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!
Thunder Road Bright Berry Fruit & Big 'n Juicy & Shake It Up
Tapped Yesterday
Thunder Road might be best known for their down-the-line Brunswick Bitter but anyone who’s stepped foot inside the brewery’s Brunswick home in recent times would have been greeted by a whole gamut of beer styles. The brewery’s limited edition “Brewhouse” series is designed to showcase that diversity in the shape of brightly-coloured 440ml cans featuring a humanoid hop, and is being launched with a triplet of beers. The first among them is Bright Berry Fruit, a Berliner Weisse made with… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Fruit Berliner Weisse / NEIPA / Milkshake IPA
- ABV
- 5.0% & 6.0% & 5.8%
Feral Brewing Biggie Juice (Cans)
Tapped March 19th, 2019
It was all dream… In late Autumn 2017, a lurid, hip hop-referencing beer appeared at Feral’s Swan Valley brewpub with little fanfare. As an early Australian expression of the then little known New England IPA style, it was soon attracting lines of growler-wielding trub-chasers, much to the surprise of product development brewer Will Irving. The scenes mimicked the hazy pandemic sweeping breweries through the USA. With no locally available examples, Australian punters were coming to grips with… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Hazy IPA
- ABV
- 6.0%
- Stockists
-
Hitting WA stores from March 22 then nationally from April 1.
Moon Dog Thunder Lips Yuzu Red IPA 2019
Tapped March 19th, 2019
One of Moon Dog's limited releases from 2018 is back, this time around in cans. The beer is a red IPA laced with yuzu, a citrus fruit that sits close to grapefruit in terms of character. And it's not just the format that's changed for its 2019 rerun; the alcohol content has been lowered and, if we're to go off the write up we published last year, the malty side of the beer is more prominent. Thus you can expect a red IPA with the emphasis tilting more towards the red – rich, sweet toffee and treacle… Read more
Red
- Style
- Red IPA
- ABV
- 6.0%
Nomad Brewing Surfside Lager
Tapped March 19th, 2019
If you were asked to pick a defining thread that runs through the brewing history of Nomad, you'd likely plump for their fondness for showcasing native ingredients. Or maybe you'd go for their love of collaborating. Certainly, while they've released a few pale ales of a more line and length nature over the years, you wouldn't describe it as a line and length brewery. Yet, what do we have here, but a lager featuring the sort of hop profile you'd expect in a traditional European offering and a dash… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Lager
- ABV
- 5.0%
Barrel Farm By Blackman's Sour & Sour NEIPA
Tapped March 19th, 2019
Barrel Farm is a new side project from Torquay's Blackman's Brewery, where the brewers get to indulge their love of Old World blending and brewing. Apparently, inspiration dates back to a first visit to Cantillon in 2012 and, seven years later, has been launched with two beers. You wouldn't mistake either for a Cantillon beer, but you would find common ground with the sort of beers upon which Renn Blackman and team have built their reputation, as both Sour and Sour NEIPA work in subtleties more than… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Sour Ale & Sour NEIPA
- ABV
- 4.5% & 6.5%
Stone & Wood Counter Culture: Killer Kween
Tapped March 18th, 2019
Stone & Wood have released the first beer in an offshoot series focusing on far more experimental beers than you'd normally expect from the brewery – and it's one that's as alliterative as it is pop culturally apposite. Bearing both curly Cs and kicking Ks, not to mention a rather stern-looking ruler, Counter Culture volume one is, like the hit film of recent months, a Killer Kween. First, some stats. The beer – an imperial Berliner Weisse – features no less than 1.2 tonnes of raspberries.… Read more
Red
- Style
- Imperial Raspberry Berliner Weisse
- ABV
- 7.6%
- Stockists
-
There's a launch party at The Mill as part of Brewsvegas 2019 on March 18.
Then the beer is on sale nationwide.
