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!
La Sirène Praline (2020 Onwards)
Tapped January 16th, 2020
If you were asked to come up with an example of a cult beer in Australia, La Sirène's Praline would fit the bill. Thrust into the limelight by its success at GABS 2014, the Belgian style stout featuring organic vanilla pods, cacao nibs and hazelnuts helped bring the Alphington brewery to the attention of many local drinkers. But it's also been something of a millstone around their necks; attend a La Sirène event and, if it features, it's likely to be with a caveat as it's the only beer in their… Read more
Black
- Style
- Sour Stout
- ABV
- 6.0%
TWØBAYS Brewing Co Breakaway Summer Ale
Tapped January 16th, 2020
As the canned offering from gluten free brewery TWØBAYS grows, it appears to be doing it in increments, offering up a scale of hop forward beers of slightly different ABVs and subtly different natures. Moving in at the lower end of the booze scale is Breakaway, the summer ale introduced in late 2019. If you wanted to distil this down to two words, "light" and "delicate" might do the trick. It pours a very light pale colour with a light haze. Delicate citrus and pineapple aromas… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Gluten Free Summer Ale
- ABV
- 4.0%
White Rabbit Jackalope
Tapped January 15th, 2020
The fearsome Jackalope, a rabbit with the horns of an antelope – not to be confused with a horse with the head of a rabbit and the body of a rabbit – are said to roam North America and would strike fear in the hearts of travellers who'd been on the road a little too long. Head to the White Rabbit barrel hall in Geelong and you’ll find a different Jackalope roaming, one with the base of a wheat beer and a top of whisky from months in Starward barrels. The beer was first brewed for GABS back… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Barrel-Aged Wheat Beer
- ABV
- 5.5%
White Rabbit Sour Red Grand Cru 2018
Tapped January 15th, 2020
Less than a year after moving the brewery from Healesville to Geelong, the brewers at White Rabbit released Sour Red. It was the kind of beer that might have shocked a few beer nerds who expected the Lion-owned brewery to focus on better known styles once the new operation was up and running. This site's founder was among them, giving the beer highly dubious honour of being The Crafty Pint’s lengthiest beer write up at the time (and likely still). A few years on and the brewery's remained committed… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Barrel-Aged Sour Red
- ABV
- 7.7%
Seasonal Brewing Co Farmhouse Ale & Hawaiian Holiday
Tapped January 15th, 2020
Seasonal’s New Year duo have, inadvertently, the summer break in mind – but for two very different locales. For the expression in their Farmhouse Ale, the broad "farmhouse" term is shorthand for a pale, straw-coloured beer that comes across almost cider-like thanks to light kettle souring. Typical saison esters are muted, while guava and citrus cleanly zip across the tongue. It’s quickly become a refreshing punter favourite, perhaps for those with a tree change farmstay getaway in… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Farmhouse Ale & NE Pale
- ABV
- 4.4% & 5.8%
- Stockists
-
Available at the Maylands brewpub until they're not.
