Flamin Galah Brewing Co
Amongst the steady diet of Royal Hotel’s I’ll endeavour to get back to the blog’s roots a bit over the next several weeks with some brewery and beer recommendations. And the first brewery off that rank is Flamin Galah Brewing Co in Huskisson.
I recently spent a weekend down in Jervis Bay with a couple of mates. I had been to Jervis Bay Brewing Company a few times and have been a long-time fan. I’ve got merch and everything. And given the two breweries are only about 300m apart, it was going to be tough for me to give Jervis Bay Brewing a miss to try the new kid on the block. Ok, they’ve been around since 2018, but newish to me at least. Luckily we were in Jervis Bay for a couple of days so there was plenty of time for both.
Flamin Galah Brewing (like Jervis Bay Brewing) is an industrial estate just out of Huskisson. It’s an easy 20 minute stroll from the Husky Pub. It doesn’t look like much at first as you walk past a couple of industrial units to the end of the carpark. But when you get to the very end, there’s actually a nice little set up and a welcoming bar and brewery awaiting you.
The first thing that struck me was the variety on tap. I reckon they’ve struck the perfect balance in terms of number and variety of beers on offer. Some smaller breweries only have a limited selection of beers or styles on offer. Or at the other end of the spectrum are the breweries that want to try to make every type of beer there is. Granted that’s not always a bad thing if you can pull it off (I’m looking at you Tumut River Brewing).
But Flamin Galah has about 12 different beers and different styles on tap. I tried them all. Except the Hefeweizen. No offense, just not my thing.
But I have to say, I’m not sure I had a bad beer. The closest I think was the red ale, which was just decent, without being spectacular. But to be fair, I love me a red ale so I’m probably a pretty harsh marker. But the NEIPA and South Coaster IPA were particular standouts in my opinion. None of them tried to do anything too over the top. There were no pea-blossom or kumquat infused beers here (and just for the record, I would 100% try a pea-blossom and/or kumquat infused beer).
Flamin Galah Brewing just concentrated on nailing the style of each beer. No frills, nothing fancy, just a really hoppy, resinous west-coast style IPA in the case of the South Coaster. And a nice bitey, not overly fruit-juicy NEIPA. Again, those were just my favourites. Everything I had was extremely drinkable and quite well done.
The ambiance of the place in general was good as well. Inside had a good upstairs mezzanine area, but the majority of the seating was outside. One bonus point I’ll definitely give Flamin Galah Brewing is the tasting paddles. They’re metal and custom made in the shape of a galah. It’s a little thing, it’s purely aesthetic, it doesn’t make the beer taste any better, but I still freaking love it.
I would also be remiss if I didn’t give the food a mention as well. The food van, The Nest, was excellent. Kind of a fancy pub fare, but really well done. Nachos were excellent as were the burgers. In probably the least controversial take of all time, I’ll go out on a limb and say that good food, goes really well with good beer.
Look, I’m always going to love Jervis Bay Brewing Co. They do good beer, their food is amazing as well, I’ve gotten merch from there and everything. But from now on I’m going to have to make time to hit two Huskisson breweries, because Flamin Galah Brewing Co is just too good to miss. So if you find yourself down in Jervis Bay (or at their soon-to-be-open taproom in Chippendale in Sydney) I highly recommend you get yourself 4 little beers in a metal galah.