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!
Local Brewing Co Gingerbread Brown Ale
Tapped December 11, 2020
To welcome Christmas’ fast approach (and potentially say goodbye to the wild ride that 2020 has been) Local Brewing Co have launched a dark but light-on-its-feet, holiday-inspired beer. Gingerbread Brown Ale does present with plenty of ginger notes but it's joined plenty of pantry items too. There's nutmeg, cinnamon and allspice, combining with slight chocolate notes from the malt to quite fittingly capture a baked treat in a can. But there’s still a dryness to the beer too and the malts are… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Gingerbread Brown Ale
- ABV
- 6.0%
Hope Brewery F-11.1% Red IIIPA & F/A 18% Black Rhino Stout
Tapped December 11, 2020
When it comes to these high alcohol heavyweights, Hope is not messing around. The F-11.1% Jet Red IIIPA is a masterpiece. Like a fighter jet’s afterburner, it’s red at its core with orange flickering at the edges, but it somehow avoids emitting any harsh fumes. And there’s no turbulence in this ride – it’s smooth, smooth, smooth. Thick like an oil slick on the tongue, the beer brings together orange rind and resin bitterness, ripe pawpaw sweetness, and caramelised sugar stickiness. If the… Read more
Red
- Style
- Triple Red IPA & Rhino Stout
- ABV
- 11.1% & 18.0%
Little Bang Experimental Barrel Series: Tangent #3
Tapped December 10, 2020
Little Bang’s third barrel-aged blend has been let loose, but this time bearing a new name. The first two editions were released under the Rabbit Hole banner; now they'll go by Tangent after a name clash with another beverage company. Leaving aside naming, #3 is a complex beast: they started with a sour blonde co-fermented on shiraz skins, then aged it in three ex-wine barrels (French oak that once housed grenache, chardonnay and pinot noir) for nine months before blending. The barrels and their… Read more
Red
- Style
- Blended Barrel-Aged Sour Ale
- ABV
- 9.2%
Wheaty Brewing Corps Big Poblano
Tapped December 9, 2020
The Big Poblano hit the Wheaty taps and their Friday tinnies releases just in time for summer, ready to merge fire with fire. Baby Poblano was released earlier in 2020, destined for the local chilli festival, but head brewer Jade Flavell wanted a little more: more booze, more body and more spice. The summer version amps up the alcohol content to 7.4 percent, with the spice amplified as well. The same amount of Ancho, Guajillo and Habanero chilli was added to both versions; however, this time around,… Read more
Black
- Style
- Mexican Stout
- ABV
- 7.4%
- Stockists
Brewmanity Howdy Cloudy
Tapped December 9, 2020
It's been a while between new cans from Brewmanity, the brewing company raising awareness and funds for Fight MND through every beer and event. But the return lands very much in the midst of the action today, with Howdy Cloudy a 7 percent ABV hazy IPA. Brewed with Vic Secret, Huell Melon and HPA's newly-named Eclipse hops, it's orange in colour and hazy more than the cloudy of its name. Not only orange in appearance but noticeably orange-tinged in character too (well, HPA have promoted Eclipse as… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Hazy IPA
- ABV
- 7.0%
Brick Lane Birds Of A Feather Series
Tapped December 9, 2020
To welcome summer, Brick Lane unleashed their fruited sour series Birds Of A Feather, three different beers featuring six different fruits and built upon one base recipe. They might well be Brick Lane's most eye-catching cans too, with each colourful beer showcasing different feathery characters. Like many modern iterations of the style, they’re not particularly sour; instead, it’s largely the featured fruits that do a lot of the heavy lifting, while the 6 percent ABV means they're all rather… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Fruit Sours
- ABV
- All 6.0%
3 Ravens Methode Ravens 2020, Cherry Creamsicle & Solera Stock Ale
Tapped December 8, 2020
