Melbourne's giant beer, cider and fun festival GABS is back for 2025, so get ready to get sipping. Wacky flavours have just been announced, featuring brews inspired by peanut and butter, vegemite toast, rainbow ice cream cones, gingerbread pastry and warheads. Sign us up!
In previous years, the cult fave event has been held at the Royal Exhibition Building and the Melbourne Showgrounds, but for this edition, it's landing with a frothy splash at Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.
Despite the rotating digs, the GABS brief fortunately remains the same: go on a deep dive with some of the best and most experimental local and interstate brewers on the scene right now. Each year, breweries are invited to submit an expression of interest to create a GABS Festival Brew, but only 120 make the cut. Famed for their weird and wonderful flavour combos (think sushi beer, cookie stouts and lollipop sours), some of the exclusive Festival brews have gone on to become top sellers.
For 2025, several exciting European guest breweries have been confirmed in the program already. Bamburg's famous smoked beer brewery, Schlenkerla, will be crossing the oceans to showcase their offerings while the fest will also be joined by the world's oldest brewery Weihenstephan (who had so much fun in 2024, they're coming back!)
And of course, the serious drawcard of GABS each year involves the roster of never brewed before, never to be seen again beers and ciders made just for the fest. In 2025, the bonkers beer festival will showcase more than 500 beer taps, cocktails, whiskies, wines and non-alcoholic beauties to discover. There'll also be brass bands, circus performances, merch stalls and vendor displays to beer games, live stage performances, eating competitions, street food, bars and silent discos. In short, it's a cracking day out you won't want to miss.
Tickets sell out fast so get in quick and book now.