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!
Balter Brewing CryoHaze
Tapped May 21, 2021
To follow on from the dystopian reference in our write-up of Balter’s earlier release CryoMofo: this week I learned the disgusting sci-fi word ‘corpsicle,’ which refers to a corpse that’s been cryogenically frozen until such a time that it can be revived. You’re welcome. In more pleasant news, in May, Balter released CryoHaze. When Balter released CryoMofo, a West Coast IPA made with Cryo Mosaic, they promised a Cryo Mosaic hazy would follow in a few months. Head brewer Scott Hargrave described… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Hazy IPA
- ABV
- 6.5%
- Bitterness
- 26 IBU
Hargreaves Hill White Russian 2021
Tapped May 21, 2021
White stouts are one of those styles that pops up every now and then – often when there's a reason for them to knock out a novelty beer – and the same can be said for cocktail-inspired beers too. Not many of either achieve longevity, but Hargreaves Hill's combination of both is staking a claim as it returns for what I believe is a third year. Given it features one of the best labels (from the graphic designer we share with the brewery, admittedly, so maybe we're biased), that has to be a good… Read more
Golden
- Style
- White Stout
- ABV
- 6.5%
Bridge Road, Range Brewing & Sailors Grave DDH Oat Cream Mango Pale
Tapped May 21, 2021
For quite some years, Bridge Road Brewers hosts a hop harvest festival in Beechworth, the High Country Hop. As part of that, they now invite some other brewers to join them to pour beer at the festival and join them in a collaborative brew. For 2021, Range and Sailors Grave were the friends who came along and added their experience, talent and creativity to the mix (unfortunately Range missed 99 percent of the festival, having been required to spend most of it in their hotel room awaiting a COVID… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- DDH Oat Cream Mango Pale
- ABV
- 5.8%
Akasha Project Romeo & Juliet DIPA
Tapped May 20, 2021
Bloody Romeo and Juliet they reckon? A marriage of Montague and Capulet? In this economy? Akasha, reaching the very height of audacity, have endeavoured to bring West and East together in holy matrimony with their newly released double IPA. But how can one conjoin these two bitter enemies? I guess only one of them is bitter, the other is sweeter and more tropical hop focused, but you get the idea. Can Akasha be the ones to stop this senseless bloodshed on the mean streets of Verona? Will six people… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Double IPA
- ABV
- 8.0%
Bodriggy Brewing & Hop Nation The People's Elbow
Tapped May 20, 2021
Among the many collaborative events running during Good Beer Week 2021 was Hop Nation and Bodriggy's battle, North X West Fight Club. Given it was one that involved brewery employees being dunked in tanks of water, you could assume it wasn’t the friendliest of collaborations, but we’ve been told everyone remains as good mates as ever. Launching at that event was The People’s Elbow, an imperial porter featuring each brewery transformed into mascots ready to do battle. The beer inside is 9.5… Read more
Black
- Style
- Imperial Porter
- ABV
- 9.5%
Burnley Brewing & Blackhearts & Sparrows Apricot Sour
Tapped May 20, 2021
The team at Blackhearts & Sparrows love collaborating with breweries as well as beers inspired by the Old World so, in some ways, it feels like Apricot Sour is a little inevitable. Launched during Good Beer Week 2021 and brewed with Melbourne’s Burnley Brewing, the beer is a highly effervescent and lightly sour saison with apricots aplenty thrown in. That fruit flavour is really quite close to tucking into a fresh bit of fruit that’s been sitting in a fruit bowl for a number of days. That… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Apricot Sour
- ABV
- 3.8%
Nomad Brewing Powder Day: Cookies and Cream
Tapped May 20, 2021
It’s been a while since I’ve walked into Cold Rock Ice Creamery - probably more than a decade. But smell memory is a powerful thing, and somewhere inside me is a vault where the scent of Cold Rock is stored safe and secure. Because Cold Rock has a distinct smell; the moment you walk into a Cold Rock store, full of tubs of various flavours of ice cream and a mass of different chocolatey and nutty and confectionery mix-ins, you’re hit by a barrage of aromas. Laying the base is vanilla - that… Read more
Black
- Style
- Cookies & Cream Double Milk Stout
- ABV
- 7.8%
BentSpoke & Yakima Chief Hops Hopwheeler IPA
Tapped May 19, 2021
Given BentSpoke's flagship IPA, Crankshaft, holds the number one spot in the GABS Hottest 100 Aussie Craft Beers at time of writing and is just one of many highly-rated IPAs in the Canberra brewer's oeuvre, what happens when they team up with one of the world's leader growers of hops? The short answer is Hopwheeler, launching at Good Beer Week 2021. But there's a bit more to it than that. The IPA is part of the EXP Series kickstarted by Yakima Chief Hops in 2020, in which they work with brewers to… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- IPA
- ABV
- 6.8%
- Bitterness
- 35 IBU
- Stockists
-
Then nationwide
For more on the EXP Series, head here
More stockists...
