New Beers
There has never been a time like now: more breweries releasing more new beers than ever before. Here, in The Crafty Cuppa, and in our weekly newsletter, we'll bring you details – and, if we've sampled them, our honest, independent take – on as many of them as possible. Enjoy!
T-Bone Brewing Peanut Butter Porter & Barrel Aged Big Old Stout
Published Yesterday
It gets might cold in Tassie this time of year but Hobart is a place that embraces the icy temperatures and darkness. They even have a small but popular arts festival to celebrate it which you may have heard of, Dark Mofo. T-Bone Brewing are well prepared for the season too, with two warming beers ready for winter. Peanut Butter Porter is a returning beer that’s also something of a nutty sibling to the Tassie brewery’s ever-popular, Choc-Milk Stout. It’s a beer that’s impressively rich and… Read more
Black
- Style
- Porter & Barrel-Aged Stout
- ABV
- 5.0% & 8.0%
Little Creatures Flying Low
Published June 6, 2023
Flying Low is Little Creatures' entry into the world of non-alc beer, although you could argue it's also a case of flying under the radar as the first trial batches of the beer appeared at their Freo HQ in late 2020. The version that's made an appearance in cans two-and-a-half years on comes with a revised recipe but the same goal: giving drinkers a pale ale experience with no more than 0.5 percent ABV. The hops – an all-American trio of El Dorado, Amarillo, Mosaic – are tasked with a fair chunk… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Non-alcoholic Pale Ale
- ABV
- <0.5%
Little Creatures Stout King
Published June 6, 2023
Throughout the lifetime of The Crafty Pint, Little Creatures have released many a stout. Some have been on the larger size, such as the Dreadnought series, others smaller (The Hotchkiss Six), while a few have aimed smack bang for the centre of the style category. They've all – at least the ones to have reached us in bottles or cans – greeted the winter months with a a hearty dose of the traditional; no wild adjuncts and not much in the way of newer hop varieties either – The Fuggle Is Real… Read more
Black
- Style
- Stout
- ABV
- 6.0%
Nowhereman Wungong, Barrels In The Skigh & Mr Otter's 2023
Published June 6, 2023
Nowhereman’s mid-year trio features a returning clutch of favourites refined and ready to socialise after hitting the beaten track, wandering amongst the vines, or any time you need something proper ping pong, innit. Now labelled a red IPA, Wungong 2023 dials back the ABV from past releases while continuing its rouge theme: light toffee malts, caramel embellishment, moderately dusted bitter kick, spicy hints and an arid coda. Just the kind of refresher you need after the Wungong trail loop. This… Read more
Red
- Style
- Red IPA, Beer-Wine Hybrid & Barley Wine
- ABV
- 6.0% & 6.0% & 12.1%
Common Ground x Psycho Suzie's Common Psycho RIPA
Published June 6, 2023
The Common Ground crew are all about collaborating, but it’s not just with their next door neighbours; sometimes they invite their country cousins to come to the party, too. So when Dean Alsford from Psycho Suzie’s Brewing in Warwick came to the big smoke, he joined Common Ground at their Milton brewpub to make this red IPA. Common Psycho pours with a nice, creamy head in the glass, and doesn’t waste any time showing off toffee malt and overripe pawpaw on the nose. There’s even a some orange… Read more
Red
- Style
- Red IPA
- ABV
- 7.0%
La Sirène Convergence & Convergence + Chamomile 2022
Published June 5, 2023
It's been a fair few years now since Costa Nikias switched from winemaking to beer, but he's brought many facets of winemaking into his approach to beer, and has also been forging a relationship with Bannockburn Vineyards, the Geelong region producers of what he says is probably his "favourite Chardonnay in the whole world". The relationship reaches drinkers under the Convergence banner in a series dating back to 2019. In 2022 (for the beers released in 2023), they introduced a couple of… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Mixed Ferment Wild Ale on Chardonnay Lees
- ABV
- Both 3.0%
Bodriggy Brewing Travel Insurance
Published June 5, 2023
