New Beers
Barely a day goes by without another seasonal or one-off special flying out of an Australian brewery (if not ten). Here and in our weekly newsletter, we'll bring you news and, if we've sampled them, our take on as many of them as possible. Happy hunting!
Akasha Mosaic IPA
Tapped September 21st, 2018
Sometime towards the end of 2016, Akasha launched a Single Hop IPA series. Every month, it saw them brew the same base beer but add a different hop variety – always one of the big and bold all-American all stars: Mosaic, Simcoe, Centennial et al. Of all of them it was the first, the Mosaic, that seemed to have the most cachet with the ordinary drinker (not to mention the brewers) and lived longest in the memory. It’s been made again on occasion since but, some two years after first appearing,… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Single Hop IPA
- Strength
- 7.2%
Tallboy & Moose Les Soeurs Chasseurs & Goblinoid
Tapped September 21st, 2018
As Crafty Cabalistas who made it to our blending class with Tallboy & Moose earlier this year likely already know, the Preston brewpub doesn’t mind mixing up its barrel aged creations. The latest such release is Les Soeurs Chasseurs, a blend of a Flanders red style with a Belgian witbier, a combination that mixes an acetic sourness with vanilla and a herbal quality. Head to the brewpub and you'll also find Goblinoid on tap, a big and bold West Coast IPA brewed with a massive amount of Simcoe… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Sour Ale & west Coast IPA
- Strength
- 6.0% & 7.1%
Innate Brewers Imperial Grapefruit IIPA
Tapped September 21st, 2018
Innate’s recent release for the Perth Craft Beer Festival now gets a wider release. Essentially a variation on its best-selling seasonal Watch This Space, Imperial Grapefruit IPA does exactly what it says on the label, however the sum of the parts presents something rather more. Yes, it’s imperially minded, with a sizeable but integrated booze that provides a creeping warmth, yet this remains playfully cohesive. The addition of ten grapefruit per keg, in peel and juice, conveys the purest expression… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Imperial Grapefruit IPA
- Strength
- 8.5%
- Stockists
-
Keep an eye on Innate's socials for stockists
BrewSmith Galactic Golden Ale
Tapped September 21st, 2018
Brewer's notes: Ready for the golden days of summer, our seasonal summer brew is packed with a heap of Galaxy hops. Expect delicious citrus and tropical fruit aromas. Also includes a set of steeping grains to boost the body and enrich flavour. This is an excellent summer beer, and we’d love to have it year round but Galaxy hops are in short supply, so, this is a limited edition! Recipe packs available until they sell out – then we’ll need to wait for the new crop next season. So stock up!… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Golden Ale
- Strength
- 4.5%
- Stockists
-
Available from BrewSmith
Tallboy & Moose Blackberry Warpaint & Builder's Brew
Tapped September 20th, 2018
Just as spring promises to bring some sunnier days to Melbourne, the passage of time promises new beers will be making their way out of Tallboy & Moose’s Preston home. Among them is Blackberry Warpaint, brewed in collaboration with Whitehart in Melbourne’s CBD. It’s something of an unusual take on a kettle sour as it’s had lactose added to the boil along with a hefty 100 kilograms of blackberries. It makes for a drink you could be forgiven for assuming is a smoothie, both when you pour… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Fruit Cream Sour & ESB
- Strength
- 4.5% & 5.5%
- Stockists
Rocky Ridge Karl Requires Assistance IIPA
Tapped September 20th, 2018
Karl requires assistance. Exactly with what remains a mystery but, for his debut in what looks to be the first of multiple releases in the "Saga of Karl", he sure could use a hand. Perhaps it’s the crushing weight of the five different malts that were employed in this imperial IPA – the most ever in a Rocky Ridge beer outside of the recent barrel aged imperial stout. These come across clear and sweet, yet Karl still requires assistance. Maybe it’s the curious selection of unnamed… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Imperial IPA
- Strength
- 9.0%
- Stockists
-
Karl will be accepting assistance across WA from September 21
Wayward Brewing Ripasso
Tapped September 19th, 2018
Ripasso is best known as a wine – or winemaking technique – of Italian denomination. It’s quite regional and varietal specific but, without going into the minutiae, essentially sees wine re-fermented on the marc (the skins and stems) of pressed grapes used to make a different wine. In a practical sense, the idea is to use the fruity dregs to add some extra colour, character and strength. And that’s pretty well exactly what’s gone on with Wayward’s Ripasso. Except, of course, they’ve… Read more
Red
- Style
- Beer-Wine Hybrid
- Strength
- 5.0%
Nowhereman Brewing Fresh AF Double IPA
Tapped September 19th, 2018
And then another one... Fresh off the back of Rhapsody XPA, Nowhereman return with their biggest beer yet, the Fresh AF Double IPA. Whether intentional or not, it's a beer adds credence to a growing local movement towards DIPAs with lighter malt profiles; an Australian DIPA style, perhaps? Exclusively using Joe White's new Signature malt - a high end, single region origin Australian barley you can read about here - as a base, Cascade, Centennial, Amarillo, Chinook and Eureka hops are then employed… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Double IPA
- Strength
- 7.8%
- Stockists
-
Nowhereman Brewery
And select WA outlets on tap and for growler / CANimal fills
More stockists...
