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!

Hopco

Van Dieman Medlar

Tapped August 13th, 2019
One of the many marvellous things about wild ales is the element of the unknown, the unpredictable, they can possess. Sure, for brewers it might mean a lot of liquid disappearing down the drain after months or years of patience, while for drinkers they may encounter an experience that's not always for them. But it can also lead to moments like my first meeting with Van Dieman's Medlar, the latest wild ale to leave the Tasmanian farm brewery. In quick succession, my thought processes (and hastily… Read more
Style
Fruited Wild Ale
ABV
7.5%
Bitterness
15 IBU
Stockists

Order direct from Van Dieman here

Rocky Ridge BD Imperial Stout & Barleywine Is Life

Tapped August 13th, 2019
We’re well and truly into the thick of "big beer" season and the multitudinous Rocky Ridge brewers aren’t holding back with their seasonal releases of gutsy, warming ales. Most notably, their 2019 vintages of DB Russian Imperial Stout (previously Dirty Bitch after one of the brewery dogs) and Barleywine Is Life – both barrel aged – which have had many a punter waiting in anticipation. This year's DB comes in at a sizeable 12.5 percent ABV and, after spending six months in shiraz… Read more
Style
Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout & Barleywine
ABV
12.5% & 11.0%
Bitterness
20 IBU & 55 IBU

Rocky Ridge Where's Danny? & Blueberry Imperial Berliner

Tapped August 13th, 2019
As has been the tradition since they launched, in recent weeks WA punters have had a slew of new releases from the team at Rocky Ridge to tuck into, not least among them a ginger nut stout brewed in honour of assistant brewer and all-round nice guy Ash "Danny" Gale. and the trend-bending Blueberry Imperial Berliner. Where’s Danny is an American style stout brewed with chocolate, orange and fresh ginger. Plentiful quantities were added during brewing and fermentation to ensure each adjunct… Read more
Style
Ginger Nut Stout & Imperial Blueberry Berliner Weisse
ABV
5.7% & 6.5%
Bitterness
20 IBU & 6 IBU

Fixation Recliner & NSR & Hop Tingle & Midnight Sun IPAs

Tapped August 11th, 2019
You turn your back for five minutes and, whaddya know, there's four new IPAs pouring at Fixation's taproom. Working through the foursome in order of palate impact, let's start with Recliner, the brewery's beer for the 2019 Bendigo On The Hop. It's a twist on their Tropical IPA, featuring pineapple and mango additions, with the former leading the way on the nose, the latter coming into play more to taste. It's a combo that works well, creating an easy-going fruity IPA with a smooth body, a little… Read more
Style
IPAs
ABV
5.8% & 5.2% & 6.5% & 6.8%

Van Dieman Wilderness Project: Long Shadows & Unpredictable Spring

Tapped August 9th, 2019
The transformation of Van Dieman from a farm-based brewery producing pretty normal beers, other than the odd one featuring ingredients from the Evandale property, into a brewery bottling the farm has been years in the making. The final step in the mission to produce 100 percent estate ales – brewed solely with ingredients grown, sourced and processed on site – was the firing up of a small malting setup, leading to the release of beers such as the trio named after founder Will Tatchell's three… Read more
Style
Australian Spontaneous Ales
ABV
6.0% & 5.9%
Bitterness
Both 12 IBU

Green Beacon Helen Street Haze

Tapped August 9th, 2019
The Green Beacon brewers have been displaying a knack for knocking out IPAs in a range of styles and doing it well. There have been red, black, double, hazy and other variants in recent times and it's to the world of the haze they return once more with Helen Street Haze, named after their original Teneriffe home. It's loaded up with tropical and citrusy hop varieties Galaxy, Azacca, Idaho 7 and Citra – in whole hop cone, pellet and cryo form – yet, to this olfactory system at least, it's predominantly… Read more
Style
Hazy IPA
ABV
6.2%

Bad Shepherd Hazy IPA

Tapped August 9th, 2019
The Bad Shepherd brewers appear to have been studying up on all things hazy. As part of their IPA Series, they released a New England IPA last year that didn't quite hit the mark, a little lacking in fullness of body and with a potent bitterness to boot. Roll forward to late winter 2019 and they're back with Hazy IPA – and backing themselves to the extent this is no one-off but a new addition to their core lineup, and one that follows this year's Oatmeal Stout into schmick white cans. Pouring with… Read more
Style
Hazy IPA
ABV
6.0%
Bitterness
33 IBU
Stockists

Carwyn Cellars

Fishers Craft Beer

Grape & Grain Liquor Cellars

Grosvenor Hotel

Harvest Cellars

Otter's Promise

Bad Shepherd Brewpub

Malt & Vine

More stockists...