La Sirène Season Ale
Tapped March 15th, 2019
For their third can release, Season Ale, Melbourne-based urban farmhouse brewery La Sirène have arguably opted for a more traditional approach than with the beer's predecessors. While Urban Pale saw Costa Nikias and his team bring a heap of hops to the hazy farmhouse party and, in Citray Sour, combine the juiciest of fresh oranges with a delightfully refreshing acidity, here you've got something more akin to the saisons upon which the brewery first made its name. A brewer with whom we shared our… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Farmhouse Session Ale
- ABV
- 4.0%
- Stockists
-
Available nationwide from March 15, 2019
Ballistic Beer Co SHIPA: Simcoe
Tapped March 15th, 2019
Having worked its way through the likes of Centennial, El Dorado, Enigma and the somewhat more exotic Pekko and Fortnight, Ballistic Brewing Co’s ongoing Single Hop IPA series has worked its way around to West Coast IPA workhorse Simcoe. On the nose the Simcoe SHIPA is vaguely citrusy and (significantly less vaguely) very hoppy, with a hint of fruitiness somewhere in the vicinity of apricot. In the mouth – the best way to experience a beer, in my personal opinion – is a pleasantly light level… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Single Hop IPA
- ABV
- 6.4%
- Bitterness
- 60 IBU
Bodriggy Brewing Space Milk Vol. 3
Tapped March 15th, 2019
Bodriggy’s Space Milk series is now a trilogy with the release of a lactose sour that might feature the Abbotsford brewery's most unusual collection of ingredients yet. Following on from the lactose-sour-pineapple-lime-cayenne pepper offering, Bodriggy has returned with a Cashmere-hopped soursop, alphonso mango sour. Popular in Central and South America, soursop is a sweet fruit often used in juices and is variously described as being akin to sweet pineapple, strawberry, citrus and smooth banana.… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Lactose Fruit Sour
- ABV
- 3.0%
Beerfarm Boonta New England IPA
Tapped March 15th, 2019
New England IPAs mean different things to different people. For Beerfarm, it means collaborating with Perth streetware stalwarts Street X and throwing down a bespoke 6 percent ABV IPA loaded with a hop cocktail of El Dorado, Citra, Sorachi Ace and Magnum. Heavy doses of late-hopping and dry-hopping equate to a mere seven on the International Bitterness Units (IBU) scale and, if that has you questioning whether this is really an IPA at all, fear not, as what it might lack in hop bitterness it makes… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- NEIPA
- ABV
- 6.0%
- Bitterness
- 7 IBU
- Stockists
-
On tap at the Metricup brewhouse and hitting select bottleshops from March 2019
Eagle Bay Brewing Nut Brown Ale
Tapped March 13th, 2019
Eagle Bay Brewery have never shied away from brewing the classic styles often forgotten by other brewers in search of wacky and on trend substitutes. Their coastal brewery has been pumping out well made and distinguishable beers for almost a decade now and, here, lead brewer Keegan Steinbacher and brewing manager/owner Nick d'Espeissis aren't looking to buck any trends with their latest Brewers Series release either. Instead, continuing to take inspiration from the seasons for such beers, their Nut… Read more
Dark Brown
- Style
- Nut Brown Ale
- ABV
- 5.4%
Eagle Bay Brewing 6821 Gose
Tapped March 13th, 2019
Eagle Bay's Single Series features super limited, brewery-only releases that allow their brewers complete freedom to experiment with different ingredients, explore new styles and most importantly, have some good old fashioned brewhouse fun. The latest is a locally-inspired gose brewed with Geraldton Wax, saltbush and saltwater drawn from Eagle Bay Beach. The brewers reckon it's so local, simply naming it after their postcode is apt. 6281 Gose is a low IBU, 4.5 percent ABV sour ale that's full of… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Spiced Gose
- ABV
- 4.5%
Brewhouse Margaret River Sour and the Passion
Tapped March 13th, 2019
Brewhouse Margaret River can fly a little under the radar in the craft beer world, but that isn't to say they're not holding their own against the other brewers in the South West of WA; their on premise sales are significant and they've done a great job in capturing the family market in a region drowning in boutique wineries. The quality and consistency of their core range suggests they've got their brewhouse dialled in, but their limited release beers tell us that head brewer Ryan Ashworth has plenty… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Passionfruit Sout
