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!
Your Mates Apple Cider
Tapped February 1st, 2019
Their catch-cry may be "good beer", but they make a crackin’ cider as well. It made sense to Your Mates to use the best apples they could get their hands on, so they looked no further than Stanthorpe, which is famous for growing top quality apples. They used 800 litres of juice in the ferment, plus 200 litres to blend back and return some of the sweetness and flavour to the mix. The resulting cider is a light lemon colour, with a touch of cloudiness. It’s not sugary, like those alcopop… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Apple Cider
- ABV
- 5.0%
Aether Brewing Roughneck Strong Pale Ale
Tapped January 31st, 2019
Aether brought out an earlier version of Roughneck at the start of 2018 as a maltier and floral counterpart to their core range Pit Stop Pale Ale. Now it’s back with a vengeance: with the alcohol content upped to 5.8 percent ABV and the tag "strong pale ale"; they've put it into tinnies too. This isn’t a beer to add to the many bright, tropical pale ales around at the moment. Instead, it carries almost amber ale characteristics (though it’s still the shining gold of a pale ale), with… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Strong Pale Ale
- ABV
- 5.8%
Aether Brewing Written In The Stars Sour Boysenberry DIPA
Tapped January 31st, 2019
When it comes to special releases from Aether, the phrase: "Expect the unexpected" comes to mind. In the past, they’ve served up a smoked cherry double choc brownie stout, a Tom Yum gose, and even a bone marrow double Irish red ale to keep us on our toes. So, when it came time to christen their new brewhouse in Nundah, it’s no surprise their first brew was something experimental. But, if you think you can predict what the first sip of a sour boysenberry double IPA will taste like, you’re… Read more
Red
- Style
- Sour Boysenberry Double IPA
- ABV
- 8.8%
Nowhereman Berry Gose Round
Tapped January 31st, 2019
It appears Nowhereman have settled into something of a brew-groove, with this their fourth fruit sour in as many months. Having previously explored beery cocktail expressions and student party enablers, Berry Gose Round may be their most approachable fruited beer yet. In loading up 80kg of strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and raspberries, they've created a pretty pastel pink beer. Of the summer fruits, raspberry and blueberry shine brightest while the restrained briny balance mingles with… Read more
Red
- Style
- Berry Gose
- ABV
- 4.5%
- Stockists
-
Nowhereman Brewery
Belgian Beer Cafe, Perth
Cabin 401 Bar & Grill, Bibra Lake
Clancy's Fish Pub, Dunsborough
Clancy's Fish Pub, Fremantle
Clarences, Mt Lawley
More stockists...Old Faithful Bar & BBQ, Perth
Palace Arcade, Northbridge
Panama Social, Northbridge
Petition Beer Corner, Perth
Ronnie Nights, Fremantle
The Sandbar, Scarborough
Strange Company, Fremantle
Tavolo, Belmont
The Balmoral, Victoria Park
The Bird, Northbridge
The Brisbane Hotel, Highgate
The Norfolk Hotel, Fremantle
The Standard, Northbridge
Wheaty Brewing Corps & Wildflower Mildflower
Tapped January 29th, 2019
The Wheaty Brewing Corp brewers are extremely particular about cleanliness and their brewery is always impeccable. So, when Topher from Wildflower flew into town with some bugs in his suitcase for a collaboration, Jade and the crew were on edge. The beer they set about creating combines Wildflower’s house mixed culture with the Wheaty’s preferred French saison yeast. Thus, into a Thebby fermenter for the first time went all manner of yeast strains and bacteria – more than 620 bugs of one form… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Table Beer
- ABV
- 4.0%
- Bitterness
- 15 IBU
Wheaty Brewing Corps Coma Chameleon
Tapped January 29th, 2019
Creative Original Music Adelaide (COMA) is a not for profit organisation that raises the profile of original music in Adelaide. They host regular events at The Wheaty on the first and third Monday of every month, racking up an impressive 700 performances at the one establishment at time of writing. Last year’s collaboration saw them create Rizzocato, with a slightly different version now continuing as part of the Wheaty Brewing Corps core range. Their 2018 collab saw them create a mango sour saison.… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Mango Sour Saison
- ABV
- 5.3%
Wheaty Brewing Corps & Gladfield Enzed Red
