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!

Bendigo Beer

Pirate Life Loose Lips Sink Ships IIIPA & Smooth Sailing West Coast IPA

Tapped July 20, 2020
Of the two parti-gyle pairs released by Pirate Life in quick succession – of which you can read more here – our bottleshop spies tell us it's the IIIPA Loose Lips Sink Ships that's been selling the fastest. Given the target audience and the sort of beers that dominate the upper echelons of ranking sites like Untappd and RateBeer, it shouldn't be a surprise, what with all those Is, an ABV of 12 percent ABV and 100-plus IBUs (International Bitterness Units). It's a beer that's been around before,… Read more
Style
IIPA & West Coast IPA
ABV
12.0% & 6.0%

Westside Ale Works Weekend Juice & Major Revision & Ryes N' Shine

Tapped July 20, 2020
When you constantly pour 20 different beers of your own creation at your brewpub, it’s safe to say you’ll become accustomed to brewing a pretty diverse mix of styles. That’s certainly the case with these three cans from Westside Ale Works, a trio which sees them transition from hazy to hazelnut to (h)oatmeal as smoothly as this sentence. Weekend Juice is a NEIPA that looks like the juice you’d enjoy with your Saturday brunch, with its colour closest to the kind of tropical drop you might… Read more
Style
NEIPA & Hazelnut Brown Ale & Oatmeal Rye Stout
ABV
5.8% & 6.4% & 6.5%

Boatrocker Variations On A Theme IV & Oakey Dokey Stout

Tapped July 20, 2020
There have been plenty of hazy IPAs from Boatrocker over the past 18 months, to the extent it seems they've given up on finding new names for them. While I've not come across Variations On A Theme I to III, I can confirm that IV†, for which head brewer Matt Houghton spent some time polishing his IPA recipes in an icy Russian wilderness, continues their habit of giving HIPA lovers what they want. From the impeccably solid haze and smooth, gently giving blankets of sweet stone fruit, cream whipped… Read more
Style
Hazy IIPA & Oaked Stout
ABV
Both 8.0%

Westside Ale Works Belgian Brunette & Dan's Self Doubt Stout & Apricot Rye Sour

Tapped July 18, 2020
If you’ve made it to Westside Ale Work’s South Melbourne home, you’d have likely noticed the barrels that line the back of the brewpub. Owner Casey Wagner has been busy experimenting with them in recent beers, as evidenced by the three tins we received this week. There’s Belgian Brunette, a Belgian dark ale that’s been ageing in shiraz barrels, where it’s managed to pick up an impressive amount of wine character. Even texturally, it’s quite vinous, while there's a dark plum flavour… Read more
Style
Belgian Dark, Russian Imperial Stout & Apricot Sour
ABV
8.1% & 9.3% & 5.0%

Molly Rose Brewing Shoulders & Crowd Goes Mild

Tapped July 17, 2020
As Molly Rose’s Collingwood brewpub once again turns into a bottleshop with Melbourne into Lockdown Mk II, brewery founder Nic Sandery has two new cans ready to show off. There’s Shoulders, a slightly tweaked version of last year’s West Coast IPA Shoulders Of Giants that was designed as a showcase of the classic three Cs American hops Chinook, Cascade, Centennial. This time around there’s Galaxy in the mix too, bringing with it a punch of sherbet-like citrus, mango and passionfruit to add… Read more
Style
IPA & Dark Mild
ABV
7.2% & 4.0%

Your Mates Brewing Eddie

Tapped July 17, 2020
To a cast of characters already including Donnie, Macca, Sally and, of course, Larry, can now be added another mate as Sunshine Coast brewery Your Mates expand their core lineup. Eddie, or #extremeeddie as the brewery is calling him, isn’t a beer pushing at the extremes, however; rather, he's a 3.5 percent XPA. While he may be lower on the booze scale, Eddie doesn't skimp on flavour. He pours a perfectly clear and somewhat bright golden orange and is laced with of melon, pineapple, nectarine and… Read more
Style
XPA
ABV
3.5%

