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!
TWØBAYS Brewing Co Red Rocks GF Red Ale
Tapped September 2, 2020
For the most part, when it comes to innovation in beer these days, column inches, podcast chat and social media noise are dominated by the big, the bold, the hoppy and hazy, the sticky and sickly. Yet there's innovation going on in so many other areas too, and while alcohol free or gluten free beers might not be as attention-grabbing as the latest beer from a hype brewery to sell out in under ten minutes, they play an increasingly important role in beer's present and future. And when it comes to… Read more
Red
- Style
- Gluten Free Red Ale
- ABV
- 5.0%
Hawkers Beneath The Trees We Gather
Tapped September 2, 2020
I'm looking forward to seeing where this sour series goes. Already, we've had Into The Forest, I Go, Under The Tropical Sun and Around The Orchard We Roam. How long before we get I've Got A Lovely Bunch Of Coconuts or Whoops! 'Ave A Banana? For now, however, it's Beneath The Trees We Gather featuring yuzu and plums, although such is the intensity and breadth of their character in combination with the souring bacteria and 7 percent booze, you could claim a few other fruits were in the midst and get… Read more
Red
- Style
- Fruit Sour
- ABV
- 7.0%
Burnley Brewing NEIPA Re-Loaded
Tapped September 2, 2020
Burnley Brewing first canned their NEIPA in March and, like The Matrix, they’re back with a sequel in NEIPA Re-Loaded. But unlike that movie sequel there’s no confusing plot lines, lengthy exposition or biblical references. Instead, it's just the simple double act of Citra and Mosaic hops, plus oats and wheat in the malt profile to add to the beer's mouthfeel. The colourful cans might look like a Rainbow Paddle Pop but fortunately you won't find caramel flavours lying within at all (turns out… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- NEIPA
- ABV
- 6.8%
Staves XPA
Tapped September 2, 2020
Staves Brewery may be a dim brewpub full of dark nooks, sitting in the shadow of Broadway Shopping Centre… but that doesn’t mean no brightness gets in. This XPA gleams with hop character, smelling of stone fruit and tangy orange and pineapple Fanta. That doesn’t mean the taste is sugary, though - the bright fruits are joined by bitter resin, which provides a nice punch for a 5 percent XPA. Mick Wust… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- XPA
- ABV
- 5.0%
Batch Brewing Co A Currant State of Infusion Coffee & Currant Dark Sour Ale
Tapped September 1, 2020
When I first tasted this beer, my immediate reaction was every single catchphrase from a TV show in the 80s and 90s. “Wowsers!” “Ay caramba!” Tim Allen grunt from Home Improvement A Currant State of Infusion lashes out at your senses from all quarters. It looks like red wine with bloody foam on top, and the very first sniff has you wondering what you’re smelling. Tart berry jam and sleek cold brew coffee intermingle in a way that’s intriguing on the nose and invigorating in the mouth. The… Read more
Red
- Style
- Coffee & Currant Sour Ale
- ABV
- 6.4%
Batch Brewing Co Juicy Boys & Island Style
Tapped September 1, 2020
Bring on the fruit; bring on the juice. Batch NEIPA Juicy Boys has been described by one Untappd user as “fruity as all hell,” and they’re not wrong. In the aroma, a wallop of tropical fruit salad joins with the richness of dark brown sugar, but the molasses character recedes once you start drinking, leaving only juice - fresh and hazy and pulpy breakfast juice with extra mango. To take the tropical feel even further, Batch have also released Island Style, a laid back coconut IPA that transports… Read more
Golden
- Style
- NEIPA & Coconut IPA
- ABV
- 6.6% & 6.2%
Batch Brewing Co MacBatch Oak-Aged Wee Heavy
Tapped September 1, 2020
When I was a little kid - a whippersnapper, as my Pop would say - my Nanna used to hide Jersey Caramels around her house for me to find. I loved those little cubes with their condensed-milk sweetness and mouth-coating quality. Nanna knew how to spoil me. When it comes to Small Batch MacBatch Oak Aged Wee Heavy, no one’s hiding the Jersey Caramels - they’re out on display. From the first sip til the last, the sticky caramel fills your mouth while an oaky butteriness embraces the tongue. MacBatch… Read more
Rich Brown
- Style
- Oak-Aged Wee Heavy
- ABV
- 9.1%
Margaret River Brewhouse Rhubarb Berliner Weisse
Tapped August 31, 2020