This year's Indies brought yet more trophy success for 3 Ravens, as the reinvented Thornbury brewery took out Champion Pale Ale for their flies-under-the-radar New World IPA. Yet, when I called in the following week, there was as much excitement about the gold for their 2019 Methode Ravens. If you've met the brewing team, you'd understand why they'd take pleasure in such a beer's success, given their fondness for barrels, blending, bugs and the beauty of time passing. That Methode Ravens 2020 was… Read more
Rich Brown
- Style
- Various styles
- ABV
- 6.3% & 3.5% & 16.0%
Mismatch DDH Hazy Session & Double Hazy
Tapped December 7, 2020
To see 2020 off in style, and wrap up their handsome contribution to the plethora of limited releases from Aussie brewers this year, Mismatch have doubled down on two very different double hazies. The first takes the bones of an old favourite, Mismatch Session Ale, than adds a double dry hop and a boost in ABV to 4.5 percent. The second is a double hazy IPA: a bigger, meatier version of the former at exactly double the alcohol content. Fans of the OG Session will find the DDH Hazy Session’s aroma… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Hazy Session Ale & Double Hazy
- ABV
- 4.5% & 9.0%
BoJak Brewing Double Calypso, Helter Skelter & She's A Peach
Tapped December 7, 2020
To celebrate their second birthday, Melbourne’s BoJak Brewing have brewed up three special beers to help mark the occasion. Starting what might be the least surprising and the most welcome for the Dandenong brewery’s fans, there’s a double version of their popular hazy, Calypso. Double Calypso has twice the amount of hops as the core beer and on opening it up, it comes across like it has twice the amount of juice content squeezed in too. From the moment it’s cracked, the beer spills out with… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Double Hazy IPAs & Peach Sour
- ABV
- 8.7%, 8.7% & 4.4%
- Stockists
-
Available in bottleshops and direct from the brewery including special birthday packs.
Moo Brew Hazy Pale
Tapped December 7, 2020
The hazy pales continue to come thick and fast as 2020 draws to a close. Although, in the case of this arrival from recently-anointed Champion Independent Tasmanian Brewery Moo Brew, it's coming in not overly hazy and not overly pale. A fair few to have come our way have been pale to the point of looking like a cloudy witbier; here, things are a little darker and haze is well short of cloudy. With the darker hue comes an attendant sticky, sweeter malt character. It adds a ripeness to the pineapple… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Hazy Pale Ale
- ABV
- 5.5%
- Bitterness
- 30 IBU
Deeds Brewing Na Zdravi & Daydreaming In Summer
Tapped December 6, 2020
The division, schism, turf battle – whatever you want to call it – between the group of craft beer drinkers in awe to hype styles and breweries, those chasing the biggest ABVs, grams per litre, and calorific intake, and those clamouring for a greater focus on classic styles, balance and sanity has never been wider or more intense (even if the majority of humans will be totally unaware such a thing exists). As such, there's a danger you might think this write-up on two cans from Deeds – a brewery… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Czech Pilsner & DDH Hazy Pale
- ABV
- 5.0% & 5.7%
Young Henrys & 4ZZZ H4ZZZY IPA
Tapped December 6, 2020
Proudly independent. Focused on their local community. Support upcoming artists and live music. Loud and proud of it. This describes Young Henrys, but it also describes Brisbane community radio station 4ZZZ, and the simpatico relationship has led to a collaboration celebrating the station’s 45th birthday. The Sydney brewery and Brisbane radio station have a number of connections – Young Henrys have supported multiple 4ZZZ live gigs and festivals, and YH co-founder Oscar McMahon still remembers… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Hazy West Coast IPA
- ABV
- 7.3%
- Stockists
-
Tippler's Tap Fortitude Valley
And select QLD venues listed here
More stockists...
