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!
Noodledoof Choc Cherry Coconut Extra Stout
Published September 7, 2022
One of the lovely things about the rise of small breweries in so many parts of the country is their desire to showcase their fellow local producers. That's the case here as Noodledoof – based in Koroit in Victoria's west – take their export stout and give it a twist courtesy of cocoa from Grounded Pleasures and Tower Hill cherries. It's akin to the approach they took with one of their first, if not their very first, barrel-aged beers. Here, the adjuncts are delivered with subtlety: the toasted… Read more
Black
- Style
- Choc Cherry Coconut Extra Stout
- ABV
- 6.8%
Moon Dog Almighty Cannolo & Keep It Strange, Santo
Published September 7, 2022
Moon Dog have been practising the fine art of collaboration, with two quite different partnerships released in quick succession. Almighty Cannolo is a pastry sour that replicates the classic Sicilian dessert and was made with Cannoleria (which is an offshoot of Melbourne’s excellent cheesemaker, That’s Amore). The beer was brewed with some 1,500 kilograms of whey from Amore’s ricotta and its creamy mouthfeel certainly evokes that soft cheese. Sure ‘cheesiness’ probably isn’t a word that… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Cannoli Pastry Sour & Juicy Pale Ale
- ABV
- 7.5%
- Bitterness
- 4.5%
Holgate Brewhouse Citrus IPA
Published September 6, 2022
One of the beers that inspired Paul Holgate to start brewing commercially at the end of the last millennium was Hoegaarden. He'd enjoy the witbier while on work trips to Europe and later introduced his own take on the style, White Ale, to the Holgate lineup. His passion for such beers extends to German wheat beer styles too; head to their Woodend HQ and at any time of year you might find three different European wheat beers on tap – this despite the fact the country's drinkers have shown little… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Citrus White IPA
- ABV
- 6.0%
Pikes Beer Co American Brown Ale
Published September 6, 2022
Clare Valley-based Pikes Beer Company have started making the transition from the darks of winter to something a touch lighter in colour for spring. Their American Brown Ale blurs the lines between a red IPA and a brown ale, with flickers of red malts laying a backdrop for the hops – classic US Cascade and Chinook hops early on and Aussie-grown Vic Secret late in the ferment – to punch through. The Vic Secret fires off citrus aromas, largely grapefruit with a little orange, alongside a touch… Read more
Rich Brown
- Style
- American Brown Ale
- ABV
- 7.5%
Nowhereman Carnival & Berry Gose Round
Published September 6, 2022
After debuting at Froth Town, Nowhereman's festival pair make their way into the wider world just as the west starts to warm. Fittingly bestowed with celebratory name, Carnival’s rice lager base keeps thing clean, however there’s a subtle creaminess at play here, one that when mixed with tropical passionfruit casts fleeting notions of summery soft serve ice cream, before landing back firmly in the crispy camp. Berry Gose Round returns with even more fruit per litre than last time round – not… Read more
Red
- Style
- Passionfruit Rice Lager & Berry Gose
- ABV
- 5.0% & 4.0%
- Stockists
-
Available in limited release from Nowhereman
And WA stockists
Deeds Brewing Ruminations, Ephemeral & Nocturnal
Published September 5, 2022
As Deeds Brewing release another flurry of beers from their mixed culture program, it seems they're on a mission to prove it's not just good and bad things that come in threes, but barrel-aged and blended fruity beverages conceived in Glen Iris too. When tucking into the third triple launch of such beers, I figured the one featuring white peaches would be the gentlest starting point, and when Ruminations landed in my glass looking as witbier-esque as a beer can look it felt like I'd chosen wisely.… Read more
Red
- Style
- Mixed Culture Beers With Fruit
- ABV
- 4.9% & 4.4% & 4.9%
Bright Brewery Bright Pale Ale
Published September 5, 2022
Bright’s pale ale is dead, long live Bright Pale Ale. In 2022, the High Country brewery made the decision to saw farewell to Blowhard Pale Ale, which had been in their core range for some 16 years, and replace it with something a little more modern. That more modern was the simply titled “Pale Ale” which had been finding fans at their taproom since 2021 thanks to its new world hoppy combination of El Dorado, Galaxy, Vic Secret and Trident in the shape of the hop-derived product, Salvo. Compared… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Pale Ale