Sauce Brewing Oat & Aboat Oat Cream IIPA

Tapped July 16, 2020
While the name and design of this beer are all about the Great White North, Sauce Brewing are up front with saying: “There's nothing Canadian about this beer - it's just that we released it on Canada Day. And if you say the name out loud, you sound a little bit Canadian.” If you’ve read many of my beer write-ups you’ll know I'm a huge fan of drawing arbitrary connections between things, so this wins points for me right off the bat (or should I say, right off the hockey stick). Twelve months… Read more
Style
Oat Cream IIPA
ABV
8.0%

Helios Brewing Kronos 2020

Tapped July 16, 2020
After his debut entrance as a breakfast stout in 2018, then as a Belgian strong dark ale in 2019, Kronos has reappeared in titanic glory in 2020 as an imperial coffee stout on nitro - and, for the first time, in cans. Since we've already discussed the family history and eventual incarceration of the eponymous king of the Titans, let’s just jump straight into the beer. (Pause for daydreaming about jumping into a swimming pool of imperial stout.) Kronos is thick and powerful enough to require chewing.… Read more
Style
Imperial Nitro Coffee Stout
ABV
9.1%
Bitterness
81 IBU

Burleigh Brewing Burleigh Smokin'

Tapped July 16, 2020
Burleigh Smokin’ is a beer modelled on the Rauchbiers made famous by the brewers of the German town of Bamberg and it's one that's proved a popular mover for Burleigh Brewing. After becoming a fan favourite whenever it appears at the Gold Coast taproom, the team decided to give it a wider release in cans and they even sent some to America where it picked up a gold medal in the World Beer Championships. The popularity, one imagines, comes from manner in which the jet black lager’s underlying roasted… Read more
Style
Rauchbier
ABV
6.2%

Blackman's Brewery Needs More Simcoe

Tapped July 16, 2020
Normally, Blackman's on road legend Luke ensures their Same Day IPA releases arrive at Crafty Towers on the same day they're packaged so we can tell you about them ASAP to aid those seeking the freshest of hop hits. The release of Need More Simcoe was exactly the same, but with one small issue: there was no one home at Crafty Towers. Undeterred (and having made the trek across Melbourne), Luke instead left a four-pack as a gift to be discovered within a wicker basket upon our return. And what a welcome… Read more
Style
Single Hop IPA
ABV
6.5%

Stone & Wood Stone Beer 2020

Tapped July 15, 2020
One of the highlights of each year at Stone & Wood – both for their staff and invited guests – is the Stone Brew Day. It's a tradition stretching back a decade that sees them create a batch of beer into which is dropped a collection of rocks that have been heated in a fire on the brewery grounds throughout the day to aid caramelisation and pay tribute to an old brewing technique. Due to COVID-19, the brewery team was unable to host the brew day shindig, but the beer lives on. It's still tagged… Read more
Style
Stone Beer
ABV
6.6%

Sailors Grave Embers & Law Of The Tongue 2020

Tapped July 15, 2020
They've brewed all manner of beers over their short existence to date yet if you were to ask a beer lover what they thought of when they pictured a Sailors Grave beer, they're most likely to come up with something farmhouse, funky or foraged (or all three). Along the way, however, the Moores have put out some more "normal" beers and, when they do, they're often really bloody good. Think of the Squid vs Whale lactose IPA series or the hop-heavy Fields V2 hazy farmhouse pale. You can now… Read more
Style
Red IPA & Smoky Oyster Stout
ABV
6.2% & 5.8%

Hargreaves Hill Phoenix 2019

Tapped July 15, 2020
The Phoenix is one of the most significant releases in the Hargreaves Hill roster. The beer leaves the Yarra Valley brewery each year to commemorate the brewery’s rebirth following the Black Saturday bushfires that destroyed the original brew shed in Steels Creek back in 2009. The imperial red ale comes in an incredibly limited run of wax-sealed 750ml bottles that tend to make fleeting appearances on bottleshop shelves. The beer inside is as decadent as the wax adornment suggests, pouring auburn… Read more
Style
Imperial Red Ale
ABV
9.6%

Innate Brewers Cloud Eight Oat Cream IPA

Tapped July 15, 2020
When looking at Innate’s 2020 output as a whole it quickly become apparent that, while head brewer Joel Nash clearly likes diversity, he's overseeing an increasingly adroit output. This year has seen the return of Innate staples like Bulletproof Black IPA, Watch This Space IIPA, The Snow Leopard RIS and Private Idaho American strong ale, each more dialled in than the previous year. However, it’s 2020’s debutants which arguably best express the brewery’s growth: the historically classic Heirloom… Read more
Style
Oat Cream IPA
ABV
5.8%
Stockists

Available from WA Innate stockists in limited release.

