Eagle Bay Brewing Co

When you tell people you’re heading down to Dunsborough/The Margaret River Wine region for a sneaky long weekend, they’ll often automatically assume you’re going down there for the wineries. The region is synonymous with ‘weekend winery trips’ from Perth and there has only ever been a small handful of breweries in the region. It’s great to see that this winery/brewery imbalance is changing and at quite a rapid pace. Off the top of my head I can think of at least five breweries that have recently opened their doors in the Margaret River region (Colonial Brewery, Cowaramup Brewery, Cheeky Monkey Brewery, Duckstein Brewery and last but certainly not least, Eagle Bay Brewing Co). We were staying just around the corner from Eagle Bay, so we dropped into Eagle Bay Brewing Co for a late lunch and a few drinks.

Located on the southern side of Eagle Bay Road, opposite Wise winery, Eagle Bay Brewing Co is set in a large modern building filled with a tonne of wood and stone finishings giving it a typical ‘down south’ rustic feel. The other thing you can’t help but notice is the sweeping view over the vineyard (yes they also produce wine). They even have a little shop, selling Eagle Bay Brewing branded merchandise, at the front of the building which we browsed while our waiter got our table ready for us. Service on the whole was really good staff were friendly and helped suggest beers to try out. There was one guy (possibly the manager) walking around looking pretty grumpy, maybe he was having a bad day? Nevertheless he was very polite when he asked if we were ok for drinks.

It was great to see the menu had a heap of local produce on it, you just can’t beat the taste of fresh South West produce. I ordered the scotch fillet with potato rosti and my girlfriend had the prosciutto, rocket and mushroom pizza. Our meals came out within 20 minutes of ordering, which was pretty fast considering there wasn’t an empty table in the joint. My steak was awesome, cooked to a perfect medium-rare as requested and easily one of the better steaks I’ve ever had. The pizza was pretty good too, although I’m not a huge fan of rocket, the prosciutto and mushroom was a killer combo.

Not only was the food good but the beers were incredible too. A little while back at The Laundry Cafe in Busselton, I discovered my new favourite beer, Eagle Bay Brewing’s Kolsch and it seemed to taste even better fresh from the source at the brewery. If I could suggest one thing Eagle Bay Brewing should do, it would be to introduce a shuttle service to/from Dunsborough, I was absolutely devastated that I had to stop at two beers because I was driving. Lucky for me they did sell growlers (1 litre bottles) of their beer that you could take home with you.

If you’re interested in a change from the wine swilling, truffle eating “weekend wine warriors”, why not add Eagle Bay Brewery to your itinerary the next time you head down south. Fresh beer and delicious food in an amazing setting, how could you go wrong.