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!

Bright Brewery

Mornington Peninsula Brewery Galaxy Pash

Tapped January 18th, 2019
One can't help but feel that, of all the fruits, passionfruit deserves an Australian Craft Beer Hall of Fame spot (were such a thing to exist, of course). It's the defining characteristic of the Galaxy hop at the heart of Stone & Wood's Pacific Ale, which in turn has become the defining characteristic of 1,276 other locally brewed beers (and counting). And, thanks to its natural acidic tang, it's a rather handy tool for anyone playing in the realm of kettle sours or, indeed, just wanting to add… Read more
Style
Dry-hopped Passionfruit Sour
ABV
3.5%

Barossa Valley Brewing NAIPA

Tapped January 18th, 2019
Barossa Valley Brewing feels like a brewery that flies under the radar somewhat when it comes to those nudging the envelope. Go back over the years and you'll find honey beer, beer-wine hybrids, fruit beers and more besides. Even their core range Aussie Pale Ale comes with a dose of lemon myrtle. Here, they're playing around again, admittedly a little tongue-in-cheek, as they look to create a new spin on one of the styles du jour: turning NEIPA into NAIPA – Native Aussie IPA – thanks to the addition… Read more
Style
NEIPA with Davidson's Plums
ABV
6.5%

Sailors Grave & Blackhearts & Sparrows Refreshing Cherry Ale

Tapped January 17th, 2019
Around this time in 2018, the entities that are Sailors Grave and Melbourne purveyors of fine booze Blackhearts & Sparrows joined forces to create a beer together. It was inspired by American orange cream soda and was a lively, refreshing affair. And now they've looked to do something similar, albeit with cherries, inspired, quite possibly, by the fact the bottleshop group's beer buyer is called Cherry. As we've come to expect from the Gippsland crew by now, ingredients are handled with a degree… Read more
Style
Cherry Cream Sour
ABV
4.6%
Stockists

Blackhearts & Sparrows

Sailors Grave Summer Pudding

Tapped January 17th, 2019
Over the unofficial Melbourne Cup long weekend in 2018, the Crafty Pint crew and friends were joined in the campsite by the family behind Sailors Grave. Thus we had access to a beer fridge larger than a coffin and the sort of low ABV fruity refresher ideal for long, lazy days (not to mention some quite spectacular dancing, but that's for another occasion...). Tucked at the bottom, underneath the various cans, was a mini-keg filled with a yet-to-be-released beer: their submission for the Carwyn Canvent… Read more
Style
Berry Cream Sour
ABV
4.8%

Nomad Brewing Co Champers & Jetlag 2019

Tapped January 17th, 2019
They've been enjoying a fine run of things on the IPA front at Nomad in recent times, with their series of Supersonic Double IPAs, in particular, finding favour with drinkers; the Rainforest Lime edition made our Best New NSW Beers Of 2018 list. And so it is that the Northern Beaches brewers open their 2019 limited release account with two more: their take on a Brut IPA and a new version of one of their launch beers. The former is Champers, a can-conditioned beer, a version of which was initially… Read more
Style
Brut IPA & Finger Lime IPA
ABV
6.5% & 6.0%

Big Shed Brewing Eton Mess

Tapped January 16th, 2019
Big Shed looked overseas for ideas when it came to their latest dessert inspired beer and it's resulted in quite a mess: an Eton Mess. Originating in England, the story goes that, during a 19th century cricket game when Eton were playing Harrow, the tea time snack of strawberries and cream pudding was dropped on the ground. Not to be thwarted, the scraps were scooped up off the floor and jammed into individual bowls, with strawberries, meringue and cream combined as one. How's that work as a beer,… Read more
Style
Strawberry NEIPA
ABV
5.9%

Mash Brewing Sarcasm IIPA

Tapped January 15th, 2019
Some may consider that trolling the beer industry and, perhaps, punters may not be the wisest choice when it comes to choosing beer names, yet it’s a decision that’s served Mash Brewing well over the four years’ worth of Sarcasm releases. Even now, the online excitement for the beer’s arrival continues unabated in an increasingly competitive market – maybe trolling early is the key? As 2019 warms up, it's been made available in limited can release, and the double IPA has lost none of its… Read more
Style
Double IPA
ABV
9.5%
Stockists

