News & Feature Stories
Get Ready For Good Beer Week 2013
Submissions for the third Good Beer Week close on November 30 and through The Crafty Pint’s involvement on the organising committee we’re aware of loads of fantastic ideas for the festival.…
West Coast Cruisin'
Across Australia and New Zealand, you’ll find countless brewers who will happily admit that their beer epiphany occurred on an overseas trip. Sampling beers that had never passed their lips back home…
The Crafty Planner: November 19 to 25
It’s all eyes on Newcastle this week as the city’s second Craft Beer Week takes over the town. Like Good Beer Week’s first adventure in 2011, Newcastle’s first festival last week…
Beers By The Bay
Other than a few teasing spots of rain early on, the weather gods behaved for the first Beers By The Bay festival on the Mornington Peninsula at the weekend. Around 20 breweries and cider producers lined…
Pirates On The Bay
Sometimes it’s good to put the cart before the horse, as the brewers behind the collaboration beer made in honour of this weekend’s inaugural Beers By The Bay festival did. Whereas it’s…
Good Beer Week Needs U!
There’s less than three weeks to go until event registrations close for Good Beer Week 2013. And to mark the all important 18 days to go mark, the team behind the festival has prepared a couple of…
Perth Royal Beer Show Winners 2012
For the first time, WA Beer Week this year kicked off with the state’s beer industry’s night of nights. Friday night’s Gala Dinner saw trophies awarded for the best beers from both commercial…
Zaphod Beer-blebrox
Anyone who’s frequented Chapel St Cellars in Windsor will be well aware of its eclectic nature. Many of the world’s finest beers sit alongside rare sakes, unusual soft drinks, curious spirits and a…
The Crafty Planner: November 12 to 18
It’s something of a WA takeover in the Crafty Pint Events Diary this week, not least because the biggest WA Beer Week to date is up and running. It kicked off with the Gala Dinner for the Perth Royal…
Light A Big Fire
The brewing team at The Monk in Fremantle has a lot going for it. First up, Steve Brockman and Paul Wyman run the team at Illawarra Brewing Company very close for the title of Australia’s tallest brewing…
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Finely Crafted Print
“Fremantle.” This was once my standard response when asked where one could find a decent beer bar in Perth. Mount Lawley’s excellent Five Bar has since improved matters, but it’s not exactly…
Go West! (Part 3)
The Margaret River region is blessed with more microbreweries than any other region of Austalia. And, over the past month, girl+beer Pia Poynton has been checking in on them all to find out what they’ve…
Win A Trip To Norway*
Back when Australia was in the midst of its Scandinavian Invasion earlier in the year, one that left us with, among other things, the Gypsy & The Goat, Gnaume, Geeks and Freaks and Our Dark Secret,…
WA's Biggest Beer Week
Western Australia. The state all the way over on the left, the biggest state in the country. Known for a particularly large mining boom, stunning beaches and epic landscapes. And, over the last decade…
Beer Travel: Pacific Beer Expo
Ninety per cent of the world’s earthquakes occur around the Pacific rim, and it is home to many of the world’s active volcanos. It is also the origin of Kava, tiki cocktails and big, fat party…
No Fuss Home Brew
Home brewing has come a long way from the foul-tasting concoctions of sugar and baker's yeast that your granddad used to make. The modern home brewer has access to many of the same ingredients that commercial…
Set In Stone
When news broke earlier this year that the directors of Little World Beverages, the company that owned Little Creatures, had recommended an offer from Lion to take full control of the business, there were…
Goat On Goat
It’s not uncommon for breweries to celebrate anniversaries with a new beer. Indeed, it’s not uncommon for them to celebrate with a party and a new beer, maybe even more than one party. For Cam and…
The Crafty Planner: October 29 to November 4
As we prepare to bid farewell to Oktober with the last of its Germanic fests, there’s no need to feel down as there’s a host of quality craft beer events taking place across the land. From…
Newcastle Gets Craftier
Of all the festivals to get off the ground last year, few did it as well as Newcastle’s inaugural Craft Beer Week. Created by Corey Crooks from The Albion Hotel and Mark Mead from the Warners at the…
Howling Injustice!
Anyone who’s been to the Great Northern in Carlton North will be aware of what a great beer pub it is. Since being taken over by ex-Feral man Al Carragher a few years back, the classic suburban corner…
Go West! (Part Two)
Of all the jobs in the world, travelling around the breweries that call the Margaret River region home must be one of the more enjoyable. And that’s just what girl + beer Pia Poynton has been doing in…
Register For GBW 2013!
