Our Story
Welcome to Middle Island Brewing Co, where three home brewers and our families have joined forces to bring a small batch brewing company to Warrnambool, Victoria. Our mission at Middle Island Brewing Co. is to bring a new craft beer experience to the South-West, because we believe the location in which you live should not hinder your access to delicious beer.
By brewing small batch beers with a local twist, we aim to create a range nostalgic to our beautiful coastal area and promote the diversity and uniqueness of craft beer. We believe the name Middle Island Brewing Co. captures the spirit of Warrnambool and the town’s beloved Little Penguin colony.
The Adams, Howells and Munro families teamed up in the winter of 2021 with the idea of furthering our home brew journeys and venturing into a professional brewery. Many friends and family of ours had always said “why don’t you start up your own brewery?” to which we had always replied, “oh, it would be great, but…” now, we are making this dream a reality.
After many conversations over our delicious home brews, we finally decided: “Why not?” and so Middle Island Brewing Co. was born! Together we boast 30+ years of brewing, hospitality, and sustainability experience, which when put together, creates a fantastic and well-balanced team. Our aim is to build our own brewery and tap room that offers our range of traditional and non-traditional beers for both casual beer drinkers and beer geeks alike.
The Adams
We started our home brew journey over 30 years ago, after Carolyn’s father, Gordon Clark, shared with us his passion for beer and his brewing knowledge. Gordon was the founder of the Amateur Brewers Association of Victoria, so it could be said that good beer runs in the family.
We have brewed on and off in the past 30 years, first starting with extracts and brew in a bag, then moving in the last few years into all grain brewing using an all-in-one electric system. We have also progressed from individual bottling into kegging, allowing us to sample a delicious brew on tap any day of the week.
We enjoy putting our own twist on commercial recipes for our friends and family, playing around with German wheat beers and creating our own recipes.
The Howells
Our brewing philosophy is ‘don’t wait for the right beer, just go and brew it.’ After meeting and working in pubs together my husband and I found a new love of beer. My brother-in-law introduced us to home brewing and many experiments were made in our shed. We aim to produce the best tasting beer for everyone by adding our own home-grown hops and by pairing it with food and we aren’t afraid to try new recipes using fresh local sourced ingredients.
In 2008, we started our small home brewing named ‘Littl3birds’ after our three daughters which won a few awards at local beer competitions. My husband loves to brew English style dark ales and stouts, while I love ciders. By teaming up with the crew at Middle Island this gives us the chance to share our enthusiasm for great tasting beers.
The Munro’s
We commenced our home brew journey trading as Bells Hill Coastal, back in 2018 with a simple fermenter and a few kit and kilo brews. Our passion for the brewing process and desire to drink great tasting beer led us to take the leap into an all-grain system, where we could experiment, develop, and create some impressive drops.
The results spoke for themselves with our friends and family enjoying a pint or two and planting the seed in our minds to write more of our own recipes and open a brewery. Together with the Middle Island Brewing Co. crew, this dream is becoming a reality and we now have the platform to develop and release to the public great tasting beer alongside our mates, whilst educating the next generation of home brewers through social media and the local home brew association.