Tapped January 29th, 2019
The Wheaty Brewing Corps has collaborated with New Zealand’s Gladfield Malt for three years in a row now and there seems to be a common theme running through the beers: red. In the case Enzed Red, yet again three of Gladfield’s red hued malts were used in the grist, with Aurora, Red Back and Shepherd’s Delight also contributing to the beer's big, chewy malt characters. Combine that with New Zealand hops Motueka, Nelson Sauvin and experimental variety HORT 4337 and we have Enzed Red. A deep,… Read more
Red
- Style
- Red IPA
- ABV
- 6.3%
- Bitterness
- 50 IBU
Brisbane Brewing Co Slim Rye Ale
Tapped January 29th, 2019
Sometimes you need a beer that’ll be gentle to you, like your favourite battered Akubra protecting your eyes from the harsh sunlight, or the quiet thrum of plucky guitar strings offering your ears some relief from the noisy world. Sometimes you need a beer that won’t make you fall off your stool. A beer for when you’re feeling a bit dusty. Say hello to Slim. He’s a rye pale ale crooning at an easy 2.8 percent ABV. Hold him up to the light and you’ll see the coppery tones shining through,… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Light Rye Pale Ale
- ABV
- 2.8%
- Bitterness
- 17 IBU
Brisbane Brewing Co My Shout Dry Irish Stout
Tapped January 29th, 2019
Dark beer lovers have a dilemma in Queensland. We love our porters and stouts, and they go down perfectly in winter… but there’s an extra level of dedication needed to knock back a pint of 6 percent (or higher) chewy stout in 33 degree heat and high humidity. BBCo’s answer isn’t to invent a new style, but to go back to an often underrated classic style: the dry Irish stout. Their version, My Shout, is the perfect year-round dark beer. Just like its famous big brother from Ireland, this beer… Read more
Black
- Style
- Dry Irish Stout
- ABV
- 4.4%
- Bitterness
- 30 IBU
Brisbane Brewing Co LuvaBeer Strawberry Sour
Tapped January 29th, 2019
Want a beer to really make you feel good in the summer heat? BBCo has kettle-soured a wheat beer (using lactobacillus plantarum) and infused it with a bucketloads of strawberries from LuvaBerry. LuvaBerry gathers all those weather-damaged (but perfect tasting) strawberries that would otherwise go to waste and freezes them to be used by forward-thinking companies like BBCo, who used theirs in a beer (obviously). Half of the strawberries were introduced to the boil, with the other half being added… Read more
Red
- Style
- Strawberry Sour
- ABV
- 4.8%
- Bitterness
- 12 IBU
Brisbane Brewing Co Putin On The RIS
Tapped January 29th, 2019
With possibly the best beer name in history, Putin On The RIS is an imperial stout to sip, savour and salute. BBCo bring this monster back year after year, along with barrel-aged variants, and it never disappoints. It’s thick and syrupy as motor oil, coating the tongue and carrying layer upon layer of complexity. Full, almost savoury, flavours of roastiness, liquorice and cocoa bitterness blend with the sweeter and stickier notes of chocolate and dried dark fruits. Coffee and boozy warmth come… Read more
Black
- Style
- Russian Imperial Stout
- ABV
- 10.1%
- Bitterness
- 70 IBU
Temple Brewing 888 Mandarin Saison
Tapped January 24th, 2019
Beer and New Year’s Eve might be inseparable in Australian culture but it’s not often you see the same connection with Chinese New Year. For 2019, however, Temple Brewing has looked to capture that celebration in a can in the form of 888, a mandarin saison or “lucky ale”. Every aspect of the beer’s design is inspired by different traditions around Chinese New Year: eight is considered the luckiest number and red is the luckiest of colours, so the red tinnies of 888 should be about as lucky… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Mandarin Saison
- ABV
- 4.8%
Bodriggy Brewing Space Milk Vol. 2
Tapped January 23rd, 2019
Bodriggy’s Space Milk cans promise to offer a glimpse into the expanse beyond our own planet, while the beers that sit inside set out on a journey into the world of lactose-laced sour beers. The first in the series showcased cascara, the dried skins of coffee cherries, and wild Australian raspberries and here Volume 2 has combined what is quite possibly an even more disparate collection of flavours. Pineapple and lime may sound normal enough for an Australian mid-strength sour. But add in some… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Fruited, Spiced Cream Sour
- ABV
- 3.0%
