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!
AIBA 2015 Champions Saison à Trois
Published May 27, 2016
For the past few years, the organisers of the Australian International Beer Awards have invited their Australian Champion Brewers to collaborate on a beer to be debuted at the subsequent year's awards. In 2015, the three champs were 4 Pines (Large), Thunder Road (Medium) and Boatrocker (Small), so earlier this year their brewers gathered at Boatrocker to unite their brewing talents. The trio – Chris Willcock of 4 Pines, Marcus Cox of Thunder Road, and Matt Houghton of Boatrocker – decided to… Read more
Red
- Style
- Amber Saison
- ABV
- 6.5%
Stone & Wood Brewing Stone Beer 2016
Published May 21, 2016
Stone & Wood's Stone Beer has become more than an annual release that pays homage to an old brewing style (while making use of head brewer Brad Roger's collection of volcanic stones). These days, the brewery uses it as an excuse to bring friends from the beer world to its Byron Bay home for a day long celebration of what they do as a fire is built, rocks heated and then added to the beer in the kettle. One imagines there's plenty of celebration going on around the brewery now too, following their… Read more
Black
- Style
- Stone Beer
- ABV
- 6.5%
- Stockists
-
Find it here
Temple Brewing Bold New World & ESB
Published May 20, 2016
There's been a flurry of new releases from Temple this month. We've already written about this year's Season's Harvest but if you're heading to their stall at GABS or visiting their brewery bar (plus a handful of other venues) look out for a couple of others. One is the Bold New World, an imperial version of their New World Order American stout. It weighs in at 10.2 percent ABV and let's you know, presenting vinous qualities, a liqueur like dark chocolate character and a touch of cherry alongside… Read more
Black
- Style
- Imperial Stout & ESB
- ABV
- 10.2% & 5.2%
- Stockists
-
GABS
Temple Brewery Bar
More stockists...Prosciutto Bros
And select other beer venues
NB some venues listed only have one of the beers
Shedshaker Brewing Espresso Lager
Published May 20, 2016
Originally brewed for GABS in 2016, Espresso Lager has since regularly appeared at the Castlemaine Brewery’s Taproom and on taps around Victoria. While coffee is a regular feature in stouts or porters, it doesn’t turn up as often in lagers. Starting off as the dark German Schwarzbier style, the lager is then "dry hopped" with coffee beans from their Castlemaine Mill co-tenants Coffee Basic’s Fair Trade Tiger Mountain coffee. The resulting beer has plenty of rich coffee flavours that… Read more
Black
- Style
- Coffee Lager
- ABV
- 5.2%
- Bitterness
- 27 IBU
Barossa Valley Brewing Choc Cherry Barrel Aged Stout
Published May 20, 2016
Originally brewed for GABS 2016, the Choc Cherry Barrel Aged Stout underwent a few transformations as it matured. The initial choc cherry stout base beer was brewed in collaboration with the team from Adelaide bar NOLA. This was then tweaked before being fed into port barrels to obtain added flavours. After GABS, the remaining stout stayed in barrels until it was ready to be unleashed once more on the world. The long maturation process has resulted in a depth of flavours, with this rich, midnight… Read more
Black
- Style
- Barrel Aged Cherry Stout
- ABV
- 6.5%
Grifter Brewing Co Cobra
Published May 18, 2016
There are probably a fair few in the beer community – brewers, for example – whose liquid intake consists almost exclusively of beer and coffee. Here, then, is a brew for them. Not only because it’s extremely efficient, but because you can taste both in a glass. Golden Cobra, from which the beer takes its named, is a Marrickville coffee roaster which, like new neighbour Grifter, often deals on the down low and remains one for those in the know. They brewed up 40 litres of cold drip coffee… Read more
Dark Brown
- Style
- Coffee Brown Ale
- ABV
- 5.6%
- Stockists
-
Grifter Brewery
Good bars around Sydney
Fixation Brewing The Fix
Published May 17, 2016
When this new venture between Stone & Wood and former Mountain Goat rep Tom Delmont launched last year, it was with the aim of brewing nothing but IPAs. So, having already built a reputation on the back of their flagship IPA, they're sticking to their word and following up with this double IPA. It's only going to be an occasional release and for this and the second release they're only brewing pilot size batches. Which means that, taking into account the tank samples staff at the Byron Bay brewery… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Double IPA
- ABV
- 8.2%
- Bitterness
- 80-plus IBU
- Stockists
-
Up in Smoke
Old Bar
Bangalow Hotel
Mill on Constance
More stockists...
