This week sees us send our end of year review to James Halliday’s Wine Companion Magazine (yes, it’s barely even November, but these things require long lead times). With it is our second pick of 50 standout Aussie beers released in the past 12 months that, just to make things a little trickier, features only one beer from any brewery and has been divided into ten themed lists of five rather than rating beers from one to 50.
The article and list won’t be published until the end of the year, but in the meantime we’re working out a way of running a competition tied to the list with the publishers at Hardie Grant – watch this space for more. And we decided it was as good a time as any to delve into the vaults and pull out another past feature published in the magazine.
This time it’s “Grain and Grape”, which was published at this time last year and looks at winemakers who brew. For the article, we spoke to:
James Booth, the fourth generation winemaker at Taminick Cellars who added the Black Dog Brewery range of beers to his family’s wine business. We’ll have a new article on James on here soon as he recently installed a new Italian brewery at Taminick – quite a step up from the 70 litre system from which he launched his brewery.
Jayne Lewis, of Two Birds Brewing, who started her career in wine before working on Pipsqueak Cider for Little Creatures then moving to Matilda Bay and Mountain Goat before setting out with business partner Danielle Allen on the Two Birds path.
Ben Jeanneret, of Jeanneret Wines in the Clare Valley, who was on the verge of installing a brewery when we spoke and who finally released the first Clare Valley Brewing beers a couple of months ago. We’ll be speaking to him about the brewing venture for Crafty soon.
Astrid d’Espeissis, who along with siblings Nick and Adrian, runs Eagle Bay Brewery in Margaret River, where they also grow vines and produce a limited amount of wine for sale through their cellar door.
You can download the article here:
Or look out for the next edition of the magazine itself, which features an article on thirst quenchers in time for summer.
