Paddock to Pint – Eagle Bay Wheatbelt Lager Subheading

Farmer to farmer, mate to mate.

Good beer makes good stories, and good stories make a good beer even better.  Eagle Bay Brewery have teamed up with local farmers CJ South & Co, to create a beer that showcases the WA farming community. Using Wagin Munich malt (300kms down the road from the brewery), Pale malt, Eagle Bay rainwater, Australian hops and solar power – Eagle Bay created a true Australian Wheatbelt Lager that’s fresh, light and easy drinking.

An ode to generations of farming and the importance of local community, 100% WA ingredients and 100% WA made, Eagle Bay have created a true paddock-to-pint experience. We had a yarn to the team about their history, their latest brew, and what’s next for this WA brewery.

Q&A with the Eagle Bay

Tell us about Eagle Bay Brewing Co’s history, when and how did the brewery begin?

Eagle Bay Brewing Co is a family owned and run restaurant, brewery and vineyard located on our 66-year-old working farm in Eagle Bay, Western Australia. The brewery has been owned and operated from the ground up since 2010 by third generation local farming siblings Nick, Astrid and Adrian d’Espeissis. The property has been in the family since 1950 and the farm is still operational with the trio’s father John still farming the land that the building overlooks on Cape Naturaliste.

Tell us about your latest brew: Wheatbelt Lager.

Wheatbelt Lager is a 4.3%, classic Australian style Lager, perfectly suited to drinkers in our great state. It’s an approachable, sessionable and satisfying beer. Wheatbelt Lager differs from our other brews by being all WA malt and all Australian hops.

What made you want to create a beer based on produce from the Wagin area?

Sustainability and low food miles being the key here, with the addition of Mallokup malting to the process, we are using Munich malt that has only travelled 300kms to us, rather than several thousand from New Zealand (our previous supplier Gladfield is based in Christchurch). WA is a huge producer of malt grade barley that is exported worldwide and to be able to use some of that directly from the grower is a wonderful experience.

What makes this Lager “paddock to pint”?

We’ve teamed up with CJ South & Co, to source our grain directly from their family farm in Wagin. We then have the grain malted at the recently opened Mallokup malting facility in Capel, allowing us 100% traceability over our grain and creating a true paddock to pint experience. We wanted to highlight this message around “paddock to pint” to get people thinking just a little bit more about where their beer and its ingredients are coming from. Put simply, beer doesn’t exist without farmers!

What do you want people to think when they’re drinking Wheatbelt Lager? Who’s the key demographic this beer was made for?

We wanted Wheatbelt Lager to be a beer for everyone. It transcends the craft beer market by being an approachable and easy drinking beer offering for any and all tastes. Not a fan of craft beer? Perfect, this is as classic as it gets. Really into your craft beer but looking for something crisp and easy going that is still expertly crafted? Perfect, this is a gold medal winning beer born from a respected craft pedigree!

How should we be serving our Wheatbelt Lager? What is a good food pairing with it?

This may be contentious with beer-purists, especially considering we are a craft-brewery, but I reckon you should be knocking this beer back ice-cold and straight out of the can on a beautiful and sunny day. This is a quintessentially Australian beer, so the obvious choice here is to drink this one around a BBQ with friends and family.

What are Eagle Bay’s brewing philosophies? 

We strive to create expertly crafted beers that are the perfect expression of their style, while minimising our impact on the pristine environment that surrounds us. We collect rainwater for our brewing process, we have eight rainwater tanks which take care of at least 2 million litres of rainwater each year. We have 72kw’s of solar panels for our brewing operations. As a brewery owned and operated by a third-generation farming family, we’ve always had a huge respect for sustainable agriculture. Sourcing local ingredients and establishing local relationships is particularly important to us and working closely with farmers, as is the case with Wheatbelt Lager, is another great step in our brewing philosophy. Flavour-wise, we are hoping to bring a little piece of our home ground to anyone, anywhere. The beers should bring you back to sitting on the grass here at Eagle Bay on long summer days enjoying the views to the ocean, that may be sipping an imperial stout or Wheatbelt Lager. Regardless, it should feel like you’re on holiday here in the beautiful southwest.

What’s next for Eagle Bay?

We never want to lose focus on one of the most important aspects of our brewing process – which is ensuring that our core-range of beers will always be brewed to the highest quality and will fit the bill for any drinker and any occasion. That said, we’ll be keeping our foot firmly on the gas with our new and limited release beer schedule. So expect some sour stuff, big hoppy stuff and most importantly, just bloody delicious and well-made beers.

Where can people get their hands on Eagle Bay?

Eagle Bay bevies can be found on your local Liquor Barons shelves. So freeze the day! Find your local HERE.

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Get your hands on Eagle Bay from your local Liquor Barons store.