Modus Operandi & Koko Black Choc Hazelnut Belgian Stout
Tapped May 19, 2021
First things first: hazelnut is hands-down the single best flavour to accompany chocolate. You can argue with me if you like, but you’d be wrong. It’s good to see that Modus Operandi realise this; when they teamed up with Aussie artisan chocolatiers Koko Black to make a chocolate stout, they included not just 50kg of Belgian couverture chocolate and cocoa nibs but also over 200kg of hazelnuts. It's not that the hazelnuts are a dominant flavour either but they’re certainly a nice touch given… Read more
Black
- Style
- Belgian Stout
- ABV
- 6.9%
Helios Brewing Classic Series: Extra Special Bitter
Tapped May 19, 2021
What’s the opposite of the marshmallow-custard-avocado-strawberry-cocktail beers of GABS? A traditional ESB would come close. The second instalment in Helios’ Classic Series was released in May 2021 but this Extra Special Bitter is a play on a style that’s three or four hundred years old. Beers like what we now call ESBs have been around since the 17th and 18th centuries, when pale malts became available in to British brewers thanks to the use of a new kind of fuel that gave more control over… Read more
Golden
- Style
- ESB
- ABV
- 5.6%
Slow Lane Brewing 1st Birthday Beers
Tapped May 19, 2021
The first year of life is a wonderful thing. For some, it’s the joy of watching a little sentient mass of meat learn how to cry more and sleep less; for others it’s building a taproom and winning awards. For Slow Lane Brewing, the last 12 months have featured both, although less of the former and more of the latter – and I am hearing reports they are finally sleeping through. To celebrate their first birthday, they've released a birthday quartet of beers. If you can think of a better way to… Read more
Rich Brown
- Style
- Various styles
- ABV
- ABVs as indicated
Feral Brewing Dark Matter 2021
Tapped May 19, 2021
Dark matter surrounds us. There’s a lot of deep science about light, electromagnetic radiation and the like, and no agreement on what exactly it is or how we can even find out. Thankfully, there’s also coffee! And Feral’s returning dessert porter featuring Perth coffee roaster Laika’s new carbonic macerated bean from Veracruz, Mexico, as well as Dutch cocoa, Madagascan vanilla pods and lactose, puts it to work. But this isn’t the pastry party some may assume, instead Dark Matter 2021 is… Read more
Black
- Style
- Dessert Porter
- ABV
- 6.0%
- Stockists
-
Available from the Swan Valley brewpub
And Feral stockists nationwide
Urban Alley The Rubinstein & Fire In The Hole
Tapped May 18, 2021
Urban Alley have two autumnal releases out for 2021 and they’re the type of beers that manage to suit both the sunny and the tremendously cold days the season brings in Melbourne. For the slightly warmer afternoons, there’s The Rubinstein, a Belgian-style sour red ale named for the brewery’s longtime head brewer, Shaya Rubinstein. Having used American oak to make the beer, it's that character that really leads the charge with a real depth of palate weight and big notes of vanilla filling the… Read more
Rich Brown
- Style
- Sour Red Ale & Baltic Porter
- ABV
- 4.9% & 5.9%
Hop Nation Max Capacity & Carbonado
Tapped May 18, 2021
Hop Nation are well and truly celebrating the good times that come with Good Beer Week 2021, with the brewery releasing two limited cans to line up with the weeklong celebrations. Max Capacity was launched at GABS Sydney before being given a wider release in cans and the “Festival IPA” is the Melbourne brewery’s tribute to the haze of a beer festival. It’s a beer that doesn’t just pack a lot of tropical hop flavours but also a variety of hops (or rather, hop products) into one beer. There’s… Read more
Black
- Style
- Festival IPA & Barrel-Aged Stout
- ABV
- 7.0% & 5.2%
