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!
Wheaty Brewing Corps & Bridge Road Footloose
Tapped March 29th, 2019
After playing around with Wildflower's mixed culture when creating Mildflower, WBC head brewer Jade Flavell wanted to take things up a level with her next table beer. So, when Ben Kraus from Bridge Road called in for another collaboration, he brought the Brett C culture from his Mayday Hills range to be combined with blackberries and raspberries, Jade's French saison strain and Topher’s Wildflower bag of tricks. The result is a 4.5 percent table beer that oozes berries, one in which a pinkish… Read more
Red
- Style
- Berry Table Beer
- ABV
- 4.5%
- Stockists
Wheaty Brewing Corps & Fixation Funky Menace
Tapped March 29th, 2019
So, who is the Funky Menace? Many, many things it turns out – most of them microscopic. On the surface, the beer is an India saison brewed by the Wheaty Brewing Corps and Fixation, one that combines the former's fondness for funkier styles with the latter's obsession with all things hops. But scratch the surface and you'll find quite the tale. The mixed culture with which the beer was brewed is one that has many parts, a combination of the Wheaty Brewing Corps' French saison-based house culture,… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- India Saison
- ABV
- 6.0%
- Bitterness
- 30 IBU
- Stockists
Smiling Samoyed Taste The Sparkle
Tapped March 29th, 2019
The Myponga Samoyed lovers have added another beer to their limited release lineup, with Taste the Sparkle a 6.3 percent ABV Australian sparkling ale. The malt grist utilises single origin Kangaroo Island malt from Coopers and some Medium Crystal from Gladfield in New Zealand. As for the hops, they opted for a high alpha acid selection in the shape of Mosaic, Galaxy and Cascade. Taste The Sparkle pours a vibrant straw colour with a bright white, tight knit head. Sweet malt aromas create the first… Read more
Rich Brown
- Style
- Sparkling Ale
- ABV
- 6.3%
Felons Brewing Co Hazy IPA
Tapped March 28th, 2019
Brisbane’s Felons might have a core range led by beers designed to be recognisable and approachable for the many who walk through its doors. But, while it's early days, if the brewery’s limited releases are anything to go by, we can look forward to offerings of a more unusual, beer nerd-friendly nature in the future. First up was a blueberry gose and, for Brewsvegas, the brewers on the Howard Smith Wharves created a hazy IPA. It's only a slight haze, at least compared to many of its turbid brethren,… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Hazy IPA
- ABV
- 6.8%
Ballistic Beer Co & Hop Nation Madden's Curse
Tapped March 28th, 2019
Madden NFL is an American football video game that’s stuck around for more than 30 years and, since the 90s, it’s believed to have been the source of one of sport’s great curses. Before 1998, the covers of each release always featured a photo of legendary NFL coach and commentator John Madden. After that date, different players featured and, supposedly, it’s around that time the Madden Curse began. While it could be considered a great honour to appear on a video game cover - and the players… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Mango Milkshake IPA
- ABV
- 5.0%
- Bitterness
- 19 IBU
The Mill Brewery Grapefruit Paradisi
Tapped March 28th, 2019
Collingwood brewpub The Mill is turning two with a party featuring the tapping of two new beers. And they couldn't be much further apart on the beer spectrum, with one a grapefruit XPA and the other a whisky barrel-aged strong ale with habaneros. Grapefruit Paradisi is, obviously, the former, a hazy pale yellow beer featuring both grapefruit and orange zest plus a late addition of grapefruit juice. And, thanks to the pithy character of citrus zest and, according to brewer Mirek, the juice itself,… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Citrus XPA
- ABV
- 5.2%
- Stockists
-
Hitting taps on March 30 for the 2nd birthday
The Mill Brewery Chilli Willie
Tapped March 28th, 2019
One of two beers brewed for The Mill's second birthday and one that's been underway since the first, this is a strong ale that spent a few months ageing in keg before spending a further six months in Lark Distillery whisky barrels – the last two of those months with ten habanero chillies for company. The rich malt character of the base beer – originally as a US-inspired strong ale, but with time having softened the impact of the hops and boosted its sweet toffee and biscuit side – provides… Read more
