Gage Roads Brew Co

Lore & Background

Gage Roads was founded in 2002 by Bill Hoedemaker, John Hoedemaker and Peter Nolin. The brewery takes its name from Gage Roads, a roadstead in the Indian Ocean between Fremantle and Rottnest Island. It was listed on the Australian Securities Exchange in 2006 under the stock code GRB, and remains Australia's only listed brewery. In 2009, the Woolworths conglomerate acquired a 25 per cent share in the brewer for $2 million, enabling the purchase of a state-of-the-art 100 hectolitre brewhouse from German manufacturer Krones, which increased capacity to 2.2 million cases per annum. In 2015, the brewery executed a comprehensive refresh of its core craft beers, adding three new beers to its year-round lineup; this refresh proved extremely successful, boosting sales and making Gage Roads one of the largest craft brewers in Australia. In late 2016, Gage Roads bought back Woolworths' 25 per cent stake, returning the company to independence.

Reader's Guide

Gage Roads Brew Co is notable as one of Australia's largest independent breweries and the only remaining brewery listed on the ASX. Its new-world pale ale, Little Dove, won the Trophy for Champion Australian Beer at the 2016 Australian International Beer Awards, a significant recognition in the Australian brewing industry. The brewery also achieved runner-up Champion Large Brewery at the same awards in 2015. The 2015 refresh of its core craft beers, which added three new year-round beers, was a commercial success that solidified its position among the country's leading craft brewers. The buyback of Woolworths' stake in late 2016 restored full independence, marking a return to its original ownership structure. Gage Roads' history reflects a trajectory from a small founding team to a publicly listed entity, a period of partial corporate ownership, and a subsequent return to independent control, all while maintaining a focus on craft beer production in Western Australia.

A Modest Invitation That Became a Movement

When The Local Taphouse owners Steve Jeffares and Guy Greenstone first conceived what would become GABS, their expectations were deliberately low. For the inaugural event, originally titled the Great Australian Beer SpecTAPular and staged on 12 February 2011 at their bars in both Melbourne and Sydney, the pair reached out to leading Australian craft breweries with a simple ask: brew a special beer exclusively for the occasion. Not especially confident in the response they would receive, they estimated they might be fortunate to attract just ten new pours and had already earmarked their personal favourite Australian beers to fill the remaining ten taps. The brewers' enthusiasm shattered those cautious projections. Twenty-two breweries ultimately committed, delivering twenty entirely new beers for the festival. That single evening of overwhelming creative generosity set the tone for everything that followed, transforming a small local taproom promotion into a defining celebration of Australian craft brewing.

From Taproom to Exhibition Hall

The electric success of the 2011 taproom events gave the organisers the confidence to think far larger. The following year, GABS relocated to Melbourne's Royal Exhibition Building, expanding to a full three-day program and embedding itself within the city's Good Beer Week festivities. Roughly eight thousand attendees poured through the historic venue, a figure that would climb steadily in subsequent years: eleven thousand in 2013, twelve thousand in 2014, and sixteen thousand two hundred in 2015. The festival also crossed the Tasman Sea in a broader sense when the first dedicated GABS Sydney event was hosted at the Australian Technology Park in Eveleigh on 30 May 2016, drawing six thousand three hundred visitors. By the 2015 season, combined attendance across both cities approached twenty-three thousand, signalling that what began as a modest taproom night had grown into a major multi-city cultural event.

The Hottest 100 and Its Repeat Champions

Beyond the festival weekend itself, GABS has cultivated one of Australia's most anticipated annual rituals: the Hottest 100 Aussie Craft Beers countdown. Originally timed to coincide with Australia Day on 26 January, the ceremony has since shifted to the fourth Saturday of the month, yet its cultural weight remains unchanged. The rankings have produced a small constellation of repeat champions. Balter Brewing Company's XPA eXtra Pale Ale from Queensland appeared in the top three every single year from 2017 through 2024. Bentspoke Brewing Co's Crankshaft American IPA from the ACT dominated the 2019-to-2023 window, while Mountain Culture Beer Co's Status Quo Pale Ale from New South Wales claimed the top spot in 2022, 2023, and 2024. Stone & Wood's Pacific Ale also featured prominently across 2016 to 2020, underscoring how a handful of standout recipes have become fixtures of the Australian craft landscape.

International Acclaim and a Broadening Canvas

What began as a single-taproom experiment has evolved into a sprawling showcase that now features hundreds of beers, dedicated brewery stands, structured beer-education sessions, local food vendors, and live entertainment. Yet the event's signature remains the Festival Beers: brews crafted exclusively for GABS by leading producers from Australia, New Zealand, and invited international breweries. The Local Taphouses continue to host themed SpecTAPulars throughout the year, spotlighting rare or exclusive pours that might never appear on a regular tap list. The festival's growing stature was formally acknowledged in 2015 when the American publication Beer Connoisseur placed GABS among the top twenty beer festivals worldwide. That recognition, paired with the steady expansion of attendance and geographic reach, cemented the event's role as a central pillar of the Australasian craft beer community.

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