Fox Hat Bearded Mongrel 2021
Tapped May 17, 2021
Now in its third year, Fox Hat’s Bearded Mongrel continues to utilise parent company Bickford's resources, with the brewers ageing a Russian imperial stout once again in Bearded Lady bourbon barrels for several months. Originally launched at the 2019 Adelaide Beer and BBQ Festival, the barrel-aged version of the Phat Mongrel and its bigger brother, the Full Mongrel has proved popular every year and, in 2021, it comes in a new look, bright yellow can. The Bearded Mongrel is quite a measured stout,… Read more
Black
- Style
- Bourbon Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout
- ABV
- 10.8%
- Bitterness
- 100 IBU
Moon Dog Bless The Haze
Tapped May 14, 2021
If there's one thing the world needs right now, it's more hazy IPAs. So let's shower praise upon Moon Dog for seeing us in our hour of desperation and delivering the manna we need. Clearly, producing eight hard seltzers at the same time can't distract them from their godlike mission. OK, we don't strictly need more hazy IPAs, but drinkers sure like knocking them back, so what will they discover when they choose to Bless The Haze, aside from a can that looks like army camo reimagined for the DMT wonderland… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Oat Cream IPA
- ABV
- 7.2%
Black Hops East Coast Haze
Tapped May 14, 2021
What's in a name? If you delve into the backstory of Black Hops' new (sorta) core range hazy pale, rather a lot. You can check it out on their blog – a tale that takes in weather patterns, surfing, plenty of discussions, a name change, and now a big campaign to push what's kinda G.O.A.T.'s little sibling to a wider audience. We've looked at the growth in popularity of hazy pales a fair bit this year – and featured them in a blind tasting too, one in which East Coast Haze's forebear, East Coast… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Hazy Pale
- ABV
- 4.5%
Blasta Brewing First Port Of Call
Tapped May 14, 2021
Being the closest brewery venue to Perth airport, Blasta may well be the first port of call for many travellers; however, back in 1829, the area was the last stop for Henry Camfield. The English gentleman settled on the Swan River peninsula, naming it after one of his estates, Burr’s Wood, near Tunbridge Wells, Kent – with Burrswood a moniker Blasta have used previously for their Helles . Whether Camfield was a stout fan remains a mystery, but there's no doubt about Blasta owner Steve Russell’s… Read more
Black
- Style
- Imperial Stout
- ABV
- 7.0%
- Stockists
-
Available from the brewery
And Blasta stockists
Pirate Life 440
Tapped May 14, 2021
With their new digs progressing behind the cladding at 440 Murray Street, this offering from Pirate Life Perth is made with sessionability in mind, whether those sessions are post-CBD work drinks, or weekend ‘burbs catch-ups. As Pirate Life Perth head brewer Jackson Purser points out: "It’s definitely set to be an ale punters will want to go back for" – especially when the Perth venue opens later this year, with 440 set to be the first pour. 440 takes aim at summer / Pacific / golden… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Hoppy Golden Ale
- ABV
- 4.8%
Mismatch & Hop Nation Meet In The Middle
Tapped May 14, 2021
South Australia’s Mismatch join forces with Melbourne’s Hop Nation for Meet in the Middle, a beer designed to be equal parts West Coast and East Coast, complete with a solid haze for good measure. Originally planned for the cancelled 2020 Adelaide Beer & BBQ Festival, it's instead been brewed in time for Good Beer Week 2021. And they didn’t mess around, going head with heavy-hitting hops Citra, Mosaic and Simcoe to rain down juicy tropical fruit and hazy deliciousness. As for the beer’s… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- IPA
- ABV
- 8.0%
