Mango Beer

Matso's Broome Brewery is an icon up here, most famous for the mango-flavoured and chilli beers.

It has regular live music (which you can hear at my house 5 blocks away when the wind is right!), and is always busy.

So far, I have tried the Man-Go Bier, Staircase Cider (both too sweet for me) and the Pindan Ale (excellent - just like an Irish Ale). I still want to try the Toad and the Blonde, but I really want more of the Ale.

The pub/cafe/restaurant has a prime corner position with views of the mangroves and bay. This site was Resident Magistrate's residence from 1900-1940.

The Matso's building and the Mangrove Gallery, which shares the site, were both moved here in the 1980's.

The Matso building has actually been moved twice. It was originally built as the Union Bank in 1910 (Broome's first bank). In the late 40's it was purchased and relocated by Streeter, becoming his second store. It was leased to Philip Matsumoto in the 70's (hence the name).

The Monsoon Gallery (right) was a pearler's residence. I went there to see an exhibition of James Ainsley's work, which you can get a peak at through the windows in the pic! This exhibition was of his paintings of the Kimberley and was spectacular.

This building has a central room encircled by what probably used to be the veranda (now glassed in). It still has the original Jarrah floorboards which now have quite a slope and a lot of character (ie bumps and dips!) to them, so it felt really strange walking around in there, especially when distracted by art!

The building belonged to Captain Gregory at one stage. He was one of the first people here to experiment with creating cultured pearls, but was forced to stop as the Pearling Association thought this would threaten their industry (which was based mainly on pearl shell, not so much pearls themselves). His equipment was destroyed by the police. Funnily enough, the industry is now based on cultured pearls, so he was way ahead of his time!

Captain Gregory also owned a pub which brewed its own concoction, called 'Shy-poo'. I'm glad Matsos didn't adopt this...don't think it would sell that well!