- ABV
- 4.0%
Willie the Boatman Pine Lime & Red Rye-ot
Published September 5, 2022
Yeah, crypto is great, but if you’d have invested in ice cream sours three years ago imagine where you’d be now? Perhaps your stocks would have gone up at the same time St Peter’s own Willie the Boatman released Pine Lime Ice-Cream Sour. A tribute to a "milkbar classic" (I assume a Splice?) this 6.8 percent ABV sour pours gold and clear, looking just like a refreshing lager or pilsner. This is not an illusion that can continue after tasting. A tangle of lime sweetened by pineapple… Read more
Red
- Style
- Ice Cream Sour & Red Rye IPA
- ABV
- 6.8% & 5.5%
One Drop & Duncan's Haze Talk & Cake Walk
Published September 2, 2022
Another week, another One Drop double release. This time around Botany’s wizards of weird have teamed up with their spiritual siblings, Duncan’s Brewing Co, from the Kapiti Coast on the south end of Aotearoa’s north island. In much the same vein as One Drop, Duncan’s are capable of nailing straight up classic beer styles but seem to spend most their time creating the type of beers that make most people happy but a certain subset of the beer-loving public extremely angry. The two collaboration… Read more
Red
- Style
- German Oat Cream IPA & Imperial Pastry Gose
- ABV
- 8.1% & 7.0%
Killer Sprocket Knight Fall & Shiny
Published September 2, 2022
Craft beer cans might often tell a story but these two by Killer Sprocket feel like they're part of a graphic novel I’d very much like to read. Knight Fall is a limited-release schwarzbier that's Sprocket's first ever lager and pays homage to the iconic Batman series while flicking between rich chocolate notes and a lighter side. The dark lager’s first wave is one of cacao and tobacco with earthy or herbal punch joining a roasted edge before that clean and crisp finish sets you up for the next… Read more
Dark Brown
- Style
- Schwarzbier & Coffee IPA
- ABV
- 4.9% & 5.5%
Blackman's Brewery Pivot City Lager
Published September 2, 2022
Ballarat and Bendigo might be known for their gold but Geelong once played a - excuse the pun here - pivotal role during the Gold Rush. The deep water in this part of Port Phillip Bay made the city a natural shipping hub and as the railways built up too, the area known as The Pivot became an essential point where goods and gold were shipped from Barallat and the Western District to the rest of the world. You'll still find names and references to that history around the regional city and even the… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Australian Lager
- ABV
- 4.3%
Moon Dog Orange zZap! & 6 Months On A Leaky Oak
Published September 2, 2022
There aren’t really rules when it comes to Moon Dog beers but even by their standards, these two feel like they're on opposite ends of the beery spectrum. Orange zZap is an orange sherbet ale that contains an extract from the Electric Daisy flower to recreate the tingly effect sherbet has on the tongue*. It certainly works too, with that fizz dancing across the palate as the juicy orange flavours take you to a lolly aisle in the supermarket. But while this beer might take its inspiration from Sherbet… Read more
Black
- Style
- Orange Sherbet Ale & Barrel-Aged Strong Belgian
- ABV
- 5.8% & 8.4%
Lost Palms Your Love Tiki Sour & Double Blueberry Pancake Sour Ale
Published September 2, 2022
Both of these beers may be fruited and acidic, but this sour double-header features two quite different beers. Pick your favourite. Will it be Your Love Tiki Sour? It’s been designed with a tropical cocktail in mind: a sour beer base topped with pineapple, passionfruit and orange then drizzled with coconut & lime rum from Dead Man’s Fingers. None of the ingredients dominates; each is there to contribute to the overall flavour experience. Your Love brings a lot of tang. It’s six percent… Read more
Red
- Style
- Fruit Sours
- ABV
- 6.0% & 9.0%
Five Barrel Blue Triangle, Local Call & Servants Of The People 2022
Published September 2, 2022