Rich Brown
- Style
- Whisky Barrel-Aged Chilli Strong Ale
- ABV
- 8.0%
- Stockists
-
Launched on March 30 at The Mill's 2nd birthday
Little Bang Brewing Exoplanet
Tapped March 28th, 2019
Ryan Davidson and Fil Kemp have out-nerded themselves with their latest New World pilsner, Exoplanet. Paying homage to three of their favourite newly discovered planets, 55 Cancri e, HD 189733b and Kepler 10-b, they've created a trio of different decals outlining the features of each planet; one is a mildly sweat-inducing 2000 degrees Celsius, experiences gravity 2.1 times that of Earth and is made of diamond, for example. So how does a brewer translate such things into beer form? Through the use… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- New World Pilsner
- ABV
- 5.0%
- Bitterness
- 48 IBU
La Sirène Wild Wit
Tapped March 27th, 2019
The team at La Sirène has been building its barrel collection for so many years and filling them with so many different liquids now that deciding which beer to release next must be similar to being a kid in a toy store with permission from their parents to choose absolutely anything, but just the one thing. For autumn 2019, the urban farmhouse kids opted to empty ex-Chardonnay barrels from Burgundy that had played host to a white ale since way back in 2015. The idea was for the white ale to act… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Chardonnay Barrel-Aged White Ale
- ABV
- 4.8%
Red Duck Vincent Van Gose & Sunday Saison & Cherry Tart
Tapped March 27th, 2019
Their Kilderkin spirits business might be keeping them busy, but you can't keep the brewing urges at Red Duck under wraps for long. Thus, there's three new beers doing the rounds, all of them paying homage in one way of the other to the Old World, though well placed to be consumed in the current Australian beer climate. The Vincent Van Gose, brewed with pink salt flakes and Davidson plum, a native Australian subtropical fruit. Considering the style’s origins lie in Germany’s north, there’s… Read more
Red
- Style
- Gose & Saison & Cherry Sour
- ABV
- 4.3% & 4.4% & 4.2%
Hobart Brewing Co Brett Saison & Strawberry Fields Forever
Tapped March 27th, 2019
They love to play around with the saison style at Hobart Brewing Co and the start of 2019 has seen them release a couple in quick succession – both aged in wine barrels inoculated with Brettanomyces. The Brett Saison, which comes in 750ml bottles, is a beer seemingly after my heart delivering, as one member of the Crafty team put it: "subtle complexity". That it does, balancing a little Bretty pong with a relatively luscious bready malt sweetness, a touch of spice and a mouthwatering… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Barrel-Aged Brett Saisons
- ABV
- 5.7% & 4.7%
Sailors Grave Fields vol.1
Tapped March 26th, 2019
If there's one thing you can say with certainty about Sailors Grave, it's that they don't release enough new beers every year. Who are we kidding? I suspect Gab and Chris have an underground army of Doozers working away day and night on beers to keep the Moore family happy and thus less likely to devour the underground home the workers have so lovingly built while tending to the various yeast and lacto strains and overseeing the multiple ferments underway in their East Gippsland caves. At least,… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Hoppy Farmhouse Ale
- ABV
- 5.4%
Sailors Grave Blood Moon Altocumulus & Crystal Healing
Tapped March 26th, 2019
Picture the scene: you're sat in the Stone Circle at Glastonbury, awaiting sunrise over the valley below, when the friendly hippy you've been chatting to offers you a swig of their drink. Six hours later, you're in the Green Fields with beads in your hair, chanting, and handing out free massages to passers-by. And you're not totally sure how you got there. If such an occasion needed beers to go with it, Sailors Grave should be able to step up to the oche: Into The Pines, Tangerine Dream, Dead Will… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Berliner Weisse & Gose
- ABV
- 4.6% & 4.7%
Little Bang Brewing Mango sNEIPA
Tapped March 26th, 2019
Little Bang Brewing sent their first sNEIPA into the world as part of the 2018 Carwyn Cellars’ Canvent calendar and many were surprised it was the first time the largely traditionalist brewery attempted such an historic style. Wait, that doesn’t sound right … hold on, what even is a sNEIPA? Put simply, it’s the intersection where two increasingly popular craft beer styles meet: take a kettle soured beer and introduce it to a New England IPA. And there you'll find a sNEIPA. For the brewery’s… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Sour Mango NEIPA
