Aussie brewery expands in Ballarat

The brewery will extend its initial 15 hectare footprint at Ballarat West’s industrial hub with a restaurant adjoining the centre’s six-screen cinema.

The complex, due to open on August 30 this year, will include Showbiz Cinema, Kmart and Woolworths. 

Other tenants include a Noodlebox franchise, medical centre, discount store and dentist, developer H Troon’s director Tom McInerney said. Over 90 per cent of the complex is either tenanted or under offer. 

Broo, which has expanded rapidly since floating on the Australian Stock Exchange late last year, announced plans to build the “world’s greenest brewery” at Ballarat West Employment Zone (BWEZ) in February.

The bar is the fourth Victorian project announced by the company this year. Broo’s suite of projects includes a Mildura Pub and Brewery and a restaurant and bar at Sorrento to be renamed Sorento Brewery.

“The Delacombe Town Centre is a perfect site for Broo to be able to expand its Australian hospitality model and to develop a venue that will allow Broo to offer its unique suite of beers to the wider Ballarat region,” chief executive officer Kent Grogan said. 

Meanwhile Broo’s $100 million brewery at BWEZ  is expected to create 100 jobs in manufacturing, a number expected to triple as its tourism operation grows.

The carbon neutral brewery, which is tipped to include an Australian beer museum, is expected to produce 480 million bottles of beer a year. 

The water for the brewing process will be sourced from an underground aquifer under site, which is expected to save 300 million litres of water a year compared to regular brewing methods.

Beer produced in Ballarat will service Broo’s domestic, American, European and South East Asian markets. The brewer is one of the only international beer brands to have tapped into the Chinese beer market after signing a distribution deal with a large beer producer in November last year. Broo will be the only international beer distributed by the Jinxing Beer Group.