News & Feature Stories
GABS Heads To Brisbane
The travelling circus that is GABS is adding another stop to its itinerary in 2019 when it heads to Brisbane for the first time.
Aussie Beerstagrammers: Slybeer
As Sydney Beer Week 2018 heads into its final weekend, Guy Southern puts the focus on one of the city's best Beerstagrammers for the latest in his series. This time around, it's slybeer AKA Jakkii Musgrave, in the hot seat.
Going Green: Carbon Reduction
Brewing beer is intensive in many ways, from the amount of energy required to the use of water. Hannah Louise Grugel caught up with the team at Batch to find out how they're working to be a more sustainable brewery.
The Big Issue: Drinking
Working with beer is a dream job: free-flowing deliciousness, fun people and cool places. But alcohol is also a poison and working long or odd hours and being surrounded by beer poses challenges too.
Help Us Get Blind: Mid-Strengths
Following our Golden Age Of Mids? feature, we're bringing our blind tastings out of hibernation to see who's doing such beers the best. We're getting a panel together in early November and want your help picking the lineup.
From The Pacific To The Forest
The man who created the most successful Aussie craft beer of the past decade has been back on the tools. Stone & Wood co-founder Brad Rogers has returned to hands-on brewing with the launch of the new farmhouse range Forest For The Trees.
Crafty Crawls: The Breweries Of Marrickville
Two years on from publishing our Crafty Crawl guide to Sydney's Inner West, things have grown so fast we're having to revisit it. Here's a new hyper-local one focused on Marrickville with a broader Crafty Sprawl to follow.
Sowing The Seeds Of Hemp Beer
Young Henrys become the latest brewery to launch a hemp beer following law changes in Australia last year. We spoke to brewers using hemp as well as the researchers helping them get the flavours and aromas into their beers.
The Golden Age Of Mids?
There's never been a better time to be in the market for a lower alcohol beer. But why is that? And is demand growing as fast as the quality new releases? We speak to brewers and retailers to find out whether it's the golden age of mids.
Free To Brew What We Want
Greater awareness around coeliac disease and gluten intolerance is leading to more GF products hitting the market, including beers. As a new gluten free brewery in Victoria nears opening, we find out more from brewers and researchers.
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Forrest Fells New Ground
Otways brewery Forrest has unveiled ambitious plans for the future. The brother and sister team behind the brewery have secured $1.49m in government funding and plan to create a large brewery and venue in a historic timber mill.
The Patron of Footscray
In one of the more unusual collaborations of recent times, Hop Nation is releasing a new beer created with the Footscray Historical Society. The Patron is a mid-strength featuring the image of one of the suburb's past industrial leaders.
Podcast People: Sessionable
Sessionable is one of the longest running beer podcasts in Australia, hosted by a team of Sydney based beer lovers and movers and shakers. Ahead of their events at Sydney Beer Week, we fired them some questions to find out more.
The Collaborators: Provenance Flour And Malt
Provenance Flour And Malt works with farmers using regenerative techniques to supply single source flour and malt to Australian producers. Hannah Louise Grugel spoke to founder John Campbell and one of the brewers using his malt.
Bigger Business
We've made some additions to The Crafty Pint Business Directory, both in terms of featured businesses and new categories too. It's part of our ongoing mission to create a one-stop-shop resource for the local craft beer industry.
Craft Beer Heroes: Chicks With Ales
At this year's Beeries, the Gold Beery for Best Community Contributor went to Chicks With Ales, a group for beer loving women. We caught up with brewer, microbiologist and former pro basketballer Kerry Claydon to find out more.
Spirituous Away
The rise of craft brewers and distillers is creating ever more chances for cross-pollination. As Wolf of the Willows launches its Barrel Exchange Program with Lark, we speak to them as well as the small Gippsland operation blending boozes in house.
The Story Of: Hop Hog At Ten
When the story of this crazy period in Australia's beer history comes to be told, there will be a special place for Feral and its flagship beer, Hop Hog. As the beer turns ten, we go back in time with the two men behind it.
The Winemaker, The Chef & The Brewer
Victor's Place is a brewery, winery and kitchen that represents the realisation of a dream for three mates. Matt King called into the rustic McLaren Vale venue to catch up with one of the owners to find out more.
Beer Travel: Another Belgium
Belgian beer culture is deservedly held in the highest regard by beer lovers the world over. Many of its classic breweries are household names, but what of the younger, newer wave? Bert Spinks goes searching for another Belgium.
Time For Change At Rocks
A change in ownership structure at Rocks Brewing in Sydney will see the Alexandria brewery and venue evolve into the Bourke Road Brewhouse in the coming months.
Crafty Cabal Update - October 2018
Keen to get your hands on free festival tickets, cases of Philter's beers, free brewery tours, tasting paddles galore and invites to exclusive events? Then you need to check out the latest update for Crafty supporters.
Our Man In NZ: Liberty Brewing
Liberty Brewing is one of the brightest stars in the New Zealand beer scene and has recently started brewing some of its beers in Melbourne for the Aussie market. Jono Galuszka called in on founder Joe Wood to see what makes him tick.
Who Brews Heroes & Villains?
Inspired by Queens Of The Stone Age, long-term homebrewer and erstwhile salesy Shannon Mizen has launched Heroes and Villains on a brewery out the back of a Swan Valley winery. Guy Southern got in touch to find out more.
Advancing Beer Education
Matt Marinich has been one of the leaders when it comes to education in the Australian beer world for years. And this month, he's become an Advanced Cicerone, the first in Australia – and, indeed, the Southern Hemisphere.
