Mountain Culture

If you were taking a friend from overseas on a day trip to the Blue Mountains, there are invariably two places you should visit while in Katoomba. One of them is The Three Sisters, a spectacular sandstone rock formation overlooking the national park at the suburb’s edge. The other is Mountain Culture, an ambitious craft brewery and taproom in the heart of town.

It’s run by husband-and-wife duo DJ and Harriet McCready. DJ, who hails from North Carolina in the US, won acclaim at Mona Vale’s Modus Operandi Brewing (which won a slew of industry awards during his tenure) and at Colorado’s Oskar Blues brewery before that.

Here, he’s using advanced brewing methods and best-in-class kit to create a spectrum of beer styles; building unique water profiles via a process called reverse osmosis and using rare imported yeast strains. You might start with something easy like a lager, before moving onto the brewery’s most popular beer, the Status Quo pale ale. A tasting flight is the best way to get across the ever-changing tap list.

But Mountain Culture’s cult status is owed almost entirely to its hazy creations – brewed in small batches, branded individually and, in some cases, limited to one plus-sized tin per customer. Many aficionados make the pilgrimage to the Blue Mountains simply to buy and collect these one-offs.

Housed inside a former Civic Video outlet, the taproom is simple yet handsome. Pull up at one of the long timber benches on the open-air back veranda or one of the cosy nooks up front. A kitchen adjacent to the bar serves American-style burgers, tater tots, fries with Japanese curry mayo and fried pickles – it’s exactly the kind stuff you'd want to eat with these beers.