Local brews: The five Australian beers you can only get locally

Beer has officially come full circle. In a hark back to brewing days of old, brewers are creating beers exclusively for their own local communities.

On November 11, Feral Brewing launches Perth Local Lager, which will only be available in Western Australia.

And Little Creatures last year launched Furphy Refreshing Ale, a beer exclusive to Victoria, after opening its new brewery in Geelong.

Both these stalwarts of Aussie craft beer have long distributed their other beers nationally, so restricting supply seems something of a backward step.

Game changers

But with craft beer now ubiquitous in capital cities across the country, the game has changed.

There's a small brewery in every town that services its local market by default, so we as drinkers now value closer, more authentic connections with the people who make our beers.

It's a reaction to the decades of brewery consolidation that saw the Australian beer landscape dominated almost completely by two companies and a handful of national brands heavy on marketing and low on flavour.

A pushback against big beer

Local and state-based breweries were swallowed up and their beers brewed elsewhere, perhaps even interstate, decreasing their relevance to the local community.

"The industrial revolution is what really commercialised and commoditised beer," says Feral Brewing owner Brendan Varis.

"The big industrial processes came in and people worked out that they could make more money by homogenising products.

"Now it's turned full circle, and I think people want to support a local brewery, but they also want the local brewery to support the local community," he says.

Different rules for different states

Long before the industrial revolution, when humans lived a more nomadic existence, Varis says breweries were integral in founding settlements.

"The standard of the beer was often a reason for a village to occur or thrive," he says.

"The local ale was often made in the tavern, what today would be called a brewpub. If that local ale was known to be good, that would be a reason for the tavern and the village to be a stopping point for more people."

The lure of the local

Little Creatures marketing manager Ash Cranston says the trend of 'localisation' is not unique to beer, with consumers also demanding locally sourced coffee, wine and food.

"People are wanting things 'from here', from their community and having that relationship directly with the people that they purchase from," he says.

"For us, Furphy was about giving something to Victorians. We came across [from WA] and they welcomed us in, so we thought it was right for us to make a beer for people in Geelong, first and foremost, and then we spread it out to the rest of Victoria."

Retro brews

If you need further proof that 'everything old is new again', Carlton & United Breweries last year embarked on a program of bringing back heritage beer brands that were knocked off one-by-one as a result of consolidation in the 1900s.

Extinct since 1915, Tooth's Pale Ale was relaunched in Sydney. McCracken's Amber Ale returned to Melbourne for the first time since the 1950s, while 1980s favourite Bulimba Gold Top made a comeback in Brisbane.  

"The whole purpose behind them was to connect back with local communities and give people back their local beers again, and the response has been fantastic," says Tim Ovadia, head of craft & Australian premium brands at CUB.

Today, there's likely a brewery near you making small batch beer for its own locale. Here are some of the highest profile examples of beers that do not cross state lines, a hotchpotch of modern creations, heritage releases and relics of a bygone era.