Toowoomba will welcome a new brewery tomorrow, with the opening of the city’s latest craft venue Volcanic Brewing.

To celebrate, owners Peter and Toni Burton are hosting an open day tomorrow and Sunday from 2:00pm and 11:00am respectively.

Suitably located behind the couple’s homebrew store on Toowoomba’s James Street, Volcanic Brewing has been in-the-making for some time.

Having run the homebrew supply store for 12 years, the couple have been experimenting and developing beer recipes for over a decade.

“We started about 12 years ago in the homebrew shop in Toowoomba and over the years we got fairly well into all-grain brewing with our customers,” Peter explained.

“We then started the brewery in a small way by selling fresh wort so homebrewers could take that home and brew, and we thought the next step is to go into a licensed brewery.”

Having explored the craft breweries and brewpubs in Brisbane, Peter told Brews News that he wanted to do the same thing for Toowoomba.

“It took a bit of setting up… just getting licensing and council and all of that in place, but as soon as we got the ok we started brewing the next day.”

The brewery and bar have been built in the back part of the James Street building, which has been knocked out and opened up to fit the brewing equipment and hospitality space. The two businesses will run as separate entities.

The 6hL brewhouse was built by Chinese company Tiantai, the same manufacturers used by fellow Queensland brewery Black Hops. All brewing equipment was made to spec.

To start off with the brewery will be open Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

There will be five core range beers available in the taproom, along with five seasonal or one-off beers, ciders and ginger beers. Making up the Volcanic Brewing core range is a pilsner, XPA, IPA, stout and amber, and an extra tequila and lime gose that will be pouring on Saturday. Volcanic Brewing also has Toowoomba’s only old-school English hand pump.

“We’ve done extensive testing on all our products, which is fun.

“So there’s a good range of beers as far as somebody can come in even if they’re not a big hoppy craft beer drinker, they can still have a nice pilsner – it’s a good beer for everybody.

“Then they can get up into our bigger IPAs and that’s becoming bigger and bigger, around town people have graduated through the beers.”

Volcanic Brewing joins 4 Brothers Brewing in the regional town.

“I’m just waiting for more people to put there hand up and get a couple more going so people from Brisbane can travel to here and try our beers.

“I know so many people that go to Brisbane on a regular basis just to go to some of the craft breweries and brewpubs.

“So if we’ve got a number of good ones here, they will also come to us.

“It’s not just the beer, it’s the food trucks and all that, it will give those guys the opportunity with bigger crowds to run a good business in the day.

“Toowoomba… there’s not a lot of different things to do so if we just put something else out there for people to do.

“It’s not like going to the pub and getting drunk, people will come to a craft bar to try the beers and it’s a different atmosphere altogether.”

Named for Toowoomba’s topographic past, Volcanic Brewing is located at 2/161 James Street, Toowoomba, Queensland.

Brewery openings are presented bySpark Breweries and Distilleries, the finest in-venue and production brewing systems available, with local design and support.

Read more:How to start a brewing company: Part One.