Margaret River Brewhouse have been on a bit of a tear in 2020. Following on from their 2019 rebrand, they’ve rereleased some past crowd favourites in fresh new clothing while also dropping a couple of new one-offs to acclaim from local beer lovers. And, as spring approaches, they've released this Rhubarb Berliner Weisse a little bit on the down low… Brewed with a stack of locally grown rhubarb, this bright and vibrant fruited sour is strikingly tart and gushes with rich rhubarb and sweet strawberry… Read more
Red
- Style
- Rhubarb Berliner Weisse
- ABV
- 4.4%
- Bitterness
- 10 IBU
Big Shed Brewers Series: Viscosiraptor & Erebus
Tapped August 31, 2020
There's nothing like a little playful competition and that's exactly the relationship Big Shed and Little Bang share. For years now, these two breweries have been hosting playful Eastside vs Westside bouts across Adelaide. In winter 2020, the gang got together again to showcase two big styles: imperial stouts and barley wines. The face-off – which they took online – is Big Shed’s first venture into barley wines, and they decided to take the recipe down the American route. The 10.6 percent… Read more
Black
- Style
- Barleywine & Russian Imperial Stout
- ABV
- 10.6% & 11.2%
3 Ravens Raspberry Lemonade Creamsicle
Tapped August 29, 2020
With the mercury finally seeming to be heading upwards in Melbourne, the city's oldest indie brewery is rebooting a series that debuted last summer. The Creamsicle beers take their mid-strength Acid sour as a starting point for some fun, in this case using rolled wheat, lactose, vanilla, French oak, raspberry juice and lemon to take it into milk bar freezer territory. Pouring a cocktail like blush, initial impressions are that the sour side is more to the fore than anything too fruity icy pole-ish.… Read more
Red
- Style
- Fruit Cream Sour
- ABV
- 3.5%
Philter Marrickville Nights
Tapped August 28, 2020
The Philter brand was born in Marrickville, during a neighbourly backyard chat over beers. And Philter’s new brewery has just opened in Marrickville, with a public bar to give locals a way to drink Philter beer fresh from the source. So it’s only fitting the first beer to come out of the brewery pays homage to the suburb where it all started. Marrickville Nights is called a hoppy dark ale, but don’t expect it to be black - it’s more the golden brown of a lion’s mane, sitting in the glass… Read more
Rich Brown
- Style
- Hoppy Dark Ale
- ABV
- 4.9%
Brick Lane Draught
Tapped August 27, 2020
Throughout 2020, the brewers at Brick Lane have been playing around with hops, fruit, haze and acid but their latest release has a rather different brewing tradition in mind: the Australian draught. The black and red label has a striking simplicity and given this is a beer that’s “high gravity brewed”, provides “superior crispness and “fuller refreshment”, it’s pretty clear this is one intended to be bought by the six-pack, if not the case. The brewery wants you to share it with mates… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Lager
- ABV
- 4.9%
Eagle Bay Single Series: Pepita Porter & Sea Salt Sesame Stout
Tapped August 27, 2020
Eagle Bay’s head brewer Keegan Steinbacher clearly likes alliteration, as this pair of beers attest. But while smart names are one thing, the liquid inside always needs to be the main event, and he has delivered both with a mature outlook, while bucking the trend towards adjunct excess. Pepita Porter leads with dark chocolate and roast which segues into a slight late palate creaminess, before trailing off as bitter coffee and lager-derived, Baltic Porter dryness take over. Pepitas add a nutty quality… Read more
Black
- Style
- Porter & Stout
- ABV
- 7.0% & 6.0%
- Stockists
-
Available from the brewery and online
Plus WA Eagle Bay stockists
Moon Dog Ogden Nash's Pash Rash (2020)
Tapped August 26, 2020
Moon Dog have done many things the vast majority of brewers wouldn't – or would consider too daft – over the years. Among them was creating Ogden Nash's Pash Rash, a flavoured imperial stout that first time around required the then far smaller team to unwrap 5,800 of the lollies formerly known as Redskins so they could be added to a big stout. Things have changed since. For one, the name of the confectionary is to change. Secondly, there's an entire subset of the industry on a frantic hunt for… Read more
Black
- Style
- Raspberry Imperial Stout
- ABV
- 8.2%
- Stockists
-
On sale in VIC from Aug 26
Around Aus from Aug 31
Or via Moon Dog online
More stockists...
