Early on in the year the sweetie decided he wanted to go to Tasmania for his 50th birthday. We'd go down for a long weekend and just have a nice quiet weekend in Hobart.
Then Covid-19 happened.
We couldn't plan anything in advance. We couldn't even guarantee we'd be allowed across the border into NSW much more than a few weeks in advance. So we sat on the idea and wondered what we might be able to do or where we might be able to go.
Then in early August Lorraine Elliot of Not Quite Nigella blogged about her trip to Tumut, Tumbarumba, Gundagai and Yass, including a visit to the Tumut River Brewing Company. I thought a brewery tour and a weekend in Tumut sounded like a great idea and suggested it to the sweetie. He thought it sounded like a great idea too. The Sunday before we planned to go down I called up to see if tours would even be running (because, covid), and they were, and got ourselves booked in. I didn't book accommodation until the day we left, because I didn't want to have to go through the drama of cancelling if one of us got sick in the intervening time.
We took the slow way to Tumut on the Saturday, via Adaminaby, snow and dams.
Sunday morning we visited Blowering Dam and the Tumut lookout before walking up to the pub.
The brewery itself is setup in an old store building, and the pub is setup next door in what used to be a tyre store. Out the front all the tables are full of people enjoying lunch and a beer in the glorious late winter day.
There's a hand santising station out the front, setup like a beer tap!
Inside is full of comfy couches, and the day's live performance act, Toby Mobbs, is getting setup.
We enquire about our tour booking. It seemed to have gone astray, however there's two other groups for a tour booked, so we pay and go in to sit down. There's a couple of different options you can get - the tour; tour and tasting; or tour, tasting and meal. We opt for the latter - tour, tasting and meal. This includes the talk by Tim Martin, one of the owners, four 7oz tasters, and a burger or mini pizza. All for $35. Absolutely excellent value!!
We start with a pint of Full Grunt and enjoy drinking a beer in front of all the equipment.
While we're waiting, we have a look around. There's the processing tanks, as well a series of fermenting tanks.
On the other end of the building are the stores of grains and hops, and cans ready for canning. The canners come and setup in the middle of the floor and can on the spot.
On one side is a keg cleaning? filling? both? station
12:30pm rolls around and Tim gets started on his story. Two guys have a dream to make great beer. They all live happily ever after.
Not quite!
The story has been going on for years, and has been one drama and set back and battle after another, over and over and over again. Which is such a shame, because they do in fact make great beer, and the brewery is an amazing thing for Tumut to have going for it.
We have a couple of breaks during the talk (once you break that seal.. ;) ), and we get started on our tasters. You get four tasters each, so the sweetie and I worked our way through eight different beers.
Some of the others got the Full Grunt burger and were raving about it, so for lunch we got one of those, and a mini pizza. I wasn't quite concentrating when I went to order the food - I should have gotten something a bit more adventurous than pepperoni ;) Sadly the sweetie had eaten half the burger before I got a chance to get a photo!
After telling the story of how the brewery came to be, Tim then went into the details of the beer making process, explaning the whole thing from start to finish, and how they use locally sourced ingredients where possible. Did I mention this brewery is great for the local area? :)
And if you want to know about the bubble wrap marks on the side of the vats, you'll have to go and take a tour to hear the story!
After the tour is done, we head back out into the lounge. We grab another pint each and listen to the last couple of songs by Toby Mobbs.
His last song of the day is "Three Cities" about "coming from" three cities - Albury-Wodonga and Wagga Wagga.
I also have a bit of a wander round the pub.
The bottle wall is amazing. There's all sorts of historic bottles and cans there, and it was cool to try and pick ones I'd had.
We had a thoroughly lovely afternoon there, and it was a great way to spend Stu's 50th (even tho that was the next day, shh! ;) ).
The next morning on our way out of town we dropped in to pick up a mixed case of beer. You can buy them individually, or in four packs, six packs or cases. We opted for six different four packs, as the four packs were already bound and easy to pick up.
Tim saw us there and brought out a small glass of a sour that's nearly ready for canning. It was very refreshing - it will be good in summer!
I truly hope Tim gets a "happily ever after" - he's put in sooo much effort!!
PS, as I started writing this this afternoon I was chatting to Tony, and he said Tim? or someone from TRBC was at Herbert's just down the road! Today!! And I missed it!!! Gahh!!!! They also tapped their 50 Shades of Purple last night, I'm going to have to get down there to try it!!
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