- ABV
- 5.1%
- Bitterness
- 22 IBU
Tallboy & Moose Fruit Basket & Negative Light
Tapped March 26th, 2019
This duo from Tallboy & Moose is arguably unable to do a better job of showcasing the diversity of just what head brewer Dan Hall is producing at the Preston brewpub (although, admittedly, something sour would complete the picture). The first, Fruit Basket IPA, which in the brewery’s words is a “new school IPA for the good people”, pours with a slight haze and comes heavily hopped with Australian Galaxy and Kiwi Motueka and Kohatu hops. As such, expect a fruit driven beer that hits you… Read more
Rich Brown
- Style
- IPA & Barrel-Aged Stout
- ABV
- 6.2% & 9.9%
Black Hops Mid Range
Tapped March 26th, 2019
The hoppy pale ale has become the staple of many breweries, and for good reason: done well, it’s a cracking style. Black Hops’ Pale Ale is one particular beauty, coming in at 4.8 percent ABV with a wallop of hops. But it still leaves room for a lighter option for those times you're looking to knock back a few and need to keep your wits about you. Enter Mid Range. It’s Black Hops’ mid-strength pale ale, a beer that shares some of the hop bill (and thus the flavours) with their Pale, but comes… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Mid-Strength
- ABV
- 3.5%
- Bitterness
- 35 IBU
Sauce Brewing Follow Your Passion
Tapped March 26th, 2019
Want to know how to get a brewery to brew, package, and sell your beer? Step 1: Enter your beer into a homebrew competition. Last year, Chris Doble took out the judge’s prize at Sydney Beer Week’s Homebrew Hoedown with a passionfruit Berliner Weisse. Step 2: Get a job at a brewery. Chris went on to work the canning line at Sauce Brewing. His beer had caught the attention of the Sauce Brewing team, so it was only a matter of time before they suggested he brew a batch of it for the whole country… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Passionfruit Berliner Weisse
- ABV
- 3.8%
Two Birds Brewing Piña Dorada Hazy Pale
Tapped March 25th, 2019
A few years back, Two Birds set free Piña Colada IPA into the world, an IPA that bridged the world of beer and cocktails by matching some of fruitiest, tropical flavoured hops with pineapple and coconut. Here, with Piña Dorada, the Two Birds brewers appear intent to create that beer, albeit in a slightly more restrained form. For one, it’s one labelled as a juicy pale rather than an IPA. And, rather than heavy fruit additions, the beer relies on a combination of El Dorado, Galaxy, Ekuanot and… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Hazy Pale Ale
- ABV
- 5.5%
Hop Nation Farm To Ferment Fresh Hop IPA
Tapped March 25th, 2019
Making an IPA is nothing new for Hop Nation. Their first beer was The Fiend, an Australian hopped IPA. Then the brewery came to be loved for its hazy and New England-style IPAs like the Chop and Jedi Juice. So it could be easy for the team to put out a stock standard fresh hop IPA, with 100 percent Galaxy hops, and we’d all be in to it. On first appearances the 2019 fresh hop IPA seems pretty down-the-line. Clean malt bill (no haze to speak of), clear in the glass with fresh grass, peppery spice… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Fresh Hop West Coast IPA
- ABV
- 6.5%
- Stockists
-
Grape and Grain Liquor Cellars
More stockists...Hop Nation Brewery
The Goods Shed
And select good beer venues in Victoria
Nowhereman Citrus Nights IPL
Tapped March 25th, 2019
Citrus Nights is a liquid love letter to the last of the warm summer evenings, an autumn release that looks longingly back at the time spent at the beach and outdoors in a warm defiance of the reality that cooler months are coming. For Nowhereman, they've looked to capture that fading radiance via this grapefruit-infused India Pale Lager. The bright sunshine glow from the glass may well be a result of the eight weeks the beer spent lagering in tank during the peak of summer, while the time taken… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Citrus India Pale Lager
- ABV
- 6.4%
- Stockists
-
Nowhereman Brewery
Bark Subiaco, Subiaco
Inglewood Hotel, Inglewood
La Capannina, Scarborough
Northbridge Brewing Co, Northbridge
Petition Beer Corner, Perth CBD
The Balmoral, Victoria Park
More stockists...More to be announced via social media
