After many, many visits to this steampunk-lite brewery from the team at The Local Taphouse, we've come to the conclusion there's no style brewer Ashur Hall can't master. Whether you're settling in here or at Stomping Ground’s Moorabbin site, the basics – pale ale, lager – are flavoursome yet drinkable. At the other end, the milk stout is as good as any going around. Every beer is helpfully rated green, orange or red, depending on how much it will challenge drinkers.

Lots of breweries around Melbourne dabble in sour and farmhouse-style beers, but none have committed as fully as this one. Here, you drink among several hundred old wine, bourbon and whisky barrels used to age lambics, imperial stouts and more. But there are also plenty of options for more casual drinkers, including a pale ale, pilsner and the gorgeous, raspberry-infused Miss Pinky.

A few years ago, a couple of ex-winemakers took a different approach to brewing inside this charming 1880s warehouse. Today, it’s where you’ll find some of the city’s benchmark IPA styles (we’re particular fans of the hazy J-Juice) and plenty of limited releases. The Footscray site is also home to Dart Distilling, Hop Nation’s own small-batch spirits brand.

It all starts with a cosy front bar echoing a classic Melbourne pub. But further inside, Bodriggy’s Abbotsford home is revealed to be a much more ambitious venue, with a ’70s Australian cocktail bar upstairs and a kitchen that goes above and beyond standard brewpub fare. Here, it’s all about familiar Central and South American flavours, with some interesting diversions along the way.

Only in recent years has Moon Dog paid attention to convention and started brewing pale ales, lagers and other barbeque-friendly beers. Before that, it wasn't unusual to arrive at the Abbotsford OG and find nothing but monstrous barrel-aged stouts and intensely sour cherry ales available. That anything-goes spirit lives on at Moon Dog’s Preston HQ, which is decked out with a pool, hidden tiki disco bar, giant beer garden and an indoor waterfall. There’s truly nothing else like it in Australia.

Wolf of the Willows is one of Melbourne's most exciting and consistently excellent beer brands. In 2021, it finally got a place to call its own – a production facility featuring 115-seat taproom with 12 rotating beers. Also on the menu: hard seltzers, cold brew coffee and mud crab burgers.

“Leading you into temptation” is this brewery’s motto, and believe us, there’s plenty here to tempt you. A husband-and-wife team have combined their passions (home-brewing and American barbeque, respectively) to create a spacious, modern brewpub with a young gun pitmaster in the kitchen. Legit Carolina pulled pork and Texas-style brisket await.

The more hardcore elements of the beer community were upset when Asahi acquired Mountain Goat in 2015, but actually, not much has changed since the sale. Victoria's second-oldest craft brewery is still making an outstanding core range – including the classic Steam Ale – plus interesting one-offs and seasonals.

This schmick brewery specialises in hop-driven hazy IPAs and high-alcohol styles, but with 22 beers on tap, there’s something for every kind of drinker. The beer also makes its way into the food, from hop-cured salmon to malted cheesecake.

Hop-forward IPAs are the main game at this soaring warehouse brewery, but sours, saisons and dark beers are also on frequent rotation. Pair with a charcuterie box or pizza and you’re all set.

Most breweries are relaxed, but this one feels like chilling in a mate's garage. With much better beer, of course. The well-rounded selection covers classic English styles, hoppy American IPAs and sour and barrel-aged ales.

In America there's such a thing as an east or west coast-style IPA. The latter is known for its unrestrained use of big, bitter hops with tropical or resinous characters. It's this style US expat Casey Wagner loves the most and brews the best, though you'll also find pale and amber ales on offer.

This small, two-man operation has plenty of personality. The stand-out among is four core beers is Prickled Pink, a rich, mouth-filling wheat beer fermented with prickly pear. It also happens to be pink.

The Scottish craft-beer brand found a home in Coburg’s historic Pentridge Prison. Head to the beer garden – set in a former prison yard – or the taproom in a grand old bluestone building. Find Australian-exclusive brews, sticky-glazed chicken wings and a full plant-based menu.

This colourful 350-capacity outpost for the beloved Beechworth brewery offers 30 taps, two bars and a jet-setting menu of crowd-pleasers. And it’s a working brewery, too, which means all of the Bridge Road favourites, plus site-exclusive special releases.

At a converted suburban warehouse, try wild-fermented beers by one of Australia’s most established brewers. Complex stouts, lagers and farmhouse drops sit alongside grazing boards and beer-spiked cocktails.