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!

Bendigo Beer

Black Hops Flash Bang White IPA

Tapped September 11, 2020
It's funny how the Cosmos works. There we were, proofing the Aussie firsts timelines for one of the Ten Years Of Crafty features (which needs updating, natch) and wondering whether white IPAs really needed to be in there and, hey presto, Bonnie from Black Hops shoots an email to say samples of a new run of their Flash Bang white IPA are in the post... If you've never come across one, don't worry, there haven't been many. Ostensibly a Belgian witbier but boozier lumped together with a hefty wad of… Read more
Style
White IPA
ABV
6.8%

King Road Brewing Co Strata IPA & Vanilla Porter

Tapped September 11, 2020
King Road’s first new releases since claiming Best New Exhibitor at the 2020 Perth Royal Beer Awards share appeal in common, yet their desirability will likely be split into two camps. The first is for the pointier end of beer, those always searching for something new or at least with a bold hop profile, which is where Strata IPA comes in. And boy does it! Using predominantly Strata, with a little Mosaic and Citra, head brewer Steve Wearing has delivered a punchy, modern IPA featuring a diorama… Read more
Style
IPA & Vanilla Porter
ABV
6.0% & 5.6%
Stockists

Available from the brewery

Dainton Brewing Fruity Freeze Tropical NEIPA

Tapped September 10, 2020
Given the success of the Blood Orange New England Rye IPA (or BONER for short), it’s perhaps little surprise the brewers at Dainton keeping playing in the NEIPA arena. Here, they plunder Frosty Fruits for inspiration, albeit changing the name enough and avoiding any aping of the ice lolly’s packaging to stay away from prying eyes. The tropical IPA is opaque as you like, as if someone has melted ice cream into the fermenter, and serves up lovely fruit juice aromas, a brekkie juice prickle and… Read more
Style
NEIPA
ABV
6.2%

Venom Brewing DDH Golden Ale

Tapped September 10, 2020
The great golden survivor lives on! As part of our Ten Years Of Crafty series we looked at the changing tastes over the years we've been covering the Aussie beer industry, with golden ales a style that rose to prominence only to be superseded in most breweries' lineups. Venom's has stuck around and it's not hard to see why: if part of the reason many died out is that they're not fruity and hoppy enough, it's not an accusation that can be directed at this beer. And now, having formerly appeared in… Read more
Style
DDH Golden Ale
ABV
4.8%

Bright Tank Little Red Smeg Head IPA

Tapped September 10, 2020
I’ll get this out of the way early. When handed a canned session version of a Bright Tank fave, all that echoed in my brain for the next few hours was interpolated theme music to Prince’s Little Red Corvette… … ‘Lil Red Smeg Head … Annnnd, you’re welcome. Beyond tenuous 80s innuendo-laden pop references, layered on top of cult 90s English TV show references, there is an actual beer at hand, one with easy-drinking in mind. Light caramel malt and citrus notes feature as lilting bitterness… Read more
Style
Session Red IPA
ABV
3.8%
Stockists

From the brewery and WA stockists in limited release

Akasha Canada Bay XPA

Tapped September 10, 2020
Now here’s a beer that’s been many months in the making. When I hung out at Akasha for the brewing of the Resilience XPA in February 2020, Dave mentioned they had been working on their very own XPA but they really wanted to make sure any Akasha XPA was sufficiently Akasha-fied. And with the release of the Canada Bay XPA, an evolution of the Canada Bay Ale they first released in 2019, I can confirm their mission has been successful. Canada Bay XPA pours glisteningly bright and pale with aromas… Read more
Style
XPA
ABV
4.2%

Akasha Little Smith IPA

Tapped September 10, 2020
Little Smith IPA was first released at the end of 2018 and has obviously found favour enough to warrant inclusion in Akasha's core range. And, as much as pedantic weirdos like to sneer: “Oh but isn’t a session IPA just a pale ale?” language is for communicating information and a "little IPA" conveys exactly what you need to know about Little Smith. The lil’ boy pours pale and crisp with a fluffy white head. There’s an immediate hit of lemon peel and grapefruit on the nose which… Read more
Style
Session IPA
ABV
3.5%

