Stone & Wood Brews a Fire-Fuelled Porter for the Darkest Nights

As the winter solstice draws near, Stone Beer emerges—a brew steeped in ancient tradition. Inspired by medieval techniques, we fire stones and cast them into the kettle, caramelising malts to create rich toffee flavours. For its 17th winter, this dark porter features premium Australian malts, pouring deep brown with aromas of chocolate and notes of roasted coffee and biscuit. Best savoured on the darkest of nights, gathered around a crackling fire.

Honouring Tradition, Brewed by Fire: Our Annual Winter Stone Beer Returns

In the depths of a chilling Northern European winter, a celebration begins. The long-awaited harvest returns a dark bounty that is above all else that has come before.  
 
Long before the wizardry of steam was invented, brewers used stones and wood to brew their daily beer. Each year we release our winter seasonal Stone Beer, by adding wood-fired stones to the kettle to rouse the boil we pay tribute to this ancient technique and the brewers of the Middle Ages – dating back to the Vikings. Apart from the obvious heating effects, the stones intensify the malt characters and caramelise the brew, creating rich and toffee like flavours

Every winter, we honour ancient brewing techniques by releasing our annual Stone Beer, a bold yet approachable dark porter brewed with wood-fired stones in the kettle. This year, we’ve opted for a range of the highest quality Australian malts from Voyager Craft Malt, to produce a decadent limited release brew. Stone Beer 2025 pours dark brown, with rich and chocolatey aromas, followed by coffee, dark chocolate and biscuity flavours on the palate and finishes with a firm bitterness. Our wood fired porter is perfect for cold nights, sitting by the fire, beer in hand with mates.

Ingredients

• Malt
  • Voyager Veloria
  • Barrets Pale malt
  • Voyager Regen pale malt
  • Voyager Biscuit malt
  • Voyager Voodoo malt
  • Voyager Chocolate malt
  • Voyager Smoked Red Gum malt

• Hops
  • Galaxy
  • Fuggles

• Yeast
  • 1056 American Ale yeast

Food Pairings

🔥 Rich & Roasted Pairings (Match Intensity)

These dishes match the beer’s bold, roasted flavours:

• Smoked beef brisket with charred bark and caramelised edges
• Charcoal-grilled lamb burgers with harissa yoghurt or tahini slaw
• Slow-cooked beef cheek with root veg and jus reduction
• Sticky BBQ short ribs with molasses glaze

🌶️ Spice-Driven Pairings (Complement & Contrast)

Porters often pair beautifully with warm spice blends:

• Tandoori chicken with garlic naan and mint raita
• Lamb kofta with tabbouleh and a smoky eggplant dip
• Turkish-style eggplant stew (Imam Bayildi) for a vegetarian match
• Pulled lamb shawarma with pickled onion and tahini dressing

🧀 Cheese Pairings (Cut & Contrast)

Stone Beer’s roasted bitterness and carbonation can balance fat and salt:

• Sharp aged cheddar or mature Gouda
• Smoked provolone or blue cheese with fig paste
• A cheese board featuring nutty hard cheeses, toasted walnuts, and dates

🔥 BBQ & Flame-Friendly

Ideal for the beer’s smoky finish:

• Chargrilled sausages with caramelised onions
• Grilled portobello mushrooms marinated in balsamic and herbs
• Barbecued lamb skewers with chimichurri
  

When it comes to great food, Byron Bay has it all. The abundance of local produce makes this region a dream for restaurateurs and foodies, giving Byron and the wider Northern Rivers a very diverse food scene.

Whether it be fine dining or casual eateries, there’s a lot to choose from. We’ve put together a handy guide to places we love to visit, at a range of price points. Make sure you give some of these local legends some love!

Italian

Trattoria Basiloco

Family-owned and operated, Trattoria Basiloco makes their food with love and that is clear when you visit. Using locally-sourced ingredients, some of the standouts are their wood-fired pizza and their arancini balls. Find Trattoria Basiloco just next door from the Byron Library, inside the Bay Beach Motel.

Asian Food Fix

Light Years

Light Years is pretty well-established, with four locations spread across Byron Bay, Burleigh, Noosa and Newcastle. With a beautiful interior space that celebrates warmth, the sun and the sand, Light Years Byron Bay serves Asian fusion food with a selection of GF and Vegetarian options. Find Light Years down on Jonson Street.

Hutong Harry’s

Hutong Harry’s serves up modern Cantonese food, hailing from southern China. With a moody and beautifully styled space, this place is just as suited for date nights as they are for casual get togethers. Hutong Harry’s can be found on Fletcher Street.

Hot tip: The Crab Fried Rice is one of our faves!

Mexican Treats

Costa Taco

Located in the centre of town, Costa Taco serves up seriously good tacos at great prices. Whether you’re after a quick bite for lunch or dinner, Costa Taco is as good as it gets. Make sure you try the birria tacos!

Chihuahua Taqueria

Tucked away on Byron Street, Chihuahua Taqueria serves up similarly authentic Mexican food in handmade corn tortillas. Perfect for an easy-going date night or enjoying a few margaritas, Chihuahua uses locally-sourced meat and freshly caught fish in their meals.