Australia’s biggest beer week is coming back for more! The third Good Beer Week will take place across Melbourne and Victoria from May 18 to 26, 2013. And if you want to take part, then NOW is the…
James Halliday Article: Collaborations
This week sees the launch of the latest edition of the James Halliday Wine Companion Magazine in which there is an article on winemakers who brew by Crafty Pint founder James Smith. As such, we felt it…
The Crafty Planner: October 22 to 28
By any standards, this is a monstrous week for craft beer in Australia. Sydney Craft Beer Week is underway, the Victorian Microbreweries Showcase returns to Fed Square along with a beer to mark the venue’s…
The Pull Of The River
If you were to base your idea of Sydney on postcard images, it'd be tempting to believe the city is entirely localised within a pretty little harbour cove containing an Opera House and a Harbour Bridge.…
Women of Beer Brew Day 2012
Beer – it’s a man’s drink for a man’s world. Hell, you’ve only got to look at the marketing to know that much, right? Well⦠no. Back in medieval times it was the women who did the lion’s…
Back To Basics
It’s not long now until the third Australian National Homebrewing Conference kicks off in Melbourne. A veritable feast of all things brewing and beer, featuring everything from international star guests…
Syd's New Brews Pt II
Yesterday we looked at a bunch of new beers that will be appearing during Sydney Craft Beer Week, including those from 4 Pines, HopDog BeerWorks, Riverside Brewing and Southern Bay. Today, with just three…
Syd's New Brews Pt I
Fancy a pint of something brand new when Sydney Craft Beer Week rolls around? If so, ready your thirst because by our count you should be able to seek out a couple of newbies each day. Many of the new…
The Crafty Planner: October 15 to 21
For many people, any planning involving craft beer this week is going to be centred around which events to hit up at Sydney Craft Beer Week. With our sixth preview going live on the site today and our…
Go West (Part One)
The Margaret River region is home to more microbreweries than any other part of Australia. From slick operations with a love of traditional European beers to family-run affairs and the odd quirky spot,…
The Crafty Planner: October 8 to 14
Take your pick! From coast to coast, there’s a veritable cavalcade of craft beer activity this week, with Oktoberfests continuing and plenty of other goodness, from chances to meet brewers and beer…
Changing The Guard
The man behind Australia’s current favourite craft beer, the Pacific Ale, has been appointed as the new Chief Judge for the country’s biggest beer awards. Brad Rogers, head brewer and co-founder (and…
Blog Of The Month: girlplusbeer
The Crafty Pint first came across Pia Poynton when she was working at Five Bar, one of very few venues in and around Perth that’s showing any real support for craft beer. Since then, she’s moved south…
Help From Our Friends
Anyone involved in the craft beer world will be aware of how important the internet has been and continues to be in making this the most exciting time in beer’s long history. Whether it’s bringing…
Red Letter Day
It’s common practice for breweries to mark anniversaries with a beer, whether brewing a new beer every birthday like Bridge Road, tweaking an Anniversary Ale like they do at Murray's or saving it for…
The Crafty Planner: October 2 to 7
Wherever you turn in the beer world at the minute, there’s a good chance you could be confronted by a man in lederhosen, a woman in a dirndl, a pretzel the size of your head, a glass of Marzen bigger…
SCBW Is Rockin'
In this week’s preview of Sydney Craft Beer Week we head to the place that kick-started Australia’s fondness for a drink… When British colonists first turned up in Australia in the late 1700s,…
Ale O'Clock
Twenty four hours in a day. Twenty four taps at Ipswich’s new home of craft beer, Alehouse 24. Coincidence? Yes or no, are the beer-loving locals going to care? We think not, now that this shrine to…
What's In A Name: The Yeastie Boys
For the latest in our series of pieces looking at the importance or otherwise of beer names, we take a trip across the Tasman to the home of the Yeastie Boys. They’re a pair of brewers with a tendency…
Tripel Strength
They’ve already hosted home brewing legends from the States, held a series of sold out, high quality dinners, and helped set hundreds of Aussie home brewers on the path to brewing better beer. But for…
Starting A Brewery: The Boatrocker Story Part II
At the start of the month, we kicked off a mini-series featuring Boatrocker Brewing and the tale of how founder Matt Houghton and his wife Andrea have set about moving from home brewing to owning a brewery.…
The Crafty Planner: September 25 to 30
From coast to coast, Oktoberfest is in full swing, keeping those Aussies who aren’t in Munich for the real deal content with lashings of Germanic beers, lederhosen, bagels and games. That’s…
Sydney Sees Red
When owners Karen and Dave Golding made the decision to close the cellar door at Red Hill earlier this year, there was a genuine outpouring of sadness within the local beer community. Yet, while it was…
What's In A Name: Feral Brewing
When we kicked off our mini-series looking at beer names – what makes a good one, how do brewers come up with them, does it matter, and so on – we mentioned Feral’s Hop Hog as one that worked so…
Brew & A: Bacchus Brewing
Among the new listings added to the site at the start of this month was one of the more idiosyncratic breweries in the land. Bacchus Brewing combines a huge home brew emporium with a multiple brewhouse…
Bayside's Brewing
Victoria’s summer of beer is taking shape, with less than two months to go until Beers By The Bay lands at Mornington Racecourse to herald three outdoor beer festivals in little more than ten weeks.…
Women For All Seasons
It’s little over 18 months since the Victorian Women of Beer took to the stage at the Thornbury Theatre during the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival. Since then, some of those on stage have helped…
The Crafty Planner: September 17 to 23
It was a quiet week in terms of craft beer events last week – at least according to the Craft Pint Events Diary – so we let the Planner take a week off to recharge the batteries. It looks like…