- ABV
- 4.0%
Otherside Brewing Pilot Series: Distortion Kettle Sour
Tapped March 12th, 2019
In an earlier version, Distortion was a liquid resume that brewer Andrew Skipp provided as part of his interview with Otherside. Given Skipp got the job, the beer must have made quite the impression and now the beer has made its way from homebrew to commercial release. Part of their Pilot Series of beers, Distortion is a dry-hopped kettle sour with the emphasis very much on the dry hop. “It’s actually the biggest dry hop we’ve ever done,” says brewer Rhys Lopez. The beer pours a hazy pale… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Kettle Sour
- ABV
- 4.7%
Holgate Brewhouse 600 Above Citrus Saison
Tapped March 8th, 2019
Paul and Natasha Holgate have long been brewery owners keen to showcase their love for Woodend and its surrounds. Afterall, Mt Macedon Pale Ale was among the brewery’s first ever releases and was a beer that advertised the fact you can see the mountain range in question from Holgate’s historic pub home. It’s now 20 years since Holgate first released a beer and, though the brewery is now much larger, it still sits in the same corner of Woodend it's inhabited since moving out of the family home… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Citrus Saison
- ABV
- 6.2%
Stomping Ground Passionfruit Smash
Tapped March 8th, 2019
Stomping Ground’s Smash series has been smashing [That's it, you're fired, Ziebell – Editor] it out of the park since the Collingwood brewery sent tinnies of Watermelon into the world at the start of 2018. The colourful cans and impressively present watermelon flavour must have proved a popular choice for quenching a collective thirst at the end of summer, since a few months later it was followed by another, with Guava Smash putting an even more tropical fruit-heavy gose into the hands of drinkers. The… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Passionfruit Gose
- ABV
- 4.2%
Bruny Island Kindred Spirits
Tapped March 8th, 2019
Bruny Island's brewers continue to make full use of their home state's bounty with a new release timed for the start of autumn. Joining the hops from Bushy Park this time around is quinoa from Kindred Organics (as well as various other forms of specialty malts from home and abroad). Yet, like Tasmania itself in many ways, the resultant red ale is reminiscent of the old country. It's a beer that demands to be consumed a little warmer than most beers you'll pour into your glass in Australia, with those… Read more
Red
- Style
- Quinoa Red Ale
- ABV
- 4.9%
Modus Operandi Wippa Snippa
Tapped March 8th, 2019
With the move from 500ml to 375ml cans, Modus have made it easier for their fans to grab a four-pack off the shelf for a quiet night in. They’ve made it easier again by adding Wippa Snippa to their core range at the same time. Some of us remember this beer’s ancestor from 2016, the Whippa Snipa Session IPA. The new Wippa Snippa bears some similarities, but has also been tweaked in all the right places. It’s dropped from 4.1 percent to 3.8 percent ABV, officially bringing it into the realm of… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Session Pale Ale
- ABV
- 3.8%
Mountain Goat Rare Breed: Hello Humanoid Double IPA
Tapped March 8th, 2019
Given their success in picking up AIBA trophies for IPAs, it's around this time of year we've come to expect to see such beers make their way from Goat's Richmond HQ (although, given their brewers' love of IPAs, you can expect a dose of hoppy goodness coming out of North Street pretty much any time of year). This time around they've returned to double IPA territory, albeit at the lower end of the ABV scale for such beers. In many ways, however, this is a beer that, as the title and artwork suggest,… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Double IPA
- ABV
- 7.5%
- Bitterness
- 70 IBU
- Stockists
-
Available nationwide from March 2019 until stocks run out.
White Brick Brewing Flinders Ale
Tapped March 8th, 2019
With a BBQ festival approaching at his brewery in Brisbane's north, White Brick’s Adam Gibb decided to release a smoked blend of his popular mid-strength ales. Using a specialty smoked malt, he designed an easy-drinking brew with the aim of accompanying the magnitude of BBQ offerings at the brewery's Bricks and BBQ competition (running from March 8 to 10, 2019). Adam describes his latest variation as an ale with smoke on the nose, which is more subtle on the palate and comes with a mild, lingering… Read more
Rich Brown
- Style
- Smoked Mid-Strength
- ABV
- 3.5%
- Bitterness
- 20 IBU