Wheaty Brewing Corps Apricot's Hour & Blank Czech Pilsener
Tapped January 12th, 2020
To close out 2019 with a bang, the Wheaty Brewing Crew invited long-time friend and collaborator Ben Kraus from Bridge Road Brewers into their house to play with something fruity and sour one more. The fruit of choice this time around was Swan Reach Apricots, with South Australian Bridge Road sales rep Dave lending a hand to pit and slice 40kgs of fresh fruit for the fermenter. The fruit sour saison was then dry-hopped with Aussie HPA-016 and US Amarillo for added stone fruit characters, while the… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Apricot Sour & Czech Pilsener
- ABV
- 3.9% & 5.1%
- Stockists
Felons Brewing Co Champagne Sour & Crusade IPA
Tapped January 11th, 2020
The last couple of years have seen a surge of wine flavours make their way into beer, whether it be from wine barrels, beer-wine hybrid styles, wine yeasts, or vinous hops. Felons Brewing’s Champagne Sour uses the latter two, and captures the taste of a sparkling wine without ever touching any grapes or wine. While this is called Champagne Sour, the “sour” is more about the method and style than flavour description - this beer has been kettle soured, but is only meant to be sharp enough to… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Champagne Sour & Belgian IPA
- ABV
- 4.8% & 6.3%
Tooborac Brewery Dolci Colline Italian Pilsner
Tapped January 9th, 2020
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Saison Dupont, Pilsner Urquell. All beers that have inspired countless imitations and all names that are treated with reverence by beer drinkers. Birrificio Italiano’s Tipopils doesn’t quite share the same recognition, despite the beer being an archetype of its own style. First brewed in 1996, the beer is often considered the classic Italian pilsner, a clean beer dry-hopped for aroma that's inspired the likes of Firestone Walker’s widely popular Pivo Pils and many other… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Italian Pilsner
- ABV
- 4.5%
Ballistic Springfield Pilsner
Tapped January 5th, 2020
Ballistic Beer owner David Kitchen is determined for each Ballistic venue to be a “third place” – a venue where people feel a real sense of belonging. So, when Ballistic opened their Springfield brewpub, they didn’t just give the locals a watering hole to call their own – they gave them a beer to call their own. Springfield Pilsner is a no fuss beer, drinking crisp with a healthy bitterness throughout. The brewers put in a tonne of effort behind the scenes to make sure you don’t have… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Pilsner
- ABV
- 4.5%
- Bitterness
- 30 IBU
- Stockists
Blasta Brewing Cherry Bomb Blasta
Tapped January 5th, 2020
By this stage in the brewery’s young life, it should be apparent to regular Blasta drinkers that the owners, the Russells, like fruit. Even while sampling this new number, I had to double check the glass as a new batch of Rampant Raspberry sour had been placed next to it, making the pair virtually visually indistinguishable. For this outing, the inspiration was Kate Russell’s love of kriek, so Morello cherries were sourced from Hungary and Belgium, with the final 50 kilograms hand puréed in… Read more
Red
- Style
- Cherry Sour
- ABV
- 4.5%
- Stockists
-
Available from the brewery and Blasta stockists nationally
Queenscliff Brewhouse & Timboon Barrel-Aged Berliner Weisse
Tapped January 5th, 2020
Twelve months earlier, I paid a first visit to the Queenscliff Brewhouse. The brewery was up and running and, at that point, the offerings were playing things very safe: cream ale; steam ale; English style mid; Aussie lager. Things had changed a little by the time 2020 arrived, with brewer Mattias Isaksson playing around rather more. The luridly bright, raspberry-heavy Swede & Sour kicked things off, with a vibrant hazy IPA and this Barrel-Aged Berliner Weisse following soon after. The first… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Barrel-Aged Berliner Weisse
- ABV
- 7.0%
Bright Brewery Mystic IIPA & Barrel Series Barleywine 2019
Tapped December 31st, 2019
Bright Brewery end a big year of releases with two of the biggest of them all. Mystic IIPA explodes with aromas of Navel oranges, ripe tropical fruits and some boozy fumes that tickle your nostrils so you know the IPA in your glass is of the imperial variety. The fruity character is less explosive on the palate, where it's more herbal and spicy, lean and quite slick thanks to its oily bitterness, yet finishes dry. The Barrel Series Barleywine 2019 is a sign of things to come from Reid Stratton and… Read more
Golden
- Style
- IIPA & Whisky Barrel-Aged Barleywine
- ABV
- 9.0% & 13.9%
Bright Brewery Lime Sweetart
Tapped December 31st, 2019