T-Bone Brewing Bloody Helles & Big Old Stout

Tapped August 9th, 2019
If the name and can design didn't give it away, it doesn't take long for T-Bone's latest fruity number to reveal itself. No sooner had liquid hit glass a foot away than sweet blood orange aromas were burrowing their way up nostrils like excited rabbits. The fruit addition lends Bloody Helles an Irn Bru-esque appearance, while the lightness of the helles lager style base beer allows the fruit to dominate on the palate too in a crystalline, almost cordial like manner, as opposed to anything approaching… Read more
Style
Blood Orange Lager & Russian Imperial Stout
ABV
5.2% & 8.5%

Deeds Brewing Festivus & Dark Deeds Double Lamington

Tapped August 9th, 2019
We've said it before and we'll say it again. But if you get the chance to try a new beer without having much idea of what it is, do it. It's like a partial blind tasting and is the approach I take, where possible, when sampling new arrivals. In part, it's to allow the senses to go to work without preconceptions; in part, it's to see if I agree with the brewers. And it can lead to fun experiences like one with Deeds Brewing's Festivus. I knew it was a bock before pouring, but that only led to a somewhat… Read more
Style
Spiced Bock & Imperial Brown Ale
ABV
6.0% & 8.5%

Moon Dog How Now Brown Cacao?

Tapped August 9th, 2019
Think nitro in a beer and you'll likely think stout. Think cacao in a beer and you'll be in roughly the same space. Think brown in relation to beer and you'll think, well, brown. So what is How Now Brown Cacao? A pale golden cream ale, of course. In something of a change of tack for Moon Dog, here the beer is actually less odd than the name would have you believe; if anything, it's quite normal in the way a comfortable tweed suit would be to an English gent. Why that image? Well, once it's been given… Read more
Style
Nitro Cream Ale with Cacao
ABV
6.0%
Stockists

Launching at the Abbotsford brewery on August 9

Sauce & Bar Pop Isolation Island NEIPA

Tapped August 8th, 2019
Western Australia loves its East Coast IPAs - must be something about the IPA always being juicier on the other side. So, for the 2019 Perth Craft Beer Festival, Sauce Brewing showed the isolated city some love by making a collaboration beer just for them; they hung onto some kegs and shared a few with Brisbane and Melbourne venues, but the tinnies are exclusive to those out west. It’s not hard to see why this was dubbed an “Island NEIPA”. With a radiant yellow like the island sun, and a fluffy… Read more
Style
NEIPA
ABV
7.0%
Stockists

Some kegs appearing at Sauce's brewery and at East Coast venues.

Cans at WA retailers only.

Aether Brewing Creature Of The Night Peanut Butter Stout

Tapped August 8th, 2019
We’ve seen a few peanut butter dessert beers in recent times, and often they’re sticky and syrupy, and fattened with lactose. If you’ve a sweet tooth, they may be just the thing you’re looking for. But what if you want the peanuts, you want the chocolate, you want the thick mouthfeel… but you want to ease off the sweetness? This is where Creature of the Night comes in. It’s thick - the dark head rises in slow motion, because even air struggles to wend its way through the viscous body.… Read more
Style
Peanut Butter Stout
ABV
7.0%

Aether Brewing Dryad Pét-Nat Sour

Tapped August 8th, 2019
There’s a skill in blending sours to achieve a rich complexity of flavours, and there’s a skill in achieving complexity without blending. Here, Aether has nailed the latter with a beer-wine hybrid that holds layers and layers. Dryad began with a malt bill made up of half Golden Promise and half Australian wheat, then was spontaneously soured with 1,000 litres of freshly picked and pressed pét-nat riesling juice from Latta Vino in Victoria. While it didn’t spend any time in barrels, the dark… Read more
Style
Beer-Wine Hybrid
ABV
7.0%

