Tumut River Brewing Company

This week we take a short break from the Royal Tour (it’ll be back next week). But it’s now time for the first new brewery visit this blog has seen for far too long! On a chilly winter’s night, on the southwest slopes of the Snowy Mountains, I had the good fortune to enjoy a beer or several at Tumut River Brewing Company.

I found myself with my mate John in Tumut to visit the Royal Hotel as part of The Royal Tour. However, even though that was the primary reason we were in town, we found ourselves spending a good amount of our time in Tumut at the TRBC instead. But I suppose when there are 24 beers on tap (19 of which were made by TRBC themselves), there is a bit of blog due diligence to make sure all of the offerings are fairly evaluated. At least that’s my excuse. That and the beer was just really good.

The brewery is situated about 1 km from Tumut’s main street so easily walkable if you’re on a night out. I would strongly recommend walking down Capper Street rather than the circuitous, pitch black, and foot-path-less Fitzroy Street that we walked for some inexplicable reason. But you live, you learn. The brewery is housed in an industrial-y looking building with what appears to be a residence on top across the street from Tumut’s visitor’s information centre.

We got in about 7pm on a Saturday evening, and the place was packed. There was a band in the back room, most tables taken, and a solid, but fairly quickly moving queue at the bar. As I alluded to previously, there were a TON of beer options on tap. And the vast majority were from Tumut River Brewing themselves. So as not to be rude, we tried them all.

Tumut River Brewing Beer — TONS of choices. And 19 of those are TRBC brews!

My personal favourite was the Staring at the Sun NEIPA. If was hoppy, citrus-peel-bitey, and had a really nice kick at 7.2%. It isn’t going to revolutionise hazy IPA’s, but it isn’t trying to. It’s just a damn good beer.

Staring at the Sun NEIPA was definitely my favourite. I don’t think this is it in the picture, but it’s the photo I have so let’s pretend that it is.

Honourable mentions for me went to the Bounty Hunter Choc-Coconut Dark Ale, and the Full Grunt American Pale. The Bounty Hunter managed to pull off chocolate and coconut without being too heavy on either. It was also clearly a good dark ale and not just a vehicle to force the words “chocolate” and “coconut” onto their menu board. And the Full Grunt was just a good crisp pale ale. There’s a genuine joy in finding a beer that isn’t crazy or ridiculous or even super unique, but is just really well done. And that’s Full Grunt.

Doing our due diligence. The green one on the right is the Black Betty Sour in case you were curious. I waited til John went to the toilet so as not to draw attention away from the beer.

That’s not to say there weren’t crazy, ridiculous, super unique beers on the menu. The Tex Mex Chili Beer, Hot Cross Pilsner, and Tea Innit English Brown (Tea-flavoured) Ale were all varying degrees of swings and misses for me. But let’s be honest, if you’ve made 19 beers that you have on tap at your brewery and there’s not at least a couple of them that have over-reached a little bit, you’re playing it way too safe. I didn’t love all those beers, but I didn’t absolutely hate them either. And I did love that they were there and TRBC had cracks at them.

With respect to the Tea Innit specifically, John actually had a differing opinion. Somehow the Earl Grey tannins and English ale malts made the perfect combo for him. Not my cup of tea (sorry, couldn’t avoid it), but if you make it down to Tumut, and least grab a taster of it and see which tide of the doily you come down on.

I do need to mention the food as well. I thought it was brilliant. They had a great variety of options (although the pizzas were the go for mine). And the maple bacon blue cheese pizza in particular was an absolute winner as far as I’m concerned. We also stopped in on the way out the following morning for some souvenirs and takeaways. And I can report that their coffee is very good as well. Neither of these things is particularly vital for a good brewery (good food admittedly probably more important than recovery coffee) but they sure are good bonuses.

Can heartily recommend the maple bacon blue cheese pizza. Although health food it is not.

Overall verdict: good food, amazing variety, great beer, comfortable space, and friendly staff. Tumut River Brewing Company is genuinely one of the better breweries I’ve been to in my travels. If you find yourself down that way, take some time out from the multitude of Tumut pubs and hot dog vendors and make your way to the brewery. There’s definitely going to be something you like on their menu.

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