Crafty Crawls: Hobart – The Venues
Whether it's classic pubs with great beer on tap, sparkling new brewpubs, journeys into beer's past or brewing by the waterfront, there's plenty to enjoy in Hobart these days. In our updated Crafty Crawl, part one takes in the city's beer venues.
Australian Beer Festivals 2018/19
For beer lovers, there's never been more opportunity to enjoy beer in the company of thousands with all manner of beer festivals taking place across the country. Here's our guide to where and when to find them.
Crafty Dozen – September 2018
It's that time again... We've added another dozen new breweries, bars and bottleshops to the Crafty directory since our last update so here they are in case you missed them first time around, covering the south of WA to the north of Brisbane.
Who Brews Bucket Beers?
They're bringing local beer to the Mid North Coast region of New South Wales, brew in an old powerstation overlooking a river and their name has one heck of a convoluted backstory involving kids and dogs. Meet Bucket Brewery.
Festive Adventage
Since their debut in Australia just a handful of years ago, beer-filled advent calendars have become remarkably popular, with thousands expected to be sold this year. Will Ziebell spoke to some of the people putting them together.
Behind Bars: Hopheads
Back in the early days of The Crafty Pint, Adrian Chong was one of the keenest beer lovers we'd see at events across Melbourne. Since then, he's opened craft beer bars in Malaysia and recently added a second Hopheads in Melbourne's west.
Beeries Winners 2018
The wider Brisbane beer community came together last night for the annual celebration going by the name The Beeries. There were popular wins aplenty on a night Cameron Dick MP was christened the "Minister for Craft Beer".
Good Drinking For Gage Roads
Gage Roads is putting of its brands, both those developed in house and those they've acquired, under the new Good Drinks Australia umbrella and looks set to continue to build a family of drinks brands like Tribe and Fermentum.
Brew & A: The Gold Coast Pioneers
Long before the Gold Coast became a hotbed of world class beer, a couple with young kids jacked in their jobs and built a brewery there. Eleven years on, we got back to the beginning and beyond with Peta and Brennan of Burleigh Brewing.
Aussie Beerstagrammers: Blue Doors
For the second in our series focusing on Australia's most avid and creative beer-focused Instagram accounts, Guy Southern chats to Bryn Price, the photographer behind Blue Doors.
Beer Springs In Alice
The challenges of establishing a craft beer scene in the Northern Territory are greater than any other region of Australia. But the past few years have seen one start to take shape, with Alice Springs Brewing Co the latest addition.
Golden Glory For Aussie Brewers In Japan
It's been another successful excursion to the International Beer Cup in Japan for Australian brewers. Both Mountain Goat and Edge picked up gold, silver and bronzes with Brisbane's White Lies completing the picture with a bronze.
Brewers Guild of NZ Awards 2018
Large foreign-owned breweries took out almost half the beer style trophies at NZ's biggest beer awards last night. Elsewhere there was recognition for Tracy Banner of Sprig & Fern, who is approaching 35 years as a brewer.
Sydney Brewery Returns To Sydney
Five years after it brewed its last beer in the city, the Sydney Brewery has returned to its roots with the opening of a new brewery in Surry Hills.
The Collaborators: The Barrel Dealer
The demand for barrels from craft brewers and small distilleries has grown to such an extent, being a barrel dealer is a viable business. We got in touch with one to find out more.
Black Mark For Black Hops?
The marketing around a new release from Gold Coast brewery Black Hops has come in for fierce criticism, described as sexist and even "rapey" in nature and, according to one brewer that has contacted The Crafty Pint, represents "a new low for Australian craft beer".
Going Green: Grants
In an article on the business of beer, an expert raised the issue of government grants and how few breweries were taking advantage. Here, a specialist on cutting the cost of business explains just how easy it could be for brewers to cash in.
Balter Top 2018 Craft Beer Survey
Balter has continued its run of success, named Australia's best brewery in the third Australian Craft Beer Survey. More than 18,000 people took part in the survey run by Sydney retailer Beer Cartel.
The Vinification Of Beer
Barrel-ageing, mixed fermentation and the mimicking of wine in presenting certain beers isn't new. Yet the blurring of lines between beer and wine continues apace. We speak to brewers and somms operating on the frontier.
Our Man In NZ: The Game Changer
There are plenty of far larger and higher profile beer competitions in New Zealand and Australia but, arguably, none as influential. Our Man In NZ travels back in time to trace the evolution of the annual West Coast IPA Challenge.
Crafty Crawls: Fitzroy
Time for one of our most jam-packed, venues-to-distance-covered Crafty Crawls to date. Join us for a meander through the oldest suburb of Fitzroy as we take in classic pubs, cocktail joints and boozy dive bars.
The Collaborators: Big Malt Thinking Small
The rise of craft beer continues to have an affect on the industries surrounding it, with large scale malt producers Joe White and Barrett Burston both introducing new lines designed with small breweries in mind.
Festival Beers
Major music events used to be the preserve of industrial lager and RTDs at music festivals, but things are changing. Music festivals are even looking to create their own craftier beer offerings, as Mick Wust discovers.
Hawkers Takes Out Another Trophy In London
The International Beer Challenge in London has long proved a happy hunting ground for Australian brewers. And, in 2018, it's Hawkers with its hands on silverware again, adding the Brewer of the Year for Oceania to past wins.
Brew & A: Joel Nash of Innate Brewers
Innate Brewers has been quietly building a reputation and amassing silverware from its cosy brewery in Spearwood, WA. Now they've expanded their original kit, we chatted to brewer Joel Nash to find out more.