Clifton Hill Brewpub Stout & Irish Red
Published May 16, 2016
For all that Melbourne leads the way as Australia's craftiest city and Victoria is home to the greatest number of brewing companies in the country, there's little in the way of brewpubs around the city. One of those few is the Clifton Hill Brewpub, where a refurb saw a 600 litre microbrewery installed in 2014. Yet, for the first couple of years, you'd rarely find more than three or four of its 16 taps pouring beers brewed on site, with most instead dedicated to other local and international craft… Read more
Dark Brown
- Style
- Stout & Irish Red
- Stockists
-
Clifton Hill Brewpub
Rocks Brewing Brown Ale – RETIRED
Published May 15, 2016
You often hear about how welcoming, inclusive and open to new opportunity the craft beer world is, and the latest release from the Rocks Brewing Company fits nicely within that narrative. It concerns Amanda Howkins, a British ex-pat who moved to Australia with bags full of impressive qualifications, certifications and around 20 years experience working with big overseas breweries and food manufacturers. After being alerted to her CV by a fellow Sydney brewer, Rocks invited her along to the brewery… Read more
Dark Brown
- Style
- Brown Ale
- ABV
- 5.2%
- Stockists
-
Rocks Brewing
More stockists...
Hop Nation The Kalash Russian Imperial Stout
Published May 13, 2016
Brewer's notes: Dunc and Sam pulled from their winemaking contacts to secure premium, seasoned Pinot Noir puncheons to put this brew together. After six months ageing in French barrels, this aggressive Ruski, named after the notorious Kalashnikov rifle and weighing in at a heavy 10.2 percent alcohol, takes no prisoners and asks no surrender. This rich, brewding beast will take you to the dark side. Barrel-aged in 500 litre oak puncheons, the subtle oak influence integrates with chocolate, tar and… Read more
Black
- Style
- Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout
- ABV
- 10.2%
Grifter Brewing Co Marnie's Majority
Published May 12, 2016
Back in 2013, the Grifter Brewing Company released Marnie’s Majority, a beer named and brewed in celebration of the birth of brewer Glenn Wignall’s first child. And a belter of a beer it was too, gaining quiet but high praise from some of Australia’s foremost brewers of hop driven beers. As was always the plan, the beer was brewed again at the same time in 2014 but last year Marnie didn’t get a birthday beer – what with things in fast motion at the business, culminating in the opening of… Read more
Red
- Style
- IPA
- ABV
- 6.4%
- Stockists
-
Grifter Brewing Co
Good beer venues around Sydney
Little Creatures The Hotchkiss Six
Published May 12, 2016
A year ago, Little Creatures set off ripples of delight among the country's beer lovers when they released Return of the Dread. Their first winter seasonal was a homage to one of its most popular Single Batch releases, The Dreadnought, and was a fine, bold, complex stout in its own right. For winter 2016, they've done it again: releasing a stout with links to the Dreadnought. Yet it's not Return of the Dread II... Having released those two higher ABV stouts, the brewers in Freo decided to do something… Read more
Black
- Style
- Stout
- ABV
- 4.5%
- Bitterness
- 34 IBU
- Stockists
-
Available nationwide
Blackman's Brewery Reginald IPA (cans)
Published May 10, 2016
After entering the packaged beer market with bottles brewed under license off site, Blackman's has brought everything back under its Torquay roof. They've taken delivery of a Cask machine from Canada and entered the world of canned craft beer. The plan is for all of their core range beers to end up in cans, but first to appear is Reginald, the brewery's American style IPA. The reason it's first in line is because you, the people, demanded it: in an online poll earlier this year, Reginald was the… Read more
Golden
- Style
- American IPA
- ABV
- 6.2%
- Stockists
-
Blackman's Brewery
Then on national distribution
Mountain Goat Barrel Breed Barley Wine 2016
Published May 9, 2016
One assumes this will be one of the most eagerly sought after beers of the year. Last year, Mountain Goat secured a number of Lark Distillery whisky barrels and the first beer that spent time in them was an English style barley wine. What came out to be blended at the other end of the incubation period was by far the booziest beer the Richmond brewery had ever released and also, according to the judges at last year's Australian International Beer Awards, the best Australian beer of the year. So,… Read more
Rich Brown
- Style
- Barrel Aged Barley Wine
- ABV
- 11.3%
- Bitterness
- 45 IBU
- Stockists
-
Mountain Goat Brewery
Then select good beer venues across Australia
Temple Brewing Season's Harvest 2016
Published May 8, 2016
In the first part of 2015, Temple Brewing kicked off a partnership with the highly regarded Royal Mail in Dunkeld. It saw them raid the kitchen garden of the Grampians restaurant and place the spoils in a beer. The result was Season's Harvest, a Belgian style witbier brewed with lemon verbena, a plant with intense and lively lemon characters, and pink peppercorns. They were that happy with the results that they returned this year to pick some more, thus creating a beer rather different to most of… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Spiced Witbier
- ABV
- 4.7%
- Stockists
-
Temple Brewery
Royal Mail Dunkeld
Others TBC
More stockists...
