Flood of boutique beer

Chris Sheehan and Allan Tilden of Eumundi Brewing.

By Margaret Maccoll

There used to be one brewery on the Sunshine Coast, the Eumundi Brewery, but with the dramatic increase in interest in boutique brewing there are now about 13 operating in the area.

Over the weekend a number of the breweries including a reinvented Eumundi Brewing showcased their products at the Sunshine Coast Agricultural Show in Nambour.

Brewery business partners Chris Sheehan and Allan Tilden restarted the brewery last year basing it at the Imperial Hotel where the first brewery was based in the 1980s.

Chris said today’s product was vastly different from the former product and the appetite for beer had also changed.

“The number of breweries shows there’s a thirst for beer,“ he said.

“There’s a lot of masterchef-minded people who are game to try something new.“

He said the surrounding breweries brought beers to the region with tastes from around the world and people were more interested in a quality product than quantity.