We've reached the second release in Five Barrels’ butterfly series, and I’m surprised it took them even this long to name a butterfly I’ve never heard of. (I am not well-versed in butterfly varieties… I mean styles… I mean species.) The Blue Triangle butterfly apparently likes to live in tropical rainforests in the east of Australia, so this oat cream IPA is thick with Aussie hops bringing tropical notes. The hops (Ella, Eclipse and Galaxy) are buttressed on one side by lactose, and on… Read more
Black
- Style
- Various Styles As Indicated
- ABV
- 7.0% & 6.0% & 10.0% & 10.0%
- Bitterness
- 25 & 55 & 60 & 60 IBU
Future Mountain Let The Day Begin (2022)
Published September 1, 2022
There can’t be too many beers that capture Melbourne and spring quite like Future Mountain’s Let The Day Begin. The beer is a collaboration with the coffee roasters at Collingwood's Everyday Coffee and sees the brewery and blendary select a single-origin bean to partner with a barrel-aged golden sour. For 2022, that chosen coffee was Gilberto Mejia, which is named for the small-scale farmer who grows those beans on his one-hectare farm in the Cajamarca region of Peru. The coffee’s impact on… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Golden Sour With Coffee
- ABV
- 5.5%
Fury & Son A Day Late Peach NEIPA, Red Ale & Black IPA
Published September 1, 2022
With so many new releases these days pale, hop-driven and usually hazy, it makes for a pleasant change to receive a trio from one brewer that lands in such distinct parts of the colour spectrum. OK, so each of these beers from Fury & Son still features much in the way of hoppiness, but they do take the drinker to different places. Peach NEIPA looks like one of the OG NEIPAs – pouring opaque as, no doubt aided by the 20 percent fruit nectar in each can. And given you can get peach / stonefruit… Read more
Dark Brown
- Style
- Peach NEIPA, American Red & Black IPA
- ABV
- 6.6% & 5.3% & 6.7%
Tallboy & Moose x Deeds All Play & No Work
Published August 31, 2022
To understand All Play And No Work we need to go back to the time before COVID, 2019. Back then, Tallboy & Moose teamed up with Deeds to absolutely pummel a hazy DIPA with hops - 40 grams per litre to be exact - to create All Work & No Play, in reference to excellent read and watch (and Treehouse of Horror episode), The Shinning. Flash forward to 2022 and they’ve come together again but rather than focusing on haze, they've moved in a different hoppy direction to brew this middle-finger-to-the-BJCP… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Cryo Cold IPL
- ABV
- 6.5%
Mash Brewing Donut Beer 2.0
Published August 31, 2022
Mash Brewing have teamed up once again with their good mates at Donut Waste and Oz Harvest to create Donut Beer 2.0, and this time around they've created a pastry sour with a malt bill made up almost entirely of doughnuts. For a bit of background, Donut Waste is a Perth-based waste and sustainability startup on a mission to help the community become more circular in its waste management. In this case, they've saved more than 2,000 doughnuts from landfill, while they also recycle coffee grounds and… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Pastry Sour
- ABV
- 5.0%
- Stockists
-
Launching on September 1, when Mash will pick the winner in a competition to guess how many doughnuts were used in the beer.
Details here
Bad Shepherd Brew Crew 18: Coffee Infused American Brown Ale
Published August 31, 2022
Given a life in beer sales tends to involve a lot of time in the car travelling, Bad Shepherd's 18th Brew Crew release makes a whole lot of sense. Coffee Infused American Brown Ale is the work of Bad Shepherd's Master of Sales, Mark who, as well as loving beer, is something of a coffee addict (again, we think we can guess why). Given Bad Shepherd’s Hazelnut Brown has enjoyed a cult following since the brewpub’s earliest days, brewing malt-led beers is certainly familiar territory for the brewery… Read more
Rich Brown
- Style
- Brown Ale
- ABV
- 5.0%
Boatrocker Ramjet 2022
Published August 30, 2022
You know you've been around the beer world a while when you realise the Ramjet in your glass is the tenth version that's come your way – and that's not including the Roger Ramjets, the Coffee Ramjets, the Dramjets (still and sparkling), the Jackjet, and on and on. So, nine years on from the beer's mind-blowing debut, where does Boatrocker's flagship sit in 2022? Well, for starters, you don't mess around with an icon, so once again the double digit base beer spent six months in barrels from Starward… Read more
Black
- Style
- Whisky Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout
- ABV
- 11.1%
