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!
Sunday Road Summer Samba '22
Published October 20, 2022
When Sunday Road brought out their first Summer Samba last year, I said it was the kind of beer that can sling you into party mode. This year’s Summer Samba is the beer you drink once you’re at the party, starting conversations with strangers. The appearance alone is more than enough to break the ice. It’s deeper in colour than last year’s watermelon pink; I’d call it neon coral, and it glows as brightly as a leotard worn in an early 90s exercise video. Who could look at that velvet-scrunchie-hue… Read more
Red
- Style
- Berry Sour
- ABV
- 5.0%
- Bitterness
- 60 IBU
Bridge Road New Sky IPA Vol. 2: Spectrum Super Cold
Published October 19, 2022
What is a Triple Dry-Hopped Super-Saturated Cold IPA? It’s a fair question to find on the side of a beer can and you can’t blame someone for not knowing the answer. The solution to that riddle is the second instalment in Bridge Road’s New Sky IPA series, with Vol. 2: Spectrum Super Cold. The IPA makes full use of Hop Product Australia’s Spectrum -a hop liquid specifically designed for dry hopping. Here it features in the shape of Eclipse, Citra and Mosaic, while further doses of Citra, Mosaic,… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Cold IPA
- ABV
- 6.9%
Modus Beer Pacific Dream
Published October 19, 2022
If you’re a regular Modus-head, chances are you’re already well acquainted with Pacific Dream. The longstanding tap beer has built a cult following with those fans making it clear that it’s the kind of beer they don’t ever want to see not on tap. In time for summer 22/23, Pacific Dream’s made its escape from being taproom-only and got itself into 375ml cans, with Modus hoping the hazy wave will delight further afield. On cracking the beer, it’s not hard to see what Modus fans have been… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Hazy Pale
- ABV
- 5.0%
2 Halfs Oldrich, Keller Hell, Weisenbier & Festbier
Published October 18, 2022
As a weird old lager-loving freak, the September-October period is basically my Christmas. Oktoberfest celebrations have been increasing in number over the last few years but, in 2022, I’m certain there has never been another time in history when so many different freshly brewed lagers are freely available to all and sundry. More breweries than ever now count lagers among their regular offerings – and one just took at top gong at the Indies – but during the Oktoberfest period this turns into… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- European Lager Variants
- ABV
- 4.8% & 5.1% & 5.9% & 6.1%
- Stockists
-
2 Halfs have just opened their online store
Order all these beers here
Bright Brewery (& Pocketbeagles) The Spicy Beagle & Halloween Ale
Published October 18, 2022
We’re in close proximity to the spookiest time of the year and I’m not just talking about Halloween. On October 15, the designer behind Pocketbeagles, Clint Weaver, celebrated his booze (and non-booze) clients at CoConspirator’s home in Brunswick with a Pocket Party. OK, so maybe it wasn’t so frightful† and more delicious, with canned cocktails served, delicious snacks enjoyed and four different beers made just for the event. Among them was The Spicy Beagle, a mango, lime and chilli sour… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Mango, Lime & Chilli Sour & Pumpkin Ale
- ABV
- 4.5% & 6.0%
KAIJU! & Dr Colossus The Dank Shelbyville IPA
Published October 17, 2022
A week or two before receiving this collab with Dr Colossus – brewed to mark the fifth anniversary of The Simpsons stoner rockers' album, The Dank – I'd sampled another IPA from KAIJU! Immortal Jellyfish was a hazy which felt "like something of a counterpoint to the sort of IPAs upon which they built their reputation; sweeter rather than dry and bitter". Who'd have thought the return to type would come so soon? With The Dank – tagged a Shelbyville IPA and wrapped in the album's moody… Read more
Golden
- Style
- West Coast IPA
- ABV
- 7.0%
Revel Brewing Cashmere, Cryo Daze & Muscat Red IPA
Published October 17, 2022