Modus Operandi Hazy Series 06: Apricot & Coconut Milkshake

Tapped September 9, 2020
The Modus team describe this one as “Nanna's homemade Apricot Coconut Bites”, but I must admit I never had such a treat homemade. I did, however, have apricot coconut balls from the school tuckshop – at five for 5c, they were a regular treat whenever I found a battered coin on the ground. (I swear my childhood wasn’t as Dickensian as it sounds.) Modus have doubled down on all the characteristics they were aiming for here: apricot plus stonefruit aplenty from the Sabro and HPA-016 hops give… Read more
Style
Apricot & Coconut Milkshake IPA
ABV
7.0%

Two Birds Brewing Lemon Meringue PIEPA

Tapped September 9, 2020
If you encountered this beer without knowing what it's supposed to be – admittedly, a challenge given the revelatory nature of its name and the whopping great slice of pie on the can – you'd need a pretty duff palate combined with an impoverished childhood and / or long list of allergies not to hazard a guess. Distinct lemon curd vibes that only get lemon curdier as you go? Check. A creamy, borderline custard like presence in the mouth. Yup. While you might not opt for "slice of lemon meringue… Read more
Style
Nitro Lemon Oat Cream IPA
ABV
6.3%
Bitterness
30 IBU
Stockists

Pick up a slice of PIEPA here

Sauce Brewing Mango Squeak NEIPA

Tapped September 9, 2020
At Sauce, they don’t try to hide the fact they love hazies and they love mango. They don’t try to hide it one little bit. The newest mango hazy IPA to come through the pipes is Mango Squeak. The process was simple enough: take their beloved Bubble & Squeak NEIPA; add a drum full of mango puree; throw in some Citra and Sabro hops for good measure. Because apparently, Bubbly & Squeak plus mango just isn’t tropical enough. The juiciness overtakes the haziness, flooding your nose upfront… Read more
Style
Mango NEIPA
ABV
6.5%

Stomping Ground & The Gospel Into The 'Woods Rye Whiskey Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout

Tapped September 8, 2020
Sure, spring might be here but Melbourne’s next cold snap could reach us at any time and, when it does, Stomping Ground are ready with the latest Into The ‘Wood release. The brewery's barrel-aged series is dedicated to the wild, the sour, and in the case of Rye Whisky Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout, the big. Aged in rye whiskey barrels from Brunswick's The Gospel Distillers, like the brewery’s bourbon barrel-aged release last year, the imperial stout hasn’t picked up too much in the way of boozy… Read more
Style
Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout
ABV
10.5%

Hop Nation Blobfish Saison 2019 & Mixed Packs

Tapped September 8, 2020
I have a confession to make. Over the years, here at The Crafty Pint we've done our best to make sure we sample the new releases we write about before we post about them. It's a task that's become easier as more beers have been packaged, even if the timeliness of our posts still depends on both brewery and the postal / courier service. In the case of the Blobfish Saison, timing was spot on: a bottle of the beer arrived at Crafty Towers the day before release to the public and, yet, it remains unopened… Read more
Style
Barrel-Aged Mixed Culture Saison
ABV
6.5%
Stockists

On sale from midday AEST Sept 8 from Hop Nation

KAIJU! Betelgeuse & Where Strides The Behemoth 2020

Tapped September 7, 2020
If a Melbourne-based brewery wanted to pick a time to launch two of their biggest beers side by side, the weekend on which the city was told to brace itself for another 50 days of curfew and stringent lockdown is about as timely as you could wish for. So thanks, KAIJU!, for providing your fellow city-dwellers with this one-two punch. Neither is a new release, but neither is seen in the wild much either; indeed, in the case of Betelgeuse – the imperial version of their Hopped Out Red – this is… Read more
Style
Imperial Red Ale & Imperial Black IPA
ABV
10.0% & 10.5%
Bitterness
90 IBU & 125 IBU

Cheeky Monkey Three Bears DDH Oat Cream IPA

Tapped September 7, 2020
The Cheeky Monkey brewers are clearly not afraid of the haze, wholeheartedly embracing the craze with both arms in their surf break inspired series of IPAs, which now hits the turbos for turbid offering number six. Three Bears is named after a trio of Surf Breaks in Yallingup, a little bit secret and elusive but a favourite among locals. Cheeky Monkey, also a favourite among locals, have thrown down a double dry-hopped oat cream IPA in its honour for those who like their beers thick, and particularly… Read more
Style
DDH Oat Cream IPA
ABV
8.7%
Bitterness
65 IBU

