The brewery has been described as a tourism attraction and has been included in the Victorian Government's Beer Lover’s Guide to Victoria’s Microbreweries publication[3] and in television travel shows.

His friend and co-founder Hines was travelling in North America after quitting his music industry job and he was struck by the range of micro-brewed beer available at the bars in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

[5] The pair then decided to start a brewing company and attempted to secure a bank loan with collateral that included Bonighton's EH Holden, three surfboards and a couple of mountain bikes.

By September 1996, Mountain Goat beer was ready to taste-test three beers—The Leroy Brown Ale, Sheik-It-Out Stout and Golden Boy—at a gallery space in Melbourne.

Lacking the money to invest in their own brewery, the first Mountain Goat beers were brewed using excess capacity first at the Scottish Chiefs brew-pub in Geelong and then at the larger Grand Ridge microbrewery in Mirboo North, Victoria[7] and in October 1997, Hightale Ale was commercially released.

By 1999, the brewery was able to raise funds to move to their original premises in Crown St, Richmond, effectively relocating the equipment from the defunct brewing operations at the Geebung Polo Club in Hawthorn, Victoria.

[9] Bonighton explained in September 2012 that due to the inspiration that he and Hines gained from US breweries prior to starting Mountain Goat, an expansion into the country's market seemed appropriate.

Moving to new premises in 2004 gave the company the opportunity to set up the brewery with the environment in mind, from using recycled materials in their fit-out through to installation of solar panels.