Brick Lane Market
The Mercat Cross Hotel stood on the corner of Queen and Therry for generations and now carries a brewery's name, after a 700-square-metre renovation inside a $450 million redevelopment of the Munro site.
Why go
Brick Lane is one of Victoria's larger independent breweries, launched in 2017 by 25 founders including Billy Slater, Dan Carter and Eddie McGuire, brewing in Dandenong South at a scale of around 20 million litres a year and contract-brewing for other producers as well (The Crafty Pint). Head brewer Jon Seltin came up at Bright in the High Country and was the inaugural head brewer at Hawkers. This is the brand's CBD flagship: a taproom on the ground floor, a dining room and terrace upstairs, and a top floor for events and live music (Broadsheet). The beer is made 35 kilometers from where you drink it, which is worth knowing before you treat it as a brewery visit.
Order this / avoid
- Order: One Love Pale Ale, the beer the business was built on. Base Lager tells you whether they can hold a line. The Someday Sour range is where they take risks.
- Avoid: Monday, since the published hours say closed, and confusing this with Brick Lane Shed, the same brewery's other venue inside Queen Victoria Market on String Bean Alley.
What locals & experts say
- Broadsheet (2022), announcing the takeover: Brick Lane,
one of Victoria's biggest independent craft breweries
, would take the historic Mercat Cross Hotel and rename it, with a 700-square-metre revamp by Techne Architecture & Interior Designpart of a $450 million redevelopment of the Munro site
.1 - The Crafty Pint's brewery page covers the ownership and the scale, and is a paid directory listing the business signs off, per their own How We Operate. Used here for facts, not judgment.3
- Nobody has reviewed the venue. Searched on 1 August 2026: the only coverage is the 2022 opening announcement. No chef in Melbourne's 74-pick corpus names it either.
- A closure check, run and negative. Searches for Brick Lane Brewing entering administration or being sold returned nothing, and the company still describes itself as independent and B Corp certified.
Good to know
- Where: 466 Queen Street, on the corner of Therry, at the Queen Victoria Market end of town.
- Timing: Tuesday noon to 9pm, Wednesday to 10pm, Thursday to 9pm, Friday to 11pm, Saturday 11am to 11pm, Sunday 11am to 6pm. The venue lists Monday as closed and separately advertises a Monday quiz night, so check that one.
- Brunch: 10am to 2pm, Saturday and Sunday.
- Booking: taken through the venue.
- Still open: the venue's current menu is dated Autumn 2026, which is what this status rests on rather than a listing page.
- Food safety: no entry for this business on Safe Food Victoria's register of convictions as at its 21 July 2026 update.4
- Near MCEC: no. North end of the CBD, about 2.5km from South Wharf.
Verdict
could-visit — A reasonable stop if you are at Queen Victoria Market and want a sit-down beer. Brick Lane took over the historic Mercat Cross Hotel on the corner of Queen and Therry, put 700 square metres through a Techne renovation and reopened it in 2023 as a three-level venue: taproom downstairs, dining room and terrace upstairs, events on top. The beer is competent and it is made 35 kilometers away in Dandenong South by a brewery with around 20 million litres of annual capacity, 25 founders including Billy Slater and Eddie McGuire, and a contract-brewing arm that supplies major retailers. Head brewer Jon Seltin has a real record, having launched Hawkers in 2015. What the room does not have is anything specific to itself: no house beer, no rotation anyone has documented, and no review by any critic since the opening was announced. Order One Love Pale Ale and judge them on it. Weekend brunch runs from ten.