It’s been just over a year since Revel Brewing opened their second venue at Rivermakers, and with their limited releases coming out at a rate of knots they’ve been making very good use of all their extra brewing capacity. Case in point: no less than three IPA variants released in the first half of spring. Cashmere is a double dry-hopped single hop IPA that doubles down on, you guessed it, Cashmere hops from the US. There's a solid bitterness alongside notes of coconut and citrus that punch through… Read more
Red
- Style
- Single Hop DDH IPA, Hazy IPA & Red IPA w/ Muscat
- ABV
- 6.9% & 6.5% & 6.5%
Wolf of the Willows Inner Vision Strata & Double Vision Microdosed
Published October 15, 2022
You can't accuse anyone involved in hops of standing still. Whether it's breeders developing new varieties, growers planting ever more acreage, manufacturers finding new ways to deliver the best bits of the little green cones to brewers, or brewers using them in new and different manners, it's a fast-moving world. And here, via their Inner / Double Vision series, Wolf of the Willows get to play around too. With Inner Vision Strata, the new comes in the form of using nothing but relatively new, and… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Single Hop Hazy IPA & Microdosed Hazy DIPA
- ABV
- 6.0% & 8.0%
- Stockists
-
Melburnians can join the team for a launch party and masterclass on October 21
Nowhereman 123 Days Later & Birra Negroni
Published October 14, 2022
Extended cold conditioning, or lagering, provides pilsners with an opportunity to settle, develop nuance and, ultimately, elegance. While the Czech archetype typically spends around 40 days cold chillin’, Nowhereman have tripled that, in what another brewer noted as very pleasing "lagering arms race" going on in WA. And why not put some zombies on the can for a little cinematic contagion? Originally brewed back in July, 123 Days Later there’s inviting clarity, and a bready nose flecked… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Pilsner & Negroni Beer
- ABV
- 5.4% & 5.8%
Matso's Nightlife Strong Ginger Beers
Published October 14, 2022
Australia first alcoholic ginger beer gets a tune-up ahead of summer 2022/23 as the Matso's flagship welcomes some of Broome’s after dark humid energy. Tropical Strength nearly doubles the mid-strength OG’s ABV, and in the process the ginger bite feels more harmonised with a fuller body to work with, before a lengthy dry conclusion awaits another sip. Meanwhile, its Nightlife sibling muddles the glass for a riff on Bermuda’s unofficial national drink, the Dark and Stormy. As with the former,… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Strong Ginger Beers
- ABV
- 6.0%
- Stockists
-
Available nationally from October 20 via Matso's stockists
One Drop Double Take Boysenberry
Published October 14, 2022
As soon as I cracked a can of this iteration of One Drop's Double Take series, it occurred to me that I have no idea what a Boysenberry is. So, like a bad Jerry Seinfeld impersonator with a keen interest in pomology, I said: “I wonder what the deal with boysenberries is?” They’re pretty cool as it turns out. Boysenberries are a cross between four different species of the Rubus genus: European raspberry and blackberry, and the American dewberry and loganberry (which itself is a hybrid of a raspberry… Read more
Red
- Style
- Imperial Boysenberry Sour
- ABV
- 10.1%
Beerland Brewing The Walking Red, 1872 & Thick As A Brick
Published October 13, 2022
Who fancies finding out what resurrection tastes like? The Beerland brewers wanted to create a Flanders-inspired red using a different strain of kettle souring bacteria that's heterofermentative – read more about its first use in an Aussie beer here. It produces small amounts of acetic acid along with the more common lactic acid for added complexity. Resurrect a barrel-blended beer from a few years ago that didn't see the light of day, throw in 100 grams per litre of cherry purée and you have… Read more
Red
- Style
- Flanders Red, Hefeweizen & Nitro ESB
- ABV
- 5.6% & 5.2% & 5.4%
- Stockists
-
Available now for a limited time from Beerland venues, draught and takeaway CANimals
And at select WA venues and growler stations
More stockists...
