Independent brewery Stone & Wood is preparing to pour their first beers in months, as they begin welcoming patrons back into their Byron Bay and Brisbane breweries in response to the state governments’ relaxed restrictions on gatherings from this weekend.

From Friday 15 May in Byron and Saturday 16 May in Brisbane, Stone & Wood is inviting up to 10 people at a time to their ‘Welcome Back’ sessions every Friday, Saturday and Sunday, where patrons pre-book their spots and preferred time slot online before heading to either brewery.

Pre-booked sessions are $40 per person and include a three-beer tasting paddle, a meal, a brief tour with the Stone & Wood crew and a voucher for the bottle shop. There are four 100-minute sessions per Friday, Saturday and Sunday at both breweries between 12pm and 8pm.

From Tuesday 12 May for either Byron or Brisbane, patrons can book a single spot or any number of spots up to 10 for their friends, or groups of 10 can book out an entire session and enjoy the brewery to themselves.

Stone & Wood’s specially trained crew will be keeping the breweries spotless and sanitised during and between the Welcome Back sessions. Any additional purchases will be card only, plus the crew will be practising physical distancing where possible.

Since closing their doors in response to COVID-19 in late March, both Stone & Wood’s Tasting Room in Byron Bay and its Brisbane brewery in Fortitude Valley have been operating as takeaway windows for local beer-lovers to purchase cartons, six-packs and 1L sharer bottles of beer.

But the federal government’s recent announcement of the first phase of the Roadmap to a COVIDSafe Australia was welcomed by the Stone & Wood, who are looking forward to hosting their respective communities in the breweries once again.

Bookings can be made at their website from Tuesday 12 March.

In response to the government-mandated closures of pubs, clubs and venues around the country that came into effect late March, the independent Northern Rivers brewery has been part of the #KeepingLocalAlive campaign, a movement of independent breweries working to keep ‘indie’ Australian-owned beer alive during the last few months of restrictions.