comes completely off).  And even though I do try to focus more on the slightly smaller and/or lesser known breweries, the quality and variety of the beers they offer as well as the fact I just plain love this brewery, means I couldn’t not write about BentSpoke.

BentSpoke’s brewpub is in the suburb of Braddon and I pretty much base every work trip to the ACT around a visit to said brewpub.  Braddon is not short on excellent and eclectic bars and eateries, but for my money, it’s extremely hard to go anywhere other than BentSpoke.  The venue itself is great space with an upstairs, a main bar, and a (thankfully well-heated) outdoor area.  The menu is always changing, but for me, it’s pretty hard to go wrong with mac & cheese balls and the Hoki fish tacos.  The food is great and the bike-themed bar is a great place to hang out, but the main draw is definitely the beer.

Not only does BentSpoke offer some absolutely fantastic beers (as evidenced by their numerous brews ranked in the Craft Beer Hottest 100), but they also have a fantastic variety.  Usually there’s no fewer than 15 different beers on tap, including a few that you won’t find anywhere else.  For me and my hoppy palate, the standouts are the Red Nut red IPA, Cluster 8 IIPA, and Crank Shaft IPA.  All of those are choc full of IBU’s and are super-duper hoppy.    

But the beauty is, if your love for hops is not quite as strong as mine, there’s always a ton of other options.  The darker beers are fantastic (Silverback is a personal favourite).  There’s always a sour or two.  Mort’s Gold and the awesomely-named Barley Griffin are also really solid, delicious beers.  The last time I was at BentSpoke I even tried a Coco-Pops IPA.  I can’t even really describe it, but somehow it actually worked.

It’s a great place, it’s got a ton of awesome beers, but most importantly, it’s a place that just makes me happy.

So BentSpoke positives: a vast array of amazing beers, always something unique and new to try, great food, cool venue. 

And BentSpoke negatives: …the hallway to the toilets is pretty long.  That’s really all I’ve got in terms of negatives.

So if you’re in Canberra, you probably already know and love BentSpoke.  If you’re not in Canberra, go to Canberra, get to BentSpoke, and enjoy.