Available in limited release from the brewery and WA retailers

Red Hill Brewery Two Bays Pale Ale

Tapped January 13th, 2019
Red Hill didn't just rebrand at the end of 2018, the brewery started by Karen and Dave Golding almost a decade and a half earlier also ventured into cans for the first time. One of two beers chosen for tinnie time was Two Bays (not to be confused by the nearby gluten free brewery of the same name), a beer that sees them slot a pale ale into their core lineup for the first time. It's one that sits very much in the light and easy-going camp: clean and tropically hoppy, with passionfruit and pineapple… Read more
Style
Pale Ale
ABV
4.5%
Bitterness
15 IBU

Red Hill Brewery East Coast Session IPA

Tapped January 13th, 2019
One of the first two cans to be released by Red Hill, the title can be read as a nod to their Mornington Peninsula home and the easier-drinking IPAs from the US. Floral hops and a little spruce, from the use of Cascade hops, lead off on the nose in a beer that leans more towards the "session" than the "IPA" stamped on the cans, both in terms of punch and bitterness, with the latter of the drying, slowly building and faintly resinous variety. Taken as a pair with the Two Bays,… Read more
Style
Session IPA
ABV
5.5%
Bitterness
45 IBU

Rocky Ridge & Petition Beer Corner Pine On You Crazy Diamond

Tapped January 11th, 2019
Putting the classic rock back into Rocky Ridge, this Pink Floyd-referencing double IPA collaboration first appeared during Petition Beer Corner’s weeklong Collabosaurus event for WA Beer Week 2018. While the eponymous song was allegedly a stab at redemption by the group for ejecting founding member Syd Barrett due to mental health and substance issues, the beer has no such emotional hang-ups – this is celebratory drinking with a booze level to match. The style is something of a sweet spot for… Read more
Style
Double IPA
ABV
8.85%
Stockists

Available from Petition Beer Corner, Darleens Busselton and WA Rocky Ridge stockists while stocks last

CoConspirators & Froth The Editor

Tapped January 11th, 2019
Brewed to celebrate the birthdays of CoConspirators and Froth Craft Beer Mag, the character depicted on The Editor is decidedly less of an underworld figure when compared with the brewing operation’s other releases. Instead, the artwork shows the magazine’s founder Emily Day, side-by-side with her canine accomplice Alfie. The passionfruit and guava hoppy sour behind the label is a beer that quickly gained admiration upon release at the end of 2018, both from the bartenders and bottleshop staff… Read more
Style
Hoppy Sour
ABV
4.8%

CoConspirators & Market Juice The Middleman

Tapped January 11th, 2019
Market Juice has long been an established name in Melbourne’s hospitality world, providing myriad cafes with their daily juices, squeezed fresh at the terrifyingly early hour of 2am each morning. For many Melburnians, the name is also synonymous with the Queen Victoria Market where, since 2001, the juice stall has been providing shoppers with their sweet fix throughout the day. It’s decidedly less common for the name Market Juice to be associated with brewing. But CoConspirators has looked to… Read more
Style
Grapefruit IPA
ABV
7.4%

Pikes Beer Co Mandarin Berliner Weisse

Tapped January 11th, 2019
Pikes Beer Co continues to maintain a steady speed with its limited release program, with this Mandarin Berliner Weisse the third beer to appear on the shelves complete with scaly fish label design. It's the Clare Valley brewery's first kettle sour, to which estate grown mandarin peel was added to the beer throughout the brewing process. It's a 3.5 percent ABV refresher with the warm weather of a South Australian summer in mind. Super light yellow in colour, the mandarin sings loudly throughout,… Read more
Style
Mandarin Berliner Weisse
ABV
3.5%

Rocky Ridge Holy S**t, It's A Mid! Cucumber Edition

Tapped January 10th, 2019
“I hope you like cucumber,” Hamish Coates says mischievously, at the exact moment his new beer hits my lips. It’s a question that drinkers should probably consider before drinking as the fruit flavour is undeniable. The explanation for this is explained in a further droll quip when noting that around ten percent of the beer’s final volume is cucumber because “we were worried that the cucumber would get lost”; he needn’t have been concerned. By now the Rocky Ridge gose base has been… Read more
Style
Cucumber Gose
ABV
3.7%
Stockists