Do you have friend after friend travelling to Europe at the moment? If so, you could do the petty thing and spend your winter wishing they didn’t buy travel insurance and their luggage ends up in Cape Town. But a more joyful way to live would be by grabbing your own Travel Insurance from Bodriggy. The oat milk chai stout was made with a local chai spice mix while additional lactose and a significant dose of rolled oats in the malt bill bring a far softer and silkier way to travel than a flight… Read more
Black
- Style
- Oat Milk Chai Stout
- ABV
- 3.8%
One Drop Prohibition, Mango Sour, Monte Grande & Double Vanilla Custard Pancake
Published June 4, 2023
One of the most endearing things about One Drop as a brewery is how they’re just going to keep doing whatever they want, regardless of what would normally be expected of them. Typically at this time of year, breweries are reaching for the chocolate and roasted malts to take advantage of stout season. This, of course, is silly as there’s nothing like an ice-cold foreign export or dry Irish stout in any season. Likewise, you can tuck into a nice lager or fruit sour when the temperature is in single… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Various Styles As Indicated
- ABV
- 4.5% & 5.3% & 6.9% & 10.1%
Shedshaker Brewing Hazy Pale Ale
Published June 3, 2023
Castlemaine's Shedshaker Brewing introduced this hazy little number to their core lineup in early 2023. The pale gold brew's light haze immediately assures the drinker they're not embarking on the kind of viscous hop assault you might expect from its NEIPA ancestors; rather, what you have here is a sessionable, refreshing pale ale – crisp and medium-bodied. But that doesn't mean it's lacking in flavour. A hop trio of Galaxy, Citra and Mosaic serves up a tropical fruit salad that lingers on the… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Hazy Pale Ale
- ABV
- 4.5%
Lost Palms Joyful & Yeah, Go On Then.
Published June 2, 2023
Do you remember Playlist, Lost Palms’ blue lemonade soda style ale? I’d be worried if you didn’t, because we wrote about it less than a month ago. Well, the brewers have now followed it up with Joyful Raspberry Lemonade Soda Style Ale, and it’s a lovely drop. Pouring a blushed peach nectar colour, Joyful gives off aromas of fresh raspberry before opening up to share the stage with homemade lemonade in the mouth. The lemon sourness is gentle, and the berries bring a clear raspberry quality… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Raspberry Lemonade Soda Ale & Japanese Rice Lager
- ABV
- Both 5.0%
Dainton Beer Red Dragon
Published June 2, 2023
Red Dragon feels a little like it’s been plucked from an earlier era in Dainton Beer’s history, with the red IPA all about hops, malt and nostalgia. The design taps into the 1980s pop culture that influenced some of Dainton’s popular early releases like Skeletor's Stout, while the dragon hoards the kind of all-American lineup of hops (Warrior, Columbus, Mosaic, Simcoe and Centennial) which Dainton launched with - and still like to focus on for that matter. The crimson beer brings sweet waves… Read more
Red
- Style
- Red IPA
- ABV
- 6.5%
Sobremesa Fermentary & Blendery Encontro
Published June 2, 2023
Having chosen a Spanish term for the name of their love affair with all things saison, Sobremesa founders Hannah and Casey return to the Iberian Peninsula for the title of the first release in collaboration with Victorian winemakers Minim. Encontro translates into English as meeting, which most obviously refers to the partnership between the brewers and winemaker, but could just as well as describe the coming together of beer from the former and grapes from the latter. Having sampled the barrel-fermented… Read more
Red
- Style
- Saison Aged On Grapes
- ABV
- 6.3%
Akasha Projects: Dark Side Schwarzbier
Published June 2, 2023
Take a malt-driven German beer style that’s more than 600 years old, and throw in one of the newest hop varieties to come out of New Zealand. Why not? New Zealand pilsners have been popular for ages now, but this is definitely my first NZ Schwarzbier. Schwarzbiers normally keep hops in the background, but when the Akasha team decided to brew one, they considered giving the style the Akasha treatment. Rather than just loading it with hops for the sake of it, though, they ran a pilot batch and trialled… Read more
Dark Brown
- Style
- NZ Hopped Schwarzbier
- ABV
- 5.0%
Bright Tank Tropical Sour & On Tour
Published June 2, 2023
