There are three reasons I have been known to drive the hour and a bit to the regional Victorian town of Woodend. One, there are good wineries nearby; two, there's a shop in the main street that sells fudge; and three: Holgate Brewhouse.

The imposing building on the corner, comprising of bar, restaurant and microbrewery can be a lot of fun. For around $15 you can do a tasting of 8 of the beers they produce (around 60ml of each, actually pretty good value. Some of thesecan be found at certain bottle shops, others are pretty hard to find. Personal favourites include the Mt Macedon Ale, the White Ale, the Dunkel Weizen, the Big Reg....ah hell, I quite like them all.

Eating in the bar is casual, but if you turn up while the restaurant dining room is open you can always order from teh restaurant menu. Basically, it's good pub food, paired with good beer. And can you really go wrong with that combination? Their bar menu has the old favourites: the parma, the chicken burger, the pie (with beef and their own dark ale). The restaurant menu is marginally more adventurous (although hardly "out there") with offerings like a duck shank risotto and the like. Forgive the lack of details on this point, but I've only ever been for lunch and eaten in the bar.

Anyway, if you find yourself in the area and you need a meal, you'd be mad to bypass Holgate. And if you don't find yourself in the area, make a trip, the beer alone is worth the petrol money.

We ate:
Bar food.

We drank:
Macedon Ale, White Ale.