Pirate Life & Sneakers & Jeans Apple & Guava

Tapped July 14, 2020
With Pirate Life Perth still scheduled for opening this year, this collab with their bespoke venue partner Sneakers & Jeans is, quite literally, the first taste from the forthcoming venture, and it’s one with an energetic yet broad appeal in mind. Apple & Guava pours with a NEIPA-like haze complete with a crisp, white, moussey head which belies the rather nimble beer on the tongue. Sure, there’s a little more weight than the average sour, but the visual density hides a lighter beer than… Read more
Style
Fruit Sour
ABV
3.8%
Stockists

Available from independent WA retailers

Bright Tank & Whipper Snapper Distillery Barrel-Aged Stout 2020

Tapped July 14, 2020
One of the unforeseen gifts of barrel-ageing is the multiple people that a beer touches throughout the process. Indeed, whisky distillers have known this for generations, with many a fine dram the result of someone's toil years prior to release; or there's the world of tequila where agave farmers tend to plants for up to 40 years before use. For Bright Tank’s collaboration with "over the fence" neighbours Whipper Snapper Distillery, the genesis began with former head brewer Jackson Purser… Read more
Style
Whisky Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout
ABV
10.5%
Stockists

Available from the brewery and select WA stockists

Bright Brewery Stubborn Russian 2020

Tapped July 13, 2020
Bright Brewery’s Stubborn Russian has been part of the brewery’s winter roster since 2011, being released each year as the temperature of the Alpine region descends towards zero. It’s been on quite the journey over the past decade too with the Bright team having made it in different sizes, added adjuncts, aged it in barrels, changed its appearance and created an accompanying beer festival in Darker Days. So how’s the tenth iteration shape up? For one, it’s been released with three different… Read more
Style
Russian Imperial Stout
ABV
12%

Tallboy And Moose Highly Illogical & Baked & Confused

Tapped July 13, 2020
Tallboy and Moose aren’t slowing their tinnie release for Melbourne’s second lockdown with the brewery dropping two in our hands over the last few days. First up was Highly Illogical, a double IPA that’s driven by a trio of American hops that have frequently appeared in hoppy beers from Tallboy. The mix of Simcoe, Centennial and Cryo CTZ, all provide big notes of resin, pithy grapefruit, lychee and mango in the smooth, pale and slightly hazy beer with an incredibly dry finish. Alongside that… Read more
Style
Double IPA & Cookie Dough Stout

Mismatch Brewing Pizza Beer

Tapped July 12, 2020
Mismatch's headquarters reside on the same block of land as their affiliated restaurant and cellar door, Lot 100, where they're known for great wood-fired pizza amongst other things. When restrictions were put in place due due to COVID-19, the Lot 100 crew found themselves with a lot of excess pizza dough destined for waste if not used soon. Given Mismatch's focus on sustainability, they stepped in: the dough was first cooked off in the pizza oven then added to the mash. Hey presto: pizza lager was… Read more
Style
Lager
ABV
5.0%

Mismatch Brewing Super Evil Archie's

Tapped July 12, 2020
Every year, Mismatch fans wait in anticipation for the release of their autumn seasonal, Evil Archie's Red IPA. In 2020, the beer again proved to be incredibly popular, selling out online in no time at all. However, to keep their lineup fresh and invigorating, the Mismatch crew decided to put this particular beer on the shelf for the foreseeable future. Instead, to honour Evil Archie's, they decided to make it even more wicked, malevolent and sinful, adding a double dry hop to proceedings. Still… Read more
Style
DDH Red IPA
ABV
6.66%

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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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