News & Feature Stories
Home Brew To Pro Brewer
There’s no shortage of breweries in Australia these days. Or indeed brewing companies. Or people in the process of setting up a brewery. Or, at the very least, those talking excitedly about a future…
The Crafty Planner: September 4 to 9
OK, so we’re posting this a little later than usual this week, but according to the Events Diary, this week’s craft beer action starts in earnest across the land tonight. And there’s…
The Terrible Twos
Hey everyone – The Crafty Pint is two! Well, in all honesty, we turned two at the weekend, but Crafty Towers has been infiltrated by all manner of unpleasantries over the past ten days, with everything…
Beer Beer and More Beer
From the beaches of Western Australia to the streets of Launceston. From a British inn in Melbourne to a brewery that makes more than 100 beers in a year. From men with lustrous beards to a former ice…
Blog Of The Month: Ale of a Time
You may have come across Ale of a Time before. It’s been running for nigh on two years now, after all. If you haven’t, there’s a good chance you’ve come across its creator’s writing before anyhow.…
Bigger. Bolder. Brighter
Bright Brewery has always enjoyed one of the most pleasant locations of all breweries in Australia. To one side, the Ovens River flows – perfect for a cooling dip in the hot summer months – while in…
Buy A Brewery
Last time The Crafty Pint caught up with Warwick and Kylie Little, they left us hanging. “There’s something on the horizon. We just can’t tell you yet.” “It’s big news…
The Crafty Planner: August 28 to September 2
We knew there was something amiss when we noticed such a drop off in event listings from last week’s blockbuster to this week’s seeming drought. Nothing a friendly reminder to bar, brewers,…
Beer Travel: Beervana 2012
When The Crafty Pint first attended a meeting of the Victorian Association of Microbreweries to explain our vision for the site a few years ago, the last line of the proposal we handed to the brewers in…
The Saisonnières Return
Just before Christmas last year, we brought you news of a brand new brewing company in Australia that was preparing to release its first beer into the world. Since then, the La Sirène Saison has gone…
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Two Goats, One Boat
“I can’t work out if it’s brilliant or dumb,” said Cam, when he first told The Crafty Pint about the pinnacle of Mountain Goat’s 15th birthday celebration plans. The answer, of course, was that…
Our Dark Secret
What do you do when you know two champions of the brewing world are coming to your country at the same time? At the very least you invite them to collaborate on a beer together, even though one of them…
Beer Travel: The Beer Lovers Guide To Melbourne
A few weeks' back, The Crafty Pint joined Dave Carswell, founder of the Melbourne By Foot tour company, on his latest venture. The Beer Lovers Guide To Melbourne is a nighttime walking tour of the CBD…
The Crafty Planner: August 20 to 26
Better late than never… especially in this case with an especially busy week of craft beer events taking place across the country, starting tonight. There’s dinners, bocce, IPA fests, educational…
Crave Craft Beer
In 2011, the folks behind Beermen.tv decided to do something extra to help boost the profile of craft beer in Sydney. They got a few venues involved, borrowed a few spare hands and launched the first Sydney…
NZ Beer Awards 2012
There was an emotional finale to the New Zealand Beer Awards last night as Christchurch brewery Harrington’s took out the title of Champion Brewery. Like many others, the stalwarts of the Kiwi beer…
Good Brewers Week
Good Beer Week 2013 will play host to the inaugural CBIA Brewers’ Conference. The two-day event in the middle of the third festival has been announced this afternoon and will be run by the Craft Beer…
Never Mind The Molluscs
The Crafty Pint was invited to brew a beer for the Beervana Media Brew competition. Somehow we ended up creating a smoked imperial Belgian mussel and oyster stout. And somehow it came first with a perfect score...
