Cockies Beer is the brand of beers produced by the Barrabool Hills Brewery in South Geelong. Cockies was started by husband & wife team Jamie & Lizzy Roydhouse in 2014 as a contract operation, brewing out of Cavalier in Derrimut. After 6 batches Jamie decided to take the plunge and purchase his own stainless, eventually opening in South Geelong in June 2015.
Jamie’s story is a little different to most new entrants to the craft brewing industry. After a long career in pharmacy Jamie decided to take his long term hobby of home brewing & turn it into a second career. In fact he started home brewing in the 1970’s, before many of his fellow new brewery owners were even born!
Brewery Type
Physical
Region
Geelong & the Bellarine
Tasting Room
112 Balliang St, South Geelong
The brewery is located in an industrial cul-de-sac, a stones throw from the far better known Little Creatures Brewery in Geelong. It’s a relatively modern concrete warehouse, that was clearly a showroom of some description in an earlier life. You enter through a little reception area before entering the brewery proper. It’s a welcoming little brewery with a small bar around to the right hand side. They keep a tight taplist with their 4 core range beers joined by two seasonals.
The stainless steel takes up the back left third of the warehouse and is mirrored by a cool room on the right hand side. There is a Cockies motif on the back wall, whilst various brewing supplies are neatly stacked around. The brewery is only open to the public on a Friday afternoon & accordingly the tables and chairs are all fold out picnic style stuff. It’s definitely an older crowd than you’d find at most craft breweries, but it had a lovely relaxed vibe.
I think this adds to the charm of the brewery. It’s a real family operation, with three Roydhouse’s the only staff working on the day we visited. They offer free pool upstairs, while there is also a little putting game. There’s also complimentary cheese platters & chips, for which they ask for only a small donation, while the jazz band on the night we visited were really good.
The beer was better than I expected at Cockies. The IPA was tasting seriously fresh! It was packed with Galaxy hops, which translated to an IPA with heaps of passionfruit flavours & aromas as well as moderate bitterness! It’s one of the better traditional (read bitter not juicy) IPA’s I’ve had this year!
Remember it’s always Beer O’Clock somewhere in the world!