Bridge Road Brewers Peach Sour
Tapped December 5, 2020
At the same time as their quirky, year round, foeder-fermented Mayday Hills number Hoppy Sour makes the move into cans, a sour of a rather more straightforward nature makes its way from Beechworth's Bridge Road into the nation's bars and bottleshops. Peach Sour is a beer that, put in simple terms, does exactly what it says it's going to do. It looks like peach flesh put through a fine blender, smells of peaches, comes with a tangy, tart edge, fair fizzes on the palate, where fruit and cleansing acidity… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Peach Sour
- ABV
- 4.3%
Akasha Project Endless Haze
Tapped December 4, 2020
For Akasha, much like Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, and the nostrils of all members of the band during the majority of the 70s and 80s, the hits just keep coming. This time it’s Endless Haze, a 4.2 percent ABV hazy pale ale. Brewed before the rebrand as a keg only release, Endless Haze has graduated to Akasha Project status and sauntered into a very fetching can in time for the start of summer. Hazy pale ales might just be the style of the 2020/21 summer, with breweries all over the country dialling… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Hazy Pale Ale
- ABV
- 4.2%
Two Birds Deck The Hall St
Tapped December 4, 2020
For me and many others, the fast approach of Christmas was once always heralded by the appearance of Christmas music. They’re songs that go from charming to brutal when you work in one of the country’s major supermarkets and they kick off early in November and get louder and more frequent as the month wears on. Fortunately for me, today Christmas’ sudden nearness is instead marked by the arrival of beer’s with names that reference that music, like Two Birds’ cherry sour, Deck The Hall St. Named… Read more
Red
- Style
- Cherry Sour
- ABV
- 4.0%
- Stockists
-
The full list of stockists is available here.
Helios & Sea Legs The Leviathan
Tapped December 4, 2020
Who dares open the doors of its mouth, ringed about with fearsome teeth? … Smoke pours from its nostrils as from a boiling pot over burning reeds. Its breath sets coals ablaze, and flames dart from its mouth… When it rises up, the mighty are terrified; they retreat before its thrashing… Nothing on earth is its equal— a creature without fear. The ancient Hebrews were afraid of the chaotic unpredictability of the ocean, and so developed terrifying… Read more
Golden
- Style
- IIIPA
- ABV
- 12.0%
- Stockists
-
It will be part of their third birthday
Deeds Brewing Calculated Risk, Dad Jeans & Hold The Cream
Tapped December 3, 2020
Understandably, Deeds have become known best as one of a clutch of local breweries playing hard in the realms of the hoppy, hazy and boozy. Yet, while I won't pretend to have tried all their very many beers, it's fair to say their rapid-fire release schedule heads into other spaces too, from imperial sours to stouts and lagers. And, on occasion, saisons like Calculated Risk. The beer is so called as they're mixing Old (Saaz) and New World (Motueka – derived from Saaz) hop varieties with the farmhouse… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Saison & IPA & Oat DIPA
- ABV
- 6.2% & 7.0% & 8.8%
Dainton Brewing Shark-Punch-Nado
Tapped December 3, 2020
In 2019, Dainton released Shark Punch; an Australian-hopped tropical IPA that asked whether or not sharks and people could get along. As the far wilder 2020 entered its final month, the brewery gave the beer an update to reflect the year we've had and created the “tropical-er” Shark-Punch-Nado. Given the regularity with which they appear, and the success of Dainton’s hazy IPAs, our first assumption was that “tropical-er” might feature a similar approach, but instead it’s a perfectly… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Tropical-er IPA
- ABV
- 7.5%
- Bitterness
- 55 IBU
Future Mountain Static & Distance: Spelt Saison with Dandelion Tea
Tapped December 3, 2020
They tend to brew to the beat of their own drum at Future Mountain and the brewery and blendery's saison series that launched at the end of 2020 is pretty good evidence of that. Static & Distance aims to showcase the style's myriad moves and be an ever-changing evolution, with each release barrel-fermented but then embellished with unique ingredients and flavours. The first is Barrel Fermented Spelt Saison with Dandelion Tea, which underwent primary ferment in barrel for eight weeks. The high… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Saison
- ABV
- 5.0%
Bright Tank Assalted Berry Gose
Tapped December 3, 2020
Bright Tank’s Assalted sour series continues apace with this drupelet drop. Here, the raspberry grams per litre embellishment keeps proceedings light and breezy, much like the acidity and brine, an approach that renders Assalted Berry the kind of quaffable refresher which needn’t make an orchardist sweat, but which would still slake a day’s toil. Speaking of which, one wonders what a blend of the recent Peach Assalted and this release would taste like. Perhaps it’s a summery combination worth… Read more
Red
- Style
- Berry Gose
- ABV
- 3.8%