Stone & Wood Pacific Ale (Cans)
Tapped January 22nd, 2019
As Stone & Wood’s Pacific Ale waltzes into its second decade, the beer that’s inspired countless other locally brewed, refreshingly tropical releases has made the permanent move into cans. The beer will still be available as a stubby but the beer’s latest evolution – one that plenty have clamoured for – shows how prevalent the can has become for craft brewers in Australia and seems particularly suitable considering this was always a beer designed for enjoying after hot days in the surf… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Pacific Ale
- ABV
- 4.4%
Mornington Peninsula Brewery Galaxy Pash
Tapped January 18th, 2019
One can't help but feel that, of all the fruits, passionfruit deserves an Australian Craft Beer Hall of Fame spot (were such a thing to exist, of course). It's the defining characteristic of the Galaxy hop at the heart of Stone & Wood's Pacific Ale, which in turn has become the defining characteristic of 1,276 other locally brewed beers (and counting). And, thanks to its natural acidic tang, it's a rather handy tool for anyone playing in the realm of kettle sours or, indeed, just wanting to add… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Dry-hopped Passionfruit Sour
- ABV
- 3.5%
Barossa Valley Brewing NAIPA
Tapped January 18th, 2019
Barossa Valley Brewing feels like a brewery that flies under the radar somewhat when it comes to those nudging the envelope. Go back over the years and you'll find honey beer, beer-wine hybrids, fruit beers and more besides. Even their core range Aussie Pale Ale comes with a dose of lemon myrtle. Here, they're playing around again, admittedly a little tongue-in-cheek, as they look to create a new spin on one of the styles du jour: turning NEIPA into NAIPA – Native Aussie IPA – thanks to the addition… Read more
Golden
- Style
- NEIPA with Davidson's Plums
- ABV
- 6.5%
Sailors Grave & Blackhearts & Sparrows Refreshing Cherry Ale
Tapped January 17th, 2019
Around this time in 2018, the entities that are Sailors Grave and Melbourne purveyors of fine booze Blackhearts & Sparrows joined forces to create a beer together. It was inspired by American orange cream soda and was a lively, refreshing affair. And now they've looked to do something similar, albeit with cherries, inspired, quite possibly, by the fact the bottleshop group's beer buyer is called Cherry. As we've come to expect from the Gippsland crew by now, ingredients are handled with a degree… Read more
Red
- Style
- Cherry Cream Sour
- ABV
- 4.6%
- Stockists
Sailors Grave Summer Pudding
Tapped January 17th, 2019
Over the unofficial Melbourne Cup long weekend in 2018, the Crafty Pint crew and friends were joined in the campsite by the family behind Sailors Grave. Thus we had access to a beer fridge larger than a coffin and the sort of low ABV fruity refresher ideal for long, lazy days (not to mention some quite spectacular dancing, but that's for another occasion...). Tucked at the bottom, underneath the various cans, was a mini-keg filled with a yet-to-be-released beer: their submission for the Carwyn Canvent… Read more
Red
- Style
- Berry Cream Sour
- ABV
- 4.8%
Nomad Brewing Co Champers & Jetlag 2019
Tapped January 17th, 2019
They've been enjoying a fine run of things on the IPA front at Nomad in recent times, with their series of Supersonic Double IPAs, in particular, finding favour with drinkers; the Rainforest Lime edition made our Best New NSW Beers Of 2018 list. And so it is that the Northern Beaches brewers open their 2019 limited release account with two more: their take on a Brut IPA and a new version of one of their launch beers. The former is Champers, a can-conditioned beer, a version of which was initially… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Brut IPA & Finger Lime IPA
- ABV
- 6.5% & 6.0%
Big Shed Brewing Eton Mess
Tapped January 16th, 2019
Big Shed looked overseas for ideas when it came to their latest dessert inspired beer and it's resulted in quite a mess: an Eton Mess. Originating in England, the story goes that, during a 19th century cricket game when Eton were playing Harrow, the tea time snack of strawberries and cream pudding was dropped on the ground. Not to be thwarted, the scraps were scooped up off the floor and jammed into individual bowls, with strawberries, meringue and cream combined as one. How's that work as a beer,… Read more
Red
- Style
- Strawberry NEIPA
- ABV
- 5.9%
