La Sirene Brewing

The house saison yeast was bought from a family in a small European village and air-freighted to Melbourne. The first sample died in transit, and the second one lived in a university lab until it could be used.

Why go

Costa Nikias and James Brown met studying winemaking, and the winemaking shows in how the beer is made. The oak barrels along the wall were chosen by their cooperage rather than by what had previously been aged in them, which is a cellar decision rather than a brewery one (The Crafty Pint). Costa built his own brewery in an old tank-building factory in Alphington in 2013 with his wife Eva, and the beers are wild, farmhouse and wine-hybrid ales. Praline, a Belgian-style stout with cocoa, vanilla and hazelnuts, was a one-off for GABS and won the people's vote there in 2014. Where the brewery actually is matters more than usual, because it moved: they were locked out of Alphington in December 2022 and reopened in Reservoir, eleven kilometers away, on 7 October 2023.

Order this / avoid

• Order: the Saison, which is the house yeast doing its job, then the Citray Sour, a farmhouse sour built on oranges. Ask what has come out of barrel.
• Avoid: the old Alphington address, which plenty of listings still carry. Praline and the reserve bottlings go out of stock and stay there.

What locals & experts say

• James Smith, The Crafty Pint (October 2023), on the reopening: "Just 371 days earlier, they'd done exactly the same thing: welcoming eager guests into a converted warehouse with a very similar ambience, lined with the same beer-and-fruit-filled barrels, pouring many of the same beers... It's just that on October 1, 2022, it all took place in Alphington, approximately 11km away." ref
• Costa Nikias, on why they did not quit: "We would have been very justified to leave the industry at that point... We've given it 13 years, but there's just so much I want to do and so many more programs I want to execute in that wild ale space." ref
• Eva Nikias, on the lockout itself (January 2023): "We were completely blind-sided, given two hours to leave the premises, to tell staff we're not operating." Beer spoiled in the tanks and the affected businesses shared about $20,000 in compensation between more than a dozen of them. ref
• No critic and no chef vote. Nobody with a byline has assessed the beers, and none of the 74 industry picks in Melbourne's corpus names the brewery. The case rests on the yeast, the barrels and one GABS trophy.

Good to know

• Where: 277 Edwardes Street, Reservoir. The Alphington site is gone.
• Timing: the brewery does not publish opening days or hours on its site. Book a table through their system or check before you drive.
• Booking: taken online.
• Food safety: no entry for this business at either address on Safe Food Victoria's register of convictions as at its 21 July 2026 update. ref
• Near MCEC: no. Reservoir, about 12km from South Wharf.

Jeff's take (his words)

None. Melbourne has no raw saved-places export under places-db/melbourne/data/, so jeff_note stays empty rather than being composed.

Verdict (Chef Jeff ladder)

should-visit — Worth the trip north, and check the day before you go. Costa Nikias and James Brown met studying winemaking, tracked down their own saison yeast from a family in a small European village and air-freighted it to Australia; the first sample died on the way and the second survived in a university lab. That strain is still the house yeast. The barrels lining the bar were chosen by their cooperage rather than by whatever used to be in them, which is a winemaker's habit applied to beer. Praline, a Belgian-style stout with cocoa, vanilla and hazelnuts, won the people's vote at GABS in 2014 and has had a life of its own since. The reason to check first is the history: they were locked out of their Alphington home with two hours notice in December 2022 and reopened in Reservoir on 7 October 2023, and plenty of listings still point at the old address. It holds below must-visit because no critic has assessed the beers, no chef in the corpus names it, and the bar does not publish its hours.