The Crafty Planner: August 13 to 19
After a few jam-packed weeks, it’s looking a little quieter in the Aussie craft beer world this week. That could be because there’s the small matter of Beervana kicking off in New Zealand and…
Seismic Grift
At some point or another, we've all been taken in by a smooth operator. The kind with the friendly face, infatuating gaze and a knowing smile. They'll invite you in, win your trust, then take the nose…
In The Mix
“This is the only time you’ll ever see a brewer in a white coat,” says Crown’s head brewer Tully Hadley as he dons one for the 2012 Crown Ambassador blending session. “When the cameras are present.” He…
Foot and Mouth
Long before Bane, Catwoman or the Joker, Batman faced an opponent of equal cunning. He didn’t have a cape, mask or penchant for crazy makeup, but John Pascoe Fawkner did have a ship called the Enterprize…
Blog of the Month: Crafty Ramblings
Given we have a website dedicated to craft beer to keep us busy and in regular attendance at breweries, bars and beer festivals all over Australia and, occasionally, further afield, it’s not often that…
The Crafty Planner: August 6 to 12
Another week, another cavalcade of craft beer events across the country. A week, in fact, that comes heavily loaded with events aimed at the ladies and ends with a couple of west coast beer degustations.…
Stoking The Crafty Coals
Murray's brews out of nearby Port Stephens. Warners at the Bay has long had one of the largest beer selections in Australia. The Albion Hotel has fast become one of the best beer pubs in the country. And…
Big Things Brewing
Last year, the James Halliday Wine Companion launched a bi-monthly magazine. The Crafty Pint was asked to contribute a feature on craft beer in Australia for the launch edition. The mission: tell the tale…
Back To Ballarat
It’s fair to say that the Ballarat Beer Festival took a lot of people by surprise last summer. Some of the brewers ran out of beer. Hundreds – possibly even a couple of thousand people –…
East Of Everything
Of all the works in Michael Palin’s oeuvre, the TV drama East of Ipswich is probably among the least well known. Based on memories of his holidays in miserable British east coast holiday towns, enlivened…
Crafty in the Press III
Over the nigh-on two years that The Crafty Pint has been up and running, we’ve taken the time out on a couple of occasions to wrap up all the Crafty-penned articles that have appeared elsewhere online.…
Craft Beer Crusaders
Back in the 1980s, Saturday mornings in the Pint household were never properly underway until the opening bars of the MASK theme tune kicked in. It was, quite clearly, a poor man’s rip off of Transformers…
The Crafty Planner: July 30 to August 5
Fancy parmas, a month of Goats, the opportunity for some trans-Tasman love (and a spot of Monty Python quoting), beer movies, events for the ladies and more – the week ahead in craft beer in Australia…
Margs' Monkey Business
Driving from Perth to Margaret River takes less than three hours, which can make it easy to find yourself over-indulging in long winery lunches, strolling on postcard picture beaches or rambling on to…
Beer Travel: Raising The Bar In Sydney
A wonderful thing about history is the way it allows us to look back and pinpoint exactly when things changed. One moment things are following a particular path, then something happens to set things in…
Crafty Snaps: Holgate's Imperial 900
Thirteen years after brew number one, Holgate this month hit 900. To mark the occasion, they invited a few people along for the day, including members of Bendigo Beer and staff from the Royston, The Terminus…
Tasmanian BeerFest 2012
Roll up, roll up: the eighth Tasmanian Beerfest is open for business. Having welcomed more than 12,000 punters through its doors in 2011, the organisers have plans to make the festival at Hobart’s…
Truly New
A few weeks back, we brought you word on the latest moves of Sam Füss, the brewer who has plied her trade from west coast to east and is now striking out on her own as Old Salt Brewing. Her last port…
The Crafty Planner: July 23 to 30
With Queensland Beer Week having drawn to a close yesterday, it’s time for some smaller “weeks”, but no less crafty, to come to the fore as we look ahead to the next seven days in the…
Drinking In The Park
The Crafty Pint has a claim to fame: we once drank craft beer in Werribee. Hard to believe, but it’s true. Admittedly it was a bottle of Mornington Peninsula Brewery beer in the car park before we headed…
Alehouse Rock
With Melbourne seemingly acknowledged as the hotbed for Australia’s flourishing craft beer scene, there’s a good argument to be made for the pocket around Brunswick East being the hottest of…
Salve Vale
They’ve long called McLaren Vale home and now they can rightfully claim to be a McLaren Vale brewery. Four years after their formation – and many months after they originally hoped to flick the switch…
The Crafty Planner: July 16 to 22
Another big week lies ahead in the world of Aussie craft beer, not least with the arrival of the first Queensland Beer Week. A year or so, if someone had suggested such an event could take place they’d…
South Coast Odyssey
There are, no doubt, plenty of Crafty Pint readers who would give anything to enjoy a honeymoon like Grant Byrne’s. Not only did it last 18 months and involve a campervan and a serious road trip around…
Our Man In: Blighty Pt 2
Almost exactly a year ago, we ran a feature – Our Man In: Blighty Pt 1 – looking at the changing pub scene in the UK. The intention was to follow it within a few days with a look at what was going…
Good Beer Week 2013
It’s time to grab your diaries, hand in your holiday request forms at work and start planning for the return of what Moylan’s founder Brendan Moylan this year described as “the best,…
BeerSpace Launches
The efforts to educate Australians about beer are set to redouble next week with the formal launch of BeerSpace in Melbourne. Targeting everyone from craft beer novices to staff at fine dining establishments,…
The Crafty Planner: July 9 to 15
So what lies ahead this week in the world of Aussie craft beer? Plenty, as usual. For The Crafty Pint, there will be a first visit to the new Matilda Bay Brewery Bar and stops to see a few brewers and…
Beer Awards: The Royal Adelaide Beer Show
For the second year running, microbreweries dominated the trophies at the Royal Adelaide Beer Show. There was a changing of the guard, however, with McLaren Vale based craft brewery Goodieson (pictured…
Walkabout Sam
If you’ve spent much time immersed in Aussie craft beer culture, chances are you’ll have come across Sam Füs (above right with the Beer Diva at the Victorian Women of Beer event). She’s brewed from…
Coast To Coast
Time to welcome some newcomers to the Crafty fold as the fruits of our travels from coast to coast over the past few months start to appear on the site. As readers of the Friday newsletter will know, between…
Queensland Beer Week
It’s that time of the year when humans and humpback whales alike flee the colder Aussie climes and head en masse to Queensland for sunshine and, in the case of the whales at least, a spot of breeding.…
