Best Pale Ale in Australia

• article written by the Busselton/Dunsborough Times

Margaret River’s Cheeky Monkey Brewing Co. has every reason to celebrate.

The brewery, which only recently rebranded and expanded, took home a trophy from this month’s Australian International Beer Awards, and was the only WA brewery to do so.

Cheeky Monkey won the trophy for best modern-style pale ale and also won a gold medal for its West Coast IPA.

The contest is the world’s largest annual beer competition, attracting more than 1700 entries from 320 breweries in 36 countries.

Cheeky Monkey Brewing Co. managing director Brent Burton said the hard work had paid off for his team and praised head brewer Dillon Hunter.

“Dillon has brought new skills and knowledge to the brewery since becoming the new head brewer last year — I’m very proud of him,” he said.

“To be the only WA brewery to win a trophy is absolutely great.

“All the brewers in the South West are all friends and are all brewing great beers, so to be recognised for our pale ale, which is a heavily congested category and the most consumed style, along with the IPA, is fantastic.”

Cheeky Monkey’s new brewing facility in Vasse has quadrupled the company’s brewing capacity, making it the fourth-largest brewery in WA.

The site has a bottling and canning line, a state-of-the-art laboratory to test the beer throughout the process, and a small bar will be opened in the centre of the facility by spring. Mr Burton said it was a change in direction for the brewery, but an exciting one.

“The bar is going to be in the middle of the production brewery so customers will be immersed in a production-style brewery, not seeing it through a glass panel, but sitting amongst it, enjoying beers and pizzas — it is going to be quite unique,” he said.

“We only started as a little brewery out on Caves Road and have been wildly successful.

“We didn’t envisage we would become a production brewery like this or end up having a crack at the distribution market.”