Melbourne-based Stomping Ground Brewery today announced plans to open a new brewery in Melbourne’s south-east before the end of the year.

Stomping Ground recently secured a lease on an old 630-square-metre cigarette factory, which is located roughly 200 metres from 2 Brothers Brewery in Moorabbin. The new $100-million Morris Moor re-development will house a brewery, a beer hall and beer garden, and events space.

The hospitality side of the new facility promises to be much larger than Stomping Ground’s existing Collingwood venue. The exact size of the venue is yet to be determined.

Stomping Ground co-owner Steve Jeffares told Brews News that the Moorabbin brewery and beer hall is just the start of what is to be a “strategic expansion” of its hospitality businesses.

“Moorabbin is in an area that we think there are opportunities, it’s not far from us, the three main partners of GABS, so we’re very familiar with the broader area and we think there’s an exciting opportunity to bring a brand of experience to that area,” Jeffares explained.

“We have friends who are not so far away, 2 Brothers is the closest, and we’ve kept them in the loop about what we’re doing and we think that by joining them we can do good things for each other.”

Jeffares cited Wolf of the Willows, Bad Shepherd, Boatrocker and Mr Banks as some of the other nearby breweries and said that he hopes the area can become more of a craft beer destination.

Co-owner of 2 Brothers Brewery David Ong said that Stomping Ground is soon to be his closest competitor.

“We all play in the same space so it’s going to be interesting,” he told Brews News.

Jeffares said that for the foreseeable future, Collingwood will remain Stomping Ground’s “home” and where most of the company’s beers will be brewed and packaged.

“The idea behind Morris Moor is that it will effectively serve as an R&D pilot brewery for us to give the opportunities for our brewers to flex their creative muscles and also for us to brew something local to the venue,” he said.

“From day dot, we planned if Collingwood was successful enough, that we would open another Stomping Ground venue, albeit with Collingwood being the central hub of our operation.”