Bad Shepherd Saved By The Brett
Tapped August 26, 2020
For years, brewers have opted to let drinkers know they regard a particular beer as a little bit special by choosing a fancy bottle. For certain beers some even use a cork and cage or dip the bottle in wax, a practice whose key purposes seem to be threefold: to create pre-consumption frustration; to risk the slicing of fingers and/or thumbs; and the one positive – to prevent you opening a beer you've been cellaring for ages late at night when you're no longer capable of removing enough of the wax… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Barrel-Aged Brett Saison
- ABV
- 8.0%
Black Hops & Mount Gay Rum Caribbean Haze IIPA
Tapped August 26, 2020
Let's be honest, if there's one thing the past few years have taught us when it comes to beer it's that sometimes, no matter how bizarre a concept sounds, it can actually turn out to be at least OK, occasionally delicious. That doesn't mean the words "fruit and rum-soaked" and "hazy IIPA" set next to each other doesn't still raise an eyebrow. Yet the beer those phrases adorn – Black Hops' Caribbean Haze, originally a collab with Mount Gay Rum for GABS 2019 – has become one… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Fruit & Rum-Soaked IIPA
- ABV
- 7.8%
Fixation Mighty Boy, 100, Blues For The Red Sun & Social Space
Tapped August 25, 2020
When they sent samples of their August Incubator quartet, the Fixation team suggested an order in which to try the beers (not that I was planning on taking on all four at once, of course). It's the order they're listed above, but for the purposes of this write-up let's start at the end. Why? Because they've returned to the striking labels that were replaced temporarily by more generic decor with the previous trio and Social Space perhaps captures the moment – at least for a brewery based in the… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Various IPAs
- ABV
- 4.8% & 6.4% & 7.0% & 8.5%
Burnley Brewing Grapefruit IPA
Tapped August 24, 2020
The team at Burnley have ramped up their can releases since March and Melbourne’s second lockdown only seems to have seen them push the pedal closer to the metal. As spring approaches (not that you'd know it from the weather in their hometown) the roster grows once more in the shape of the orange tin and orange-tinged Grapefruit IPA; a West Coast style of IPA with a citrus peel twist. Fans of the brewery’s recently canned IPA, The Flex, will find much to love about this beer as it maintains… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- West Coast IPA
- ABV
- 6.5%
- Bitterness
- 40 IBU
Malt Shovel Brewers & Club Brewing Dave's Extra Golden Ale
Tapped August 24, 2020
When Malt Shovel Brewers teamed up with Club Brewing Co to brew a beer, they were inspired by James Squire’s The Chancer Golden Ale - but with the malt and hops turned up a notch. The result is Dave’s Extra Golden Ale, and the name is apt - I’m not sure the gold colour could be any deeper without turning into bullion (or, you know, being described as a different colour). It’s no surprise the decal shows a pot of hops at the end of the rainbow. The magnified malt profile brings a golden syrup… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Extra Golden Ale
- ABV
- 6.0%
Innate Brewers English & American Barleywines
Tapped August 24, 2020
If there have been beer gifts in what's been a challenging 2020, among them are the unlikely resurgence of black IPAs with modern finesse and, in this case, barley wine, or barleywine depending on your preference. Sure, they're not exactly lawnmower beers, for those that have lawn, but in the fermented nerd arc, this "ye olde" style is kind of like the final boss you encounter before telling everyone you’re done with beer – and that a well made lager is perfection. To which any friends… Read more
Rich Brown
- Style
- Barleywines
- ABV
- Both 10.5%