One Drop Broader Than Broadway, Southern Hospitality & Splice Up Your Life
Published October 12, 2022
Three more One Drop specials for you: two different IPA variants heavily leaning on their Clean Fusion technique with wildly different hop combos; and, of course, a healthy dose of fruit and lactose for good measure just to finish it all off. Shall we? Broader Than Broadway hits the deck first in all its West Coast glory. The first thing I’ll say is this is the kind of WCIPA that can remind you why it was the only style you wanted to drink for a few years there. Broadway is hitting all the right… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Various Styles As Indicated
- ABV
- 6.5% & 8.0% & 7.0%
New England Brewing Co Cowboy Cornfield & Butting Hops
Published October 12, 2022
It’s easy to drink this American lager without thinking about it at all. After all, that’s kind of what it’s designed for: it’s fermented cold and super clean-drinking. But Cowboy Cornfield isn't without expression. There’s a surprisingly smooth body and a gentle sweetness like the rolling hills of Iowa. Thirty percent flaked corn and a Mexican yeast strain give this beer an authentic salt-of-the-earth American flavour. The art on the label by artist Marc Etherington really hits this home,… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- American Lager & Hazy IPA
- ABV
- 4.4% & 6.8%
- Bitterness
- 12 & 45 IBU
KAIJU! Mutation Program #0009: Immortal Jellyfish
Published October 12, 2022
A nigh-on 8 percent ABV IPA crammed with hops? Sounds pretty much exactly like the beer you'd expect to pick up from KAIJU!, no? You might think so, yet the ninth release in their Mutation Program feels like something of a counterpoint to the sort of IPAs upon which they built their reputation: for one, it's sweeter rather than dry and bitter. Sure, this is a hazy IPA that, appearance-wise, is at the gentler end of the spectrum but it's also one that presents rather fuller in terms of body and experience.… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Hazy IPA
- ABV
- 7.7%
Lost Palms Salted Pretzel Chocolate Bock
Published October 12, 2022
Usually when a craft brewery makes a German lager – let’s say, completely hypothetically, something like a bock – it’s because they want to take a step back from novelty and innovation and adjuncts for a minute. Not often do they pick a traditional style – again, for the sake of this completely hypothetical scenario, we’ll stick with a bock – and then throw in extra ingredients, like, say, salted pretzels and chocolate. Hypothetically. If a brewery were to do this as an Oktoberfest… Read more
Dark Brown
- Style
- Chocolate Bock
- ABV
- 6.6%
Bowden Brewing Snean Weather, Shadow Puppets & Fruit Frenzy
Published October 11, 2022
Bowden Brewing sure have been on a tear when it comes to limited releases in 2022, so let's get up to speed with a trio of recent offerings. It's a collective that shows the breadth of the brewers' scope too, featuring a nostalgic fruit box style tropical sour, a lawnmower-friendly session hazy and a schwarzbier dropped for Oktoberfest. Starting with the lawnmower beer, Snean Weather is a light hazy pale packing the fuller flavours of a higher ABV beer. Designed as a mowing companion this spring,… Read more
Dark Brown
- Style
- Hazy Pale, Schwarzbier & Juicy Sour
- ABV
- 4.4% & 5.5% & 4.7%
Helios Brewing Dionysus NEIIPA
Published October 11, 2022
"My last hurrah." This year’s release of Dionysus is bittersweet; it’s Charlie Hodgson’s swan song as head brewer at Helios. Five years has gone by all too quickly, and Charlie’s spreading his wings and migrating south to take up another brewing post. But if his departure is bittersweet, so is his departing gift: another evolution of this NEIIPA. It’s a bit of an outlier for the style, almost straddling West Coast and East Coast. It’s not bright, but nor is it very hazy. It’s… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Double NEIPA
- ABV
- 7.5%
- Bitterness
- 28 IBU
Stone & Wood Counter Culture: After The Harvest
Published October 11, 2022
For the most part, Stone & Wood's Counter Culture series has focused on creating beers at the cutting edge of the contemporary craft beer scene, or at least nudging the envelope with tongue, if not always planted, then at least hovering close to cheek. There's been something of a switch with the last couple, however. They closed summer 2022 with a celebration of Tasmanian hops in a dank and in no little way bitter IPA; now they follow up with a beer celebrating harvest of another kind (or belatedly… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Imperial Yuzu Witbier
- ABV
- 7.0%
- Stockists
-
Find your nearest After The Harvest stockist here
Bright Brewery Vienna Lager & Lemon Myrtle & Wattleseed Imperial Pastry Sour
Published October 10, 2022
Well, this feels like a fitting snapshot of craft beer in October 2022. Bright Brewery’s Vienna Lager has been released in time for that big German festival everyone's celebrating in one way or another. It spent eight weeks lagering away, pours clear copper and provides a soft sweetness, touches of biscuit, a bitter and clean finish and layers of floral notes thanks to Magnum and Perle hops. In other words, it's a classic lager brewed true to tradition. Then, some way from European brewing tradition… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Vienna Lager & Imperial Pastry Sour
- ABV
- 5.0% & 7.7%
