The blue-tongued lizard may be on the brink of becoming an endangered species in suburban backyards, but you can expect to see a lot more of these cheeky-looking reptiles staring out from beer labels and tap-tops everywhere.

A spanking new $120 million Bluetongue Brewery has been built on a greenfields site at Warnervale, near Wyong, and has been producing beer since May, with the first kegging and bottling run due later this week (JULY 29). With a projected annual output of around 50 million litres, Bluetongue is ambitiously aiming at the mainstream beer market currently dominated by Fosters and Lion Nathan.

Started in 2003 by four entrepreneurs from the Hunter region, Bluetongue Brewery soon carved out a significant regional presence, especially after ad man John Singleton bought into the company. In 2007 Bluetongue was bought out entirely by Pacific Beverages, a joint venture between Coca-Cola Amatil and global brewer SABMiller, though Singleton has been retained in a “marketing ambassador” role.

Obviously, CCA brings an extensive distribution network to the venture on the back of their non-alcoholic beverages, while SABMiller owns a hatful of well-known international beer brands like Miller Genuine Draft, Peroni, Pilsner Urquell and Grolsch. Brewing some of these brands locally is a distinct possibility but the overall success of this major new local player will depend on whether Aussie drinkers embrace Bluetongue brands on a national scale.

Touring the new facility with Bluetongue brewery manager Paul Feasey and brewmaster Dermot O’Donnell, the buzzword “flexibility” kept cropping while they described the German-designed and –built plant. At the time of my visit, a team of German technicians was still on-site fine-tuning the brewing equipment.

Of particular interest was a decoction vessel or “cereal cooker”, as Feasey calls it. This vessel cooks a portion of grain separate to the mashing process, with the cooked grain then added back into the mash tun.

“There are lots of brands in the SABMiller portfolio,” he says, “and the cereal cooker means we could use all sorts of grains like rice, wheat or sorghum.”

Rice is a principal ingredient in Miller beers while sorghum would most likely be employed to produce a gluten-free beer.

“We think you get a maltier beer using the decoction process,” says O’Donnell. In this process a quantity of the mash – consisting of hot water and malted barley - is removed and heated separately, before being returned to the mash tun.

The famous Czech beer Pilsner Urquell is produced by this method of “decoction mash” but O’Donnell quickly quashed my query on that score.

“We won’t be doing Pilsner Urquell here,” he said.

The existing Bluetongue brewing facility based at Cameron Park, outside Newcastle, will eventually be relocated to the Warnervale site, alongside the larger plant, offering “flexibility” with contrasting batch sizes. While the new equipment installed at Warnervale boasts a brew length of 300 hectolitres (30,000 litres), the much smaller unit at Cameron Park has a capacity of 50Hl (5,000 litres). 

The latter will be used for limited edition and seasonal brews, according to O’Donnell, whose role includes “new product development”, coupled with being a roving brand ambassador.

Located in the heart of the Hunter Valley wine touring region, the Bluetongue Brewery Bar at the Hunter Resort has fooled many punters - and the odd journalist - into assuming the beers on tap are made on-site with the handful of stainless steel vessels cunningly placed behind the bar. But the less-romantic Cameron Park industrial estate has been the sole production base until now.

Happily, the 25-odd workforce from Cameron Park will be absorbed into the Warnervale production team, along with some 20 new brewing recruits.

TASTING NOTES

BLUETONGUE PREMIUM LAGER (4.9%)

Pale gold, clear. Aroma: clean, malty. Palate: soft maltiness at first, delicately balanced mid-palate, some faint floral hop notes late with restrained after-bitterness. Overall: a sessionable pale lager with enough malt character to lift it above the mainstream.

BLUETONGUE TRADITIONAL PILSNER (4.5%)

Golden, clear. Aroma: malty, clean with some fruity hints. Palate: medium mouthfeel, some tropical fruit hints in mid-palate which linger on through the mildly bittered finish. Overall: doesn’t really live up to the billing, but a slice above the premium lager brand.

BLUETONGUE GINGER BEER (4%)

Copper-gold. Aroma: hint of ginger snap. Palate: light-bodied, soft mid-palate with gentle ginger characters, finishes slightly perfumed with some gingery pep. Overall: drinkable enough and drier than most alcopops.