Newstead Brewing 4-Way QIPA & Azacca IPA
Published May 5, 2016
What do you get when you put four brewers with a penchant for experimentation and rule-breaking together in a brewery? In the case of the 4-Way, a beer we're told is "best enjoyed seated". Why? Mainly because this collaboration between Newstead, Craft, Dainton and Kaiju! weighs in at 11.5 percent ABV and, with heaps of hops swirling within its beastly body, it's being tagged a "Quadruple IPA". Said hops are Azacca added at 15 minutes, Riwaka at five minutes, Motueka in the whirlpool… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Massive IPAs
- ABV
- 11.5% & 7.3%
- Bitterness
- 200 IBU & 112 IBU
- Stockists
-
Brewski
The Mill on Constance
More stockists...And a handful of other craft venues
Red Duck Lord Burton's Breakfast
Published May 4, 2016
Last year, we caught up with Red Duck main man Scott Wilson-Browne for a chat about his ten years in brewing. One of Australia's genuine envelope pushers, responsible for a multitude of unique and often historically minded beers – more than 100 different releases at the time – he said he was considering reining in his wilder urges and brewing less types of beer. Admittedly, he'd brought half a dozen new beers with him at the time... A few months on and it's safe to say he's finding those urges… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- ESB with Tea
- ABV
- 6.4%
Fixation Brewing IPA
Published May 3, 2016
Fixation's Tom Delmont was responsible for taking The Crafty Pint's founder to Mountain Goat shortly after he'd moved to Australia in 2008, so can claim at least partial blame for the slippery slope that led to this site. Since that fateful Friday evening, if there's one thing this long friendship has made more than apparent, it's that Tom loves and appreciates good beer more than pretty much anyone on the planet. Especially when it's an IPA. When he was still employed at Mountain Goat before their… Read more
Golden
- Style
- West Coast IPA
- ABV
- 6.4%
- Bitterness
- 64 IBU
- Stockists
-
Available nationwide
Exit Brewing Milk Stout
Published May 1, 2016
The third beer ever released by Frase and Grum Exit, AKA #003, was a Milk Stout. And that's also the style they've opted for to make up the third beer in their core range too – following an IPA and hoppy amber – now that they've got more room to play with as house guests at Kaiju! in Melbourne's south east. For those new to such things, a milk stout is a version of the dark, roasty drops popularised by Guinness into which brewers add some lactose (milk sugar) during the boil. These sugars don't… Read more
Black
- Style
- Milk Stout
- ABV
- 5.2%
- Bitterness
- 34 IBU
- Awards
AIBA 2019 - Best Stout Trophy
Wayward Brewing Rose Kolsch
Published May 1, 2016
Before the Wayward brewery opened, founder Peter Philip was intent on making the space it occupied a part of the community. One of the ways he’d envisioned doing it was by giving back to it via a series of beers whose proceeds would go to charity. True to his word, the first of these is ready to flow and it’s a rose kölsch that’s been made to raise funds for Cystic Fibrosis NSW. As the style prescribes they’ve aimed for a beer with a light and clean malt character and European hops of the… Read more
Red
- Style
- Kolsch
- ABV
- 5.1%
- Stockists
-
Wayward Brewing Co