Since Reid Stratton took over as head brewer at Bright earlier this year, the brewing team has wholeheartedly embraced fruit, regularly plundering the fruitbowl for limited release inspiration. The Lime Sweetart is the festive release in the brewery’s new sour ale series, and makes use of the zest of Tahitian limes plus whole Australian desert limes. It creates a beer dripping with citrus tang, where there’s a slight sharpness to the lime flavour before it’s followed by a minerality and tart… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Fruit Sour
- ABV
- 4.3%
Homestead Brewery Hazy Scorsese & Mantango
Tapped December 30th, 2019
The brewers at Homestead in the Swan Valley have embraced the haze with the summer release Hazy Scorsese, nailing the appearance in this cloudy orange IPA. Fresh tropical and citrus aromas lead the way, accompanied by a silky mouthfeel and a dry bitterness supported by a light, smooth malt profile and a slight edge at the finish from the 5.8 percent booze. Like Martin's movies, expect this to be a crowd pleaser on the Mandoon Estate lawns during the summer months. Joining Scorsese on tap is Mantango,… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Hazy IPA & Fruit Sour
- ABV
- 5.8% & 4.9%
Wheaty Brewing Corps Can Can Passionfruit Gose
Tapped December 27th, 2019
Every year, in anticipation of the heat of South Australia’s summer, the Wheaty Brewing Corps tweak their popular Black Lime Gose recipe, adding a different tropical fruit to the traditional gose base (including coriander seeds and Pink Murray salt). The Can Can saw them add bucketloads of passionfruit juice to the secondary ferment, where it joins The Menace – the evolving house mixed culture that brings together yeasts and bacteria from many of their collaborators' beers, with some bugs that… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Passionfruit Gose
- ABV
- 4.8%
Wheaty Brewing Corps & COMA Malto Allegro
Tapped December 27th, 2019
For the fourth year in a row, the Wheaty Brewing Corps teamed up with Creative Original Music Adelaide (or COMA) – regulars at the bar and frequently performers in the tin shed out back. There's been a steady style progression over the years, starting with a DIPA called COMAtoes, followed by a rice lager and a mango and lime sour. Now, having tried a hop bomb, a clean drinker and a fruited sour, they wanted something a little more malt driven. Enter Malto Allegro. It's another play on words that… Read more
Rich Brown
- Style
- Brown Ale
- ABV
- 4.7%
- Bitterness
- 25 IBU
Wheaty Brewing Corps & Zephyr Quartet Wit Noise
Tapped December 27th, 2019
To help celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Zephyr Quartet, the WBC crew did what they do best: collaborated on a beer with them – a beer with a pun in the name too, of course, with the award-winning string quartet's called Wit Noise. They started with a traditional witbier base of pilsner and flaked, unmalted grain, added some oats and Gladfield’s Sour Grapes to lower the pH ever so slightly, with coriander seeds, Maeval orange peel and lemon myrtle completing the picture. Taken together,… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Witbier
- ABV
- 5.0%
- Bitterness
- 13 IBU
Boatrocker Fat Santa 2019
Tapped December 24th, 2019
Boatrocker have released many barrel-aged imperial stouts over the years, some among the most sought-after in the country, with Fat Santa one of the more recent additions to the canon. It returns for its festive foray in 2019 with a slight change to the lineup of guest stars: the tonka, vanilla and coffee beans are all there once more but, this time, in place of local whisky barrels they opted for a first use Buffalo Trace bourbon barrel. And, boy, can you tell. The beer is distinct from its predecessors… Read more
Black
- Style
- Bourbon Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout
- ABV
- 10.9%
Moon Dog It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Beer
Tapped December 24th, 2019
There’s no doubt 2019 has been a pivotal year for Moon Dog, with the opening of Moon Dog World changing the game for what a brewery venue can be – not to mention the places suited for placing a lagoon. Once the actual brewhouse is firing away in the coming weeks, they'll also be able to aim for a capacity few other independent breweries can. But, to quote a Frenchman, the more some things change, the more they stay the same. Thus, here's the sort of Moon Dog the brewery's fans have long known… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Sticky Date Quad
- ABV
- 9.3%
Red Hill Brewery Christmas Haze
Tapped December 24th, 2019
Red Hill have been releasing their Christmas Ale forever, at least in contemporary craft beer terms. Based upon the sort of festive beers you might come across in Belgium, it's big, rich and fruity – a tasty drop but not necessarily that suited for an Australian Christmas, at least not if you're planning on having more than one. Enter Christmas Haze. It's another beer that looks to Belgium for inspiration, taking a pale and spicy witbier base, adding the sort of adjuncts typically added to such… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Spiced White IPA
- ABV
- 6.5%