Balter Brewing Lager

Tapped August 7th, 2019
The people have spoken. A while back, the team at Balter's Gold Coast brewery decided to try a wee experiment. They put their Pilsner on tap alongside a new, more approachable lager they'd been working on to see how the two would fare. The latter proved waaaay more popular with visitors than the former, so it's farewell to the Pilsner (which is a shame as the Crafty crew were big fans...). Still, when you're in the business of selling lots of beer, you're going to want to sell lots of beer. And Lager… Read more
Style
Lager
ABV
4.8%
Stockists

Find Lager here

Temple Brewing Nitro Espresso Stoutini

Tapped August 7th, 2019
The recent playfulness continues at Temple Brewing in both the concept and design of this winter 2019 specialty. Nitro Espresso Stoutini is, as the name suggests, their spin on an espresso martini. To reach that point, they took a stout recipe, added Commonfolk coffee beans in the mash and a dash of Stache House Martini (cold extract coffee) in the fermenter, then shot the beer through with nitrogen to recreate the texture of the cocktail's creamy head. The cans come with handy instructions stuck… Read more
Style
Nitro Stout
ABV
6.1%

Boatrocker Ramjet 2019

Tapped August 7th, 2019
Of all the beers released in Australia each year, there are few that need an introduction less than Boatrocker's Ramjet. So let's cut straight to the chase with the 2019 version of the Starward barrel-aged imperial stout. On the booze front, it's been reined in from last year's 13.4 percent ABV monster to a practically sessionable 11.5; on the other hand, it also feels like they've loosened the reins a little when it comes to setting the whisky character free, allowing as much Starward character… Read more
Style
Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout
ABV
11.5%

Boatrocker Coffee Brown

Tapped August 7th, 2019
They already have plenty of stouts in their oeuvre so when adding another dark beer to their winter 2019 offering Boatrocker looked elsewhere. Their gaze landed up England, specifically the country's brown ales. They also infused the beer with whole roasted coffee beans, but it's the English hops and malts that give Coffee Brown its distinctive character, not least because you so rarely meet a beer brewed with English hops in a starring role on these shores today. Sure, there's a little fruity coffee… Read more
Style
Coffee Brown Ale
ABV
5.5%

The Craft & Co Tropical XPA

Tapped August 7th, 2019
The Craft & Co in Collingwood is many things: restaurant; bar; deli; function space; distillery; brewery. The team there also release wines alongside their beers and spirits and, as of winter 2019, they're looking to bring all their booze offerings into a recognisable family courtesy of a new look. With the new look comes new beers, including a Tropical XPA previously only available on tap. They've plumped for four fruity hop varieties to do the heavy lifting – Galaxy, Vic Secret, El Dorado… Read more
Style
XPA
ABV
5.0%
Bitterness
30 IBU

Hop Nation Dreamfeed Hazy IPA

Tapped August 6th, 2019
They were one of the first local operations to explore (intentionally) the world of hazy IPAs, have released more than their fair share and, in Jedi Juice, have one of the most popular. So expectations are going to be high when Hop Nation release another into the world. And expectations will likely be met with Dreamfeed, a beer that shows what can come from working within a style over and over. Unlike, say, their spiced Market IPA, there's little out of the ordinary here, other than, you might argue,… Read more
Style
Hazy IPA
ABV
6.5%

Hop Nation Site Fermentation Project Red Rabbit 2018

Tapped August 6th, 2019
The transition of the Site Fermentation Project beers by Hop Nation from bottle to can continues with Red Rabbit, a beer that owes something to their La Jeunesse Flanders style red and the Lapin Cherry Sour Blonde that was its immediate predecessor. It's a red ale that was initially aged in an oak foedre before being re-fermented on the very same cherries that lent their character to the Lapin. Inspired by Rodenbach's Alexander, Red Rabbit might have a claim to being the most intense experience found… Read more
Style
Sour Red Ale
ABV
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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