News & Feature Stories
Tooborac's New Brews
A few months ago, we brought you word that a new brewer had taken over the reins at Tooborac Hotel & Brewery. And it seems that Chris Haren has wasted little time putting his own stamp on the beers…
Spring Has Sprung
So, another winter has passed, one in which we were sustained by the finest array of big, dark beers ever to come out of Australia’s breweries. Now, we wait to see what treats the brewers have in…
Blog of the Month: Frozen Summers
We’ve been a little slack on the featured blog side of things recently, with a couple of months passing since the last. So how about making up for lost time by featuring a man who not only writes a blog,…
We Are One!
One year old, that is, in case you thought this was going to be some sort of Maharishi-inspired cry of universal love. Yes, 12 months have passed since we received word that the full site was live, leading…
Ton Up In Tassie
For more than two decades, he was best known as the country’s foremost beer writer. Then, in 2008, Willie Simpson joined the ranks of those he writes about by opening Seven Sheds in northwestern Tasmania,…
Showing Off - Updated!
Updated September 7, 2011 following changes to schedule. October’s Fed Square Victorian Microbreweries Showcase is set to expand out of the Atrium, although plans to hold a third, late night session…
Beer & Food: Beer vs Wine Dinner at The Courthouse
The Courthouse Hotel in North Melbourne is one of very few venues in Australia where you can satisfy an urge for fine dining, fine wines or exquisite craft beers under one roof. It’s had a good beer…
Show Us Your Tackle
With the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand just around the corner, excitement is mounting around the country* as the Aussies prepare to mount an assault on the trophy they last won in 1999. To mark the occasion,…
Hop To It
A year on from experimenting with high alcohol versions of some of his brewery’s standard beers, Prickly Moses brewer Steve “Hendo” Henderson has turned his attention to playing around with hops.…
Feeling Seedy
Back in the days when they were just starting out in the beer world, back when they still delivered their beers in person, Mountain Goat founders Cam Hines and Dave Bonighton struck up a friendship with…
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Beer Appreciation: The Perfect Pour
If you appreciate quality beer and are willing to spend that little bit more putting class in your glass, you may as well give said beer every chance to sing. That can mean selecting the right glass to…
Want More Crafty?
Quick note: to those of you who already receive the weekly Crafty Pint newsletter – move on, there’s nothing to see here. To those who don’t, please read on. As well as keeping the website…
A Life Lived In Beer
It’s a funny old world. A few years back, the occasional moments of “What the !#@$ are we doing?” would descend on Mr and Mrs Pint when contemplating the reality of their plan: to give…
It's Party Time!
The Crafty Pint turns one next month so we thought it only right to hold a party. And we thought that party should involve great Aussie craft beer, lots of beer-themed fun, beery prizes, anything else…
Crafty Films: Meet The Brewers at Fed Square
For a number of years, the biannual Fed Square Victorian Microbreweries Showcase has been one of the best ways to sample the beers coming out of the state’s small breweries and meet the brewers making…
Bigger and Brighter
It already boasts one of the best locations of any microbrewery in Australia, on the banks of the Ovens River surrounded by tree-coated mountains on Victoria’s Great Alpine Road. And now Bright Brewery…
Pinching That Beer Gut
It seems that pretty much everywhere he’s laid his hat, Gerard Meares has struck gold. He was the head brewer at Paddy’s, in Sydney’s West, when it was named Champion Small Brewery at the Australian…
Newcastle Gets Crafty
Of all the major cities outside the state capitals, Newcastle fares pretty well when it comes to craft beer. The Warners On The Bay bottleshop has a huge range of beer and has been doing a roaring trade…
The Bridge To Norway
Ben Kraus makes no secret of his love of saisons. Not only does he make one of the finest available on these shores as part of Bridge Road’s Chevalier range, he’s produced variants containing quince,…
Come Together
During Good Beer Week, rumours started doing the rounds that talks were underway about forming a national association of craft brewers. And unlike those about Cliff Richard dying that circulate at Glastonbury…
Crafty Films: 2011 Australian International Beer Awards
One of the biggest events in the Aussie beer calendar is the Australian International Beer Awards. Well over 1,000 beers from across the globe were entered for the 2011 competition, with 15 trophies handed…
Beam Me In, Scotty
It’s no secret that the online world has played an important role in helping the craft beer community grow globally. Blogs, Twitter, forums and the like have helped beer lovers spread the word about…
Crafty Snaps: Barley's Angels Brew Day
It’s been a big year for craft beer in Australia – and bigger still for women involved in the craft beer industry. Having set out their stall with the Victorian Women of Beer stage show during…
If You Build It...