Black Brewing Citrus Wheat & Bananana Split

Tapped September 6, 2020
Black Brewing hit the ground running on day one of spring 2020, dropping not one but two fresh beers from their Caves Road brewhouse, ready to embrace warmer weather sipping. The two beers – a Bavarian citrus wheat and a banana split dunkelweizen – have some commonalities, both German in inspiration and with fruity dispositions. The similarities end there, however, with each offering up uniquely different drinking experiences. The Citrus Wheat is light in character and loaded with the zest of… Read more
Style
Citrus Wheat Ale & Dunkelweizen
ABV
Both 5.0%
Bitterness
Both 12 IBU

Bad Shepherd The Almighty IIPA 2020

Tapped September 5, 2020
They might have had to give Almighty Day a miss at the brewpub this year but Bad Shepherd's imperial IPA is back for another springtime run. The fifth iteration of the beer weighs in a little lighter on the booze front than some of its forebears, but the brewers have still looked to cram in enough hops to register 100 International Bitterness Units. That said, it doesn't present with the palate-shredding impact like the 100 IBU double IPAs that would land on these shares from the US a decade or so… Read more
Style
Imperial IPA
ABV
8.5%
Bitterness
100 IBU

Moon Dog Lagoona Matata

Tapped September 4, 2020
Despite being confined to Crafty Towers for weeks on end now, I've still heard a couple of people praise the name of Moon Dog's latest core range beer as a real gem. Clearly, they're not people with a child who spent three months from the first lockdown going to sleep with the Lion King soundtrack playing... Even the Moon Dog staffer that dropped in samples of the session sour said the Disney hookworm had been lodged in his head for weeks after shooting promo material for its release. There's precious… Read more
Style
Hoppy Sour
ABV
4.2%

St Andrews Beach Brewery Barrier Trial No.2: The Duke

Tapped September 4, 2020
Now, I'll confess I'm not much of an expert when it comes to the nags. I do recall always asking Dad to put a couple of quid on Corbiere in the Grand National back in the 80s (but only after it had won its single trophy), went to a meet at Clonmel while on holiday in the south of Ireland once at which my clearest memory is having a bird crap on me, and had a great day at Flemington with Mum last time she was over on which we managed to come out ahead. But I'm not sure that even counts as a passing… Read more
Style
Stout
ABV
5.8%

Fury & Son Funk The Pain Away

Tapped September 4, 2020
Last time we spoke to Andrew Georgiou, the son in Fury & Son, he was putting forward a stack of cartons of beer as prizes for Beer Swag Day as part of the #keepinglocalalive campaign. What he didn't mention at the time was they had also got a few beers taking shape in barrels, with Funk The Pain Away the first of a quartet over the coming months. Like the track upon which it riffs, this is a barrel-aged sour that comes at you with the force of Peaches as she growing into a set. There's no need… Read more
Style
Barrel-Aged Farmhouse Ale with Peaches
ABV
6.6%

Fury & Son Stout 2020 & Salted Caramel Stout

Tapped September 4, 2020
The Fury & Son brewers kept themselves busy during lockdown playing around with variations on a theme. They've been working on four barrel-aged beers and also took their stout, boosted it from the previous years' 5.5 percent ABV to 6.5 and decided to give it three twists (of which we missed the first two but have the third below). As for the new, bigger Stout, you'll find a soft, dusty cacao meets nougat aroma, with flavours that are more of that dusty chocolate and Milo variety than anything… Read more
Style
Stout & Salted Caramel Stout
ABV
Both 6.5%

The Crafty Pint is an independent online magazine and resource for anyone interested in craft beer in Australia. We bring an honest, old-fashioned journalistic approach to beer's brave new world, telling stories because they're worth telling not because someone is paying us to write them.

Like many of the people who have changed the face of beer in Australia, we believe in authenticity, integrity, enjoyment and love. We hope to play a role in helping good beer, brewed by good people, find its way into the hands of more drinkers.

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