Perth toasts international craft beer honour

Perth has long been known as the cradle of Australian craft beer. And now it’s place in the industry has been recognised by one of the world’s most respected travel journals.

Lonely Planet has conducted a search of bars and breweries across 30 countries to determine where the centres of the beer universe are located.

And when it comes to the Oceania region, Perth, alongwith Melbourne and Wellington, are deemed to be the three best cities for artisanal beers.

“Home to some of Australia’s first craft brewers, Matilda Bay and Little Creatures, and one of its most lauded, Feral Brewing in the northeast, Perth thoroughly deserves its place here,” states the Lonely Planet in their Global Beer Tour guide released next month.

Within each of the countries in the book, Lonely Planet has organised the best breweries to visit by city.

In the entry for each brewery, authors have suggested the must-try beer, and also recommended local sights so ‘beer tourers’ can explore the local area, as well as the beer.

Australia is also represented in the book by breweries in Beechworth, Berriedale, Bobs Farm, Bright, Hobart, Margaret River, McLaren Vale, Swan Valley, Sydney, and Woodend; while Auckland, Blenheim, Dunedin and Hamilton join Wellington in the book’s New Zealand selections.

There is a total of 185 global breweries in the book, of which 17 are Australian - and 4 of those are in WA - Eagle Bay Brewing, and Bootleg Brewery (both Margaret River), Little Creatures (Perth) and Feral Brewing Company (Swan Valley).

There was little shock at Melbourne being strongly mentioned in the guide.

“It shouldn’t be a surprise that Melbourne excels at brewing, selling and drinking craft beer,” states Lonely Planet.

“It’s clearly Australia’s Ale capital, with breweries ranging from the mainstream (Mountain Goat) to the obscure but brilliant (La Sirène), and a ton of great indie beer bars in such neighbourhoods as Brunswick and Fitzroy.”

And good beer drinkers have known for some time about the super brews on offer in the New Zealand capital.

“It might be wet and windy for much of the year in Wellington but there are always sunny fruit flavours in a pint glass to banish the blues with New Zealand’s distinctively tropical take on pale ale and IPA,” says Lonely Planet.

“Wellington has an extremely strong array of breweries and craft beer bars, making it a compact and cool city to tour.”