Available in limited release from Darleens Busselton and select WA stockists

Beerfarm & Fervor Desert Lime & Myrtle IPA

Tapped January 8th, 2019
A creamy IPA with native Australian ingredients... Sounds fairly straight forward these days, right? In the ever-expanding, multiplicitous style world of the late twenty-teens many would consider the aforementioned beer de rigueur for any brewery grappling with hype, relevance and creativity. Indeed, motivation for crafting such a beer may well appear to be an afterthought, at least until you consider the collaborators behind it. The Beerfarm’s ethos of celebrating provenance with equal consideration… Read more
Style
Spiced Lactose IPA
ABV
6.5%
Stockists

Available in limited release from the Beerfarm and select WA retailers

Nowhereman & Eagle Bay Cherry Psycho

Tapped January 7th, 2019
The pre-release images from Cherry Psycho’s brew day featured a shot that appeared to be an horrific accident – a vibrant red-stained industrial blender next to an otherwise normal human leg suggested a bloodied prosthesis or the beginnings of an aggressive android invasion. The reality, however, was the result of blitzing 60 kilograms of sour and dark cherries for a very interesting IPA; crisis over and beer now with a name. Like the blender, Cherry Psycho is a striking strawberry red in the… Read more
Style
Sour Cherry IPA
ABV
6.6%
Stockists

Available on tap at both breweries

Noisy Minor Swooping Saison

Tapped January 5th, 2019
What will become of the saison in Australia? There are many, many brewers for whom it is a favourite style, able to be both subtle and complex, to offer up an array of aromas, flavours and textures, suitable for pairing with almost any food type you can imagine. Yet, at the same time, it's a style that's been added to a few core ranges only to quietly shuffle off stage a year or two later. Maybe it's a style destined to be a seasonal for all but the most dedicated of farmhouse-influenced operators,… Read more
Style
Saison
ABV
6.7%

Noisy Minor Red Ryeding Hood

Tapped January 4th, 2019
This American red ale loaded up with a fair whack of rye malt has been around since the earliest days of Fortitude / Noisy Minor and returns in big can format summer 2018/19 as part of the "Box Of Noisies" put together by the brewery team, alongside ANZUS IPA and Swooping Saison. It's a beer in which plenty has been squeezed into a pretty small package – Nelson Sauvin, Simcoe and Amarillo hops, specialty malts and the house blend Belgian yeast complete the picture. And, for all that… Read more
Style
Rye Red Ale
ABV
4.9%

Little Bang & Brewboys Simmo

Tapped January 3rd, 2019
Last year, a decade after launching Brewboys – running it pretty much solo for eight of those years – Simon Sellick decided it was time to hand over the reins to new owners. Prior to announcing his decision, he laid down a final brew with one of the people he'd mentored, Fil Kemp of Little Bang. And now, many months and time inside bourbon barrels later, that beast – named, appropriately enough, Simmo – has been released. And, appropriately enough for a man who was knocking out high ABV smoky… Read more
Style
Bourbon Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout
ABV
13.0%

Bridge Road Brewers Mayday Hills Table Beer

Tapped January 3rd, 2019
The releases from Bridge Road's Mayday Hills series – beers fermented with a strain of Brettanomyces in an oak foeder – have come thick and fast. And, as of summer 2018/19, the Beechworth brewery has decided to introduce one to its year round lineup. In some ways, adding such a beer – particularly one sitting sub-4 percent ABV – to your core range might seem a pretty radical move, yet we've entered a time in which gently soured, farmhouse-inspired beers sitting around mid-strength territory… Read more
Style
Table Beer
ABV
3.8%

The Crafty Pint is an independent online magazine and resource for anyone interested in craft beer in Australia. We bring an honest, old-fashioned journalistic approach to beer's brave new world, telling stories because they're worth telling not because someone is paying us to write them.

Like many of the people who have changed the face of beer in Australia, we believe in authenticity, integrity, enjoyment and love. We hope to play a role in helping good beer, brewed by good people, find its way into the hands of more drinkers.

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