OK, we admit it. Sometimes here at The Crafty Pint we’re so busy waving our cheerleader’s pom poms and shouting about all the good things going on in the craft beer world that it takes a quiet word…
Dripping With Gold
It seems the judges at the World Beer Championships are rather fond of the beers being brewed by Queensland’s Burleigh Brewing. The Gold Coast based brewery has just secured another gold medal at the…
Returning The Beer Love
A few weeks back, you may recall a story about Mountain Goat recreating a beer from Christchurch’s Three Boys Brewing to be sold as a fundraiser for those affected by the earthquakes in New Zealand’s…
Move Over, Wine
Because it’s time to make room for beer. That’s right, folks. Having tested the water with a beer and cider event during this year’s Masterclass series and featured craft beer fairly widely during…
The Dogs Run Wild
As we park up outside the brewery, it appears we’ve picked a bad time. The only brewer present is atop a ladder attempting to screw a small fitting into a beam with a drill. And he’s struggling. The…
Our Man In: Blighty Pt 1
With our man in this case being Ol' Crafty himself, returning to the mother country on a trip that’s ostensibly to catch up with family, but is really to see what’s going on in the beer world. Where…
Tasty Beer Needs Tasting
As quality beer becomes ever more popular across Australia, so it seems does beer appreciation. The likes of The Local Taphouses' monthly Ale Stars sessions and the Willie Simpson hosted Hops nights at…
Brew & A: Red Duck
In the coming weeks, the first of Red Duck’s intriguing dark beers we told you about a few weeks back will start leaving the brewery. As such, it seems like as good a time as any to pose a few questions…
The Beer Of Women
We’ve had the Women of Beer, so how about the Beer of Women? To date, 2011 has been the year of women in beer, or at least the year they finally started to gain some of the recognition they deserve.…
March Of The Bullants
At the start of the year, we brought you word of a new venture in the Gippsland region of Victoria. Back then, the doors to Bullant Brewery in Bruthen had just opened but the brewhouse wasn’t yet…
Make Crafty Bi-Winning
Just knowing that you guys and gals come to The Crafty Pint for your Aussie craft beer news is like winning the lottery every single day. Which is just as well as at Crafty we don’t have a great success…
Returning To The Herd
With the future plans of their last head brewer Jayne Lewis now known, it’s a case of back to the future at Mountain Goat. Having received applications from as far afield as Germany, England, New Zealand…
Beer & Food: Cheese
In recent weeks, we’ve noticed a rash of beer and cheese matching events appearing in the Crafty diary. Heck, when we popped into a London pub to meet a fellow beer writer recently, it wasn’t long…
Craft Beer In Cans
With the world’s biggest music festival drawing to a close on the other side of the world, it seems as good a time as any to report that there could be hope for Australia’s craft beer loving…
Our Man In: Belgium Pt 3
As he prepares to wing his way back to Australia, Boatrocker’s Matt Houghton delivers the third part of the trilogy of tales detailing his exploits in Belgium. We assume it’s a trilogy that won’t…
What Jayne Did Next
The success that women are enjoying in Australia’s brewing industry is well documented. There are female brewers at a number of leading craft breweries and many others who play key roles in the running…
A Little Bit More Local
The good burghers of Melbourne’s inner southeast aren’t exactly spoilt for choice when it comes to craft beer venues. But those that they do have, such as The Local Taphouse St Kilda and Chapel St…
Winning Out West
Clearly not content with taking a swag of prizes home from Melbourne last month, WA’s brewers have been at it again, picking up a host of trophies at the Perth Royal Beer Show. Serial winners Feral and…
Getting Stoned In Byron
In times past, breweries were all about stone and wood. Brewing was done in wooden vessels that couldn’t be heated directly, so those ingenious brewers dropped in superheated rocks to boil their beer.…
Australia's First Cicerone
As beer gradually regains respect around the world as something far more than just a social lubricant, there are increasing numbers of folks dedicating themselves to helping others understand it better…
Good Beer Week's Back!
Hold onto your hats, folks: Good Beer Week is back. After exploding onto the Aussie beer scene in rather spectacular fashion last month, the weeklong celebration of all that’s good about beer in Australia…
Warming Up For Winter
Although us craft beer lovers still want to see greater recognition for quality beer in the mainstream media, The Crafty Pint’s conversation with top UK beer writer Pete Brown at his splendid local…
Our Man In: Belgium Pt 2
Wasting no time at all on his trip through Belgium, Boatrocker Brewing founder Matt Houghton continues to delve into the country’s beer history. So we’ll waste no time either and let him tell you that…
Beer Week Out West
WA’s brewers are never shy when it comes to reminding their brethren in other states that theirs is the birthplace of the current wave of craft brewing in Australia. So while Good Beer Week in Melbourne…
Bendigo's Beer Frontier
It seems odd that a city of more than 100,000 people situated so close to Melbourne can be described as a craft beer desert. Yet, with little more than a couple of bars and a single pioneering restaurant…
Our Man In: Belgium Pt 1
Imbued with the confidence of a man whose latest beer has just picked up the only gold medal for packaged lagers at the Australian International Beer Awards and who was one of the small band of beer lovers…
The Parramatta Pioneers
Slowly but surely, craft beer is creeping across the country. From Wagga to Toowoomba, Forrest to the far north, there are microbreweries and pubs with craft beer taps cropping up at a fair rate as brave…