Bright Tank’s adventures in limited releases continue to lead drinkers towards the cutting edge of lupulin innovation. As a result, this seemingly stylistically opposed pair have more in common that at first glance, especially through the vibrancy that the new hop products within offer. Tropical Sour features the Kohia Nelson hop blend from New Zealand’s Freestyle Hops, one bestowed with dehydrated passionfruit pulp. While early use of this proprietary product has emboldened hazy styles with… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Tropical Sour & Hazy IIIPA
- ABV
- 6.0% & 9.9%
Green Beacon Allpress Coffee and Donuts Breakfast Stout
Published June 1, 2023
Having donuts for breakfast is only marginally more healthy than having beer for breakfast. But at the point where you’re having both at the same time, I guess health probably wasn’t the main criteria when you were picking this morning’s meal. Green Beacon have partnered with Allpress several times (pretty much every time they want to use coffee in a beer), and this time they’ve brought the roaster’s coffee together with cinnamon donuts, oatmeal and golden syrup, piling it all into a stout… Read more
Black
- Style
- Coffee Stout
- ABV
- 7.0%
- Bitterness
- 40 IBU
Bonehead Brewing Punk Not Monk & Gone Phishing
Published June 1, 2023
If you've been to Audacious Monk Cellars in Melbourne's northern suburbs, you'll know it's one of those bottleshop-meets-bar venues where you'll get to choose from a vast array of quality boozes safe in the knowledge the staff guiding you along the way know and care about what's in your glass. You'll also know there's a solid streak of traditionalism at play; sure, they'll showcase the latest and greatest, but not at the expense of giving classic beers and styles a home. Which brings us to Punk Not… Read more
Rich Brown
- Style
- ESB & Cold IPA
- ABV
- 5.5% & 6.4%
- Stockists
-
Punk Not Monk launches at Audacious Monk Cellars on June 2 before hitting other indie stores the following week.
Woolgoolga Brewing Co Moonglade BIIPA
Published May 31, 2023
Charlie Hodgson and Lachy Crothers met back in 2010 when they were both were brewing at Gage Roads in Western Australia. Eventually, they both took head brewer jobs in Brisbane. But, while they spent five years brewing less than 5km from each other there, they never collaborated on a beer. Now, in 2023, Charlie Hodgson is head brewer at Woopi, and his mate Lachy Crothers is commercial director of brewery consulting company WellBrewd. They live 350km apart… and they finally got together for a collab.… Read more
Black
- Style
- Black Imperial IPA
- ABV
- 8.5%
Tallboy & Moose Yabby Dabba-Doo & Ursa Minor
Published May 31, 2023
As part of Good Beer Week, Tallboy & Moose invited some of their brewing mates to their Preston brewpub home to showcase beers brewed with native ingredients. It feels like a naturally Tallboy event, with the brewery long having explored left-of-centre ingredients and their 2022 GABS beer a wattleseed amber lager made with an Indigenous artist, Kevin Williams. Following the event, they’ve released two beers that are quite classic in form while still being entirely unique. The Yabby Dabba-Doo… Read more
Black
- Style
- Yabby Stout & Australian Amber
- ABV
- 5.5% & 5.3%
Bridge Road Brewers Ooft
Published May 31, 2023
Bridge Road have turned their dial all the way up to Ooft with a raspberry pastry smoothie sour. It’s a lactose-laced beer that seems designed to be served with actual berries and cream too, where its thick and creamy body feels capable of holding up a dollop. It pours a bright red, more akin to the Ooft on the can rather than the pink on the label, and as soon as it touches the glass raspberry starts to fill the air. That fresh beery carries through when it comes to flavour and while there’s… Read more
Red
- Style
- Smoothie Sour
- ABV
- 6.0%
Philter Super Cool Lager & Extra Stout
Published May 31, 2023
Philter have once again reminded drinkers they make some stellar beers, taking home Best Modern India Pale Ale for Haze and Consistency of Excellence awards for both their IIPA and XPA at the 2023 Australian International Beer Awards. And they're back with two very different styles they'll hope can become future award contenders. There's still a few moments to go until we are officially in winter (depending on when you're ready this), but I for one refuse to act like it’s anything but a session-worthy… Read more
Black
- Style
- Japanese Rice Lager & Extra Stout
- ABV
- 4.2% & 5.0%