Loch Brewery Stout & Imperial Stout 2018
Tapped September 18th, 2018
Loch is a brewery and distillery located in the old bank and butchery in the Gippsland village of the same name. The family that runs it has released an Oatmeal Stout in the past and in 2018 added a few other dark beers to the mix. We'll be running a story on the various ways in which they've been combining their two passions – brewing and distilling – soon but, first, two of the more traditional dark beers added to their roster this year... The Stout is of the dry kind, much lighter on the palate… Read more
Black
- Style
- Dry Stout & Imperial Stout
- Strength
- 4.4% & 9.0%
Batch Brewing Co Hay-Z New England Sour
Tapped September 18th, 2018
Filling the ground between their series of fruit sours and juicy New England influenced beers, Hay-Z is back on stage at the Batch bar and filling fridges and fonts further afield too. In terms of general style, it seems less of the latter and more of the former, a 4.5 percent ABV beer that’s been loaded with Galaxy and Vic Secret hops that spit out intense lemon and citrus characters. It’s not especially murky but that’s forgotten when it hits your tongue and those citrus flavours team up… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Hoppy Sour
- Strength
- 4.5%
- Stockists
Indian Ocean Brewing Hop Mess
Tapped September 18th, 2018
Anyone drinking in Perth at the moment might fear they're about to be consumed by a wave of double IPAs, in this case labelled IIPA. Here, Indian Ocean joins the high ABV swell of contenders with a decidedly old school take and, as they say, “make a solid beer with enough hearty constitution to stand up to truckloads of hops thrown at it”. It’s an interesting thought that just a decade makes this style of DIPA old school. In 2008, the concept of dry hopping was barely understood or used in… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Imperial IPA
- Strength
- 8.0%
- Stockists
-
Available from the brewery and select WA venues
Nail Brewing Super VPA (cans)
Tapped September 17th, 2018
Not all heroes wear capes and, if this one did, the first four-pack would likely ruin a million dollar canning line in minutes. One imagines the canning team quoting Edna from The Incredibles: “No capes!” Sartorial flair aside, there will be many salivating at the return of Super VPA, Nail's souped up VPA, in packaged form for the run into summer. The beer debuted at GABS 2016, born of a very scientific methodology, one that involved testing various combinations of fruit peel by dropping them… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Double Pale Ale with Citrus
- Strength
- 8.5%
- Stockists
-
On nationwide release
Last Rites Brewing The Puddle Maker
Tapped September 15th, 2018
The brewers at Last Rites are no strangers to giving their beers some pretty unusual names, from She’s No Bette Midler to The Big Smelly Doona. Often the inspiration for those beer names stems from day-to-day happenings at the brewery. And, while we hope that wasn’t the case for The Big Smelly Doona, it's certainly true for The Puddle Maker. Named in honour of those brewers who can’t help leaving a puddle behind them whenever they go, the beer is an imperial red IPA big enough that brewing… Read more
Red
- Style
- Imperial Red Ale
- Strength
- 10.0%
All Hands Imperial Scorcher Summer Ale
Tapped September 14th, 2018
Every now and then you look along the taps at All Hands and one beer catches your eye in the way the new Barangaroo development stands out above the Darling Harbour skyline outside the brewery. It’s just much bigger. That, in this case, is Scorcher. It’s been labelled, for reasons of familiarity more than anything else, an Imperial Summer Ale, the idea being that it gives regular drinkers of their Summer Ale an indication that this is a similar beer, but more substantial. In another brewery… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Double IPA
- Strength
- 9.0%
- Bitterness
- 25 IBU