Freshly foraged

Harvest Newrybar

Located down the road in Newrybar, this restaurant/deli/garden hybrid is a must-visit if you’re after fresh, local produce. Harvest has breakfast, lunch and dinner options, and chooses to focus on simplicity to allow the quality of their local ingredients shine. The menu is always in flux as they follow the seasons and what produce is available to them.

The Farm

It would be wrong not to include this Byron icon in the list, which similarly uses as much of its own fresh produce in their Three Blue Ducks restaurant. The Farm also boasts a bakery, café, gelato/sorbet store, produce store, florist and a host of other activities for the whole family to enjoy. 

Pipit Restaurant Pottsville

Pipit in Pottsville is a unique fine dining experience, one that’s very considered in its approach to food. Everything is made in house, waste products are repurposed where possible and they source produce and meat sustainably from local sources (including a bunch from Byron Bay). Make sure you book a table!

Hot tip: There’s a set menu here for dinner, but if you go for lunch you can pick and choose your own selection if you prefer.

The Hut Byron Bay

The Hut in Byron Bay is located in Possum Creek up in the hinterland and has a menu that refreshes every Thursday based on seasonality and available produce. The Hut is located inside the Old O’Possum Creek schoolhouse, making the atmosphere truly unique and homely. The food is very much mediterranean-inspired, with dishes designed to share.

Casual Eats

The Stone & Wood Brewery

The legends at 100 Mile Table bring their expertise to our brewery kitchen located in Byron’s Arts & Industry Estate. With rotating specials there’s always something fresh to choose from, and they’re perfectly paired with a cold beer from our core range or pilot batches brewed on site. Come visit us today!

For surfers, Bells Beach at Easter conjures images of cold Southern Ocean, long lines of swell, and fresh northwest offshores blowing off the adjacent farmland and through the moonah trees.

Well not so much this year.

The opening day of the Rip Curl Pro at Bells felt positively sub-tropical. Walking down the hill toward Bells, the sea breeze had a warm wash to it and the sun, when it caught you, bit hard. Even the water temp is currently sitting around 18 degrees – boardshorts for the brave, three-two full suits for the rest. If you weren’t facing due south staring out at the Antarctic sub latitudes, you could swear you were back on the North Coast.

Bells Beach has been known as Djarrak for tens of thousands of years to the Waddawurrung people, Djarrak meaning ‘elbow’, the headland appearing as a bend in the coastline. It was a place to gather shellfish and gather, generally. In more modern times, the small beach today known as Bells has been held in reverence by surfers who travel here to surf its icy lines.

That reverence rings out on Good Friday morning, shortly after first light as the bell tolls and the first notes of AC/DC’s Hells Bells echo around the beach. The ceremonial playing of Hells Bells to start the morning’s first heat at Bells began a couple of decades ago and has become iconic in its own right. An ancient landscape, a modern dance in the elements, a killer riff played by a grown man from Adelaide dressed as a schoolboy. Surfers in the water when it’s played have spoken about being lost out there in a powerful moment, forgetting they’re even surfing a heat.

The reality of course is that the annual Easter contest is a big deal, a stop on the world tour and a major sporting event that draws thousands of people from all over Victoria and beyond. Over the Easter weekend, Bells hums.

After parking on the adjacent farmland, you walk down the hill past the grandstands, coffee vans, the big screen and the gift shop, the air filled with the smell of deep fryers working overtime.

A full house will see 5000 Victorians fill the place. Many of them don’t know much about the sport of surfing, but as Victorians they know sport and they love sport, and they understand that Bells is the saltwater equivalent of an AFL final. They’ll sit on the beach all day, or at least until the high tide washes them away, applauding each wave and cheering on local favourites.

The difference however is that at an AFL game you can’t run onto the ground and start kicking your own ball around. You can here. While the contest runs at Bells, a couple of hundred metres to the east the reef at Winkipop serves as a practise pitch. Punters can paddle out and mix it with the pros warming up for their heats.

On Good Friday, just before lunch, Jordy Smith took off up the top of the point at Winki. He soon hit top speed, pushing hard on his rails as he chicanes down the line, running a slalom course around several surfers watching the show and drifting into his line. No stress. Jordy is cool. On the way back up the point several people congratulate him on winning the last tour event, over in El Salvador. “Thanks, bru.”

After lunch, the crowds on the hill at Bells kick back.

It’s the first year Stone and Wood have come on as the official beer of the WSL world tour in Australia, but in their own relaxed way have billed themselves as the tour’s “unofficial” official beer. The open-air Stone & Wood bar sits halfway up the hill and feels unofficial. Surf fans from Prahran, Preston, Nunawading and Fitzroy tilt Pacific Ale cans as the sun drops lazily into the farm paddocks behind the contest.

Out in the Bells Bowl, the high tide has seen the contest go on hold but on the hill, nobody seems too bothered. It’s Friday afternoon with a full Easter weekend ahead. In place of contest heats, they’ve sent out a Stone & Wood “Afternoon Delight” twin-fin expression session. It’s supposed to be some lo-fi fun, but the reality is the modern twin is perfectly suited to the sloping walls of Bells, and some hi-fi surfing goes down. Some of it would win heats in the contest.

Bells is between weather systems right now, so the waves disappeared on Easter Saturday, and nobody seems to know when they’re due to return. Again, with a full Easter weekend in prospect, and a full town, nobody seems too concerned for now. The waves will turn up when they’re ready.

Words by Sean Doherty.