Batch Brewing Co Trippy Hippy’s Voodoo Gold
Tapped September 14th, 2018
Golden ale is a style of beer that can be hard to get excited about. Their purpose for existence seems, in the majority of Australian examples at least, to be plugging a gap between lager and pale ale. So they’re principally hoppy beers, but also meant to be approachable. Satisfaction without offence. Like a smart kid held back a year at school, Trippy Hippy’s Voodoo Gold seems to have a bit too much going on inside for it to be lumped in with such dull company. To start with it’s a deeper… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Golden Ale
- Strength
- 5.6%
Batch Brewing Co Juicy As Phuck
Tapped September 14th, 2018
The ever-evolving Juicy beers keep coming at Batch, with a slightly modified re-release of their double New England IPA, Juicy As Phuck. From a technical perspective perhaps the most significant thing of note is the use of a Nottingham yeast, as opposed to a more common Vermont yeast. That aside, it’s all familiar territory. This is a beer with an absolutely rampaging tropical fruit character – like drizzling a tin of pineapple juice over a peach and mango salad. But what else could you reasonably… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Double NEIPA
- Strength
- 8.9%
Batch Brewing Co Black Magic Coffee Porter
Tapped September 14th, 2018
The whole coffee and beer thing isn’t new, but that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable. Particularly when you come across something like this. Batch’s Black Magic Coffee Porter is a beer dripping in coffee character. Pop the top off a bottle and the aroma fills the room as if you’re standing at a café chatting with the barista as they work the tamper. The brewers acquired the cold brew from their over-the-road neighbours at the Voodoo Coffee Company who had, in turn, sourced the beans from… Read more
Dark Brown
- Style
- Coffee Porter
- Strength
- 4.4%
Two Birds Brewing Jucius Caesar NEIPA
Tapped September 13th, 2018
Well, who'd have thought it? A brewery's limited run New England style IPA proving so popular it's back for another run. While the longevity of the NEIPA remains to be seen, we know of some breweries where theirs has become the backbone of the business and, certainly, it seems drinkers still can't get enough of the haze. So Two Birds is giving the people what they want by bringing Jucius Caesar back and giving him a wider, big bottle release this time around too. Like the Hope Super Super Juicy… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- NEIPA
- Strength
- 6.4%
- Stockists
-
Grape and Grain Liquor Cellars
More stockists...Two Birds' Nest
And other good beer outlets in NSW & VIC
Wildflower Good As Gold Blend #1
Tapped September 13th, 2018
Something old and something new makes Wildflower’s gold blended brew. Good As Gold is the latest in the brewer/blender’s sub-series that, starting with July’s Keen As Mustard, takes its naming convention from raiding the long list of Aussie lexicon. It’s a half-half kind of beer, where they’ve taken the ever-versatile barrel aged Gold base beer and blended it with a fresh version of itself. That mix makes it feel like it's absorbed and released more of the initial power of the primary… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Australian Wild Ale
- Strength
- 5.0%
Wildflower Solera – Pull #2
Tapped September 13th, 2018
Three months after Wildflower's Solera beer made its maiden appearance, the Marrickville brewer/blender has released the second pull from its foudre (aka big wooden barrel). And, while it is the second release in the series, it’s arguably the first that really takes in the full spirit of the project by being a blend of old and new beer. The concept for Solera involves pulling half the liquid from the foudre, packaging it, then topping up the empty portion of the barrel with fresh beer. This process… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Foudre Beer
