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!
4 Pines Keller Door: New England IPA
Tapped October 8th, 2018
The brewers at 4 Pines have released more than their fair share of IPAs over the years, many of them as part of the limited run Keller Door series. Red Rye IPA, Imperial IPA, Citrus IPA, New Season IPA and on it goes. They've also put out the odd draught only beer bearing the name New England IPA and now such a beer has been given a wider release in 500ml bottles. They used big-hitting hop varieties Citra, Mosaic, El Dorado, Idaho #7 and Simcoe from the US in what they say is "their most heavily… Read more
Golden
- Style
- NEIPA
- ABV
- 7.5%
- Bitterness
- 40 IBU
- Stockists
-
Available in limited release from good bottleshops nationwide
Black Hops Send It Session Ale
Tapped October 7th, 2018
If you’re familiar with the viral Larry Enticer video from 2017, you’ll know that Send It is a call to be bold, confident and willing to take risks. And, with this addition to their core range, Black Hops has looked to capture that spirit in a can. The brewers describe it as a "Gold Coast inspired session ale" and its light colour certainly suits the pale golden beaches of Burleigh. Calypso and Citra hops bring a baseline of stonefruit and citrus to the aroma, while the addition of… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Session Ale
- ABV
- 4.2%
- Bitterness
- 25 IBU
Tallboy & Moose Lucha Lager & Torch Girl
Tapped October 6th, 2018
As Melbourne’s weather warms, Preston’s Tallboy and Moose has some new beers ready for the longer days ahead. Among the newest releases is Lucha Lager, brewed in collaboration with Coldstream in the Yarra Valley and inspired by the cervezas of Mexico. The aim was to create a dry, refreshing beer that goes down both quickly and easily. Much of that light body and dryness comes from a hefty amount of corn in the malt bill and the use of the amylase enzyme, something brewers have long used to make… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Mexican Lager & Hoppy Saison
- ABV
- 4.6% & 5.7%
Black Hops Flash Bang
Tapped October 6th, 2018
White IPAs are, more often than not, a cross between an American IPA and a Belgian witbier. As a style, they’re pretty young – the first one to appear is widely accepted to be the 2010 collaboration between the brewmasters of Deschutes Brewing (known for its hoppy beers) and Boulevard Brewing (known for its wheat beers). It wasn’t until 2015 that White IPA then made it into the BJCP style guidelines. Unlike some other newer styles, white IPAs haven’t been popping up left, right and centre.… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- White IPA
- ABV
- 6.5%
- Bitterness
- 68 IBU
Six String Brewing Five
Tapped October 5th, 2018
It’s almost impossible to identify with any real degree of accuracy, but at some point during the life of a business there comes a time where you can’t imagine it not being there. You’re so used to it that you probably take it for granted. By that point, you’ve almost certainly forgotten what it was like before it existed. That’s what’s so good about an anniversary, the chance to reflect. When the Six String Brewing Company opened its doors in Erina in 2013 there was nothing else like… Read more
Black
- Style
- Whiskey Barrel Aged Imperial Stout
- ABV
- 9.4%
Innate Brewers The Juice NEIPA
Tapped October 5th, 2018
The continuing onslaught of New England style IPAs suggests they may have a place in the future of beer styles. As they began to appear with greater regularity over the past couple of years, there were many keen to deride them, however brewers have found that, to brew one well, they can be a far more technically challenging proposition than a sideways glance at the turbid contents of a glass might suggest. Indeed, Innate’s head brewer Joel Nash has been tinkering with the style for more than a… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- NEIPA
- ABV
- 6.1%
Stone & Wood Pilot Batch: Sticky Nectar Mango IPA
Tapped October 5th, 2018
Stone & Wood might be known for one beer above all else but the brewery has always brewed plenty of limited release beers too, arguably never more than now. Rarely, though, do those make their way much beyond the Byron Bay tasting room. Thus, Sticky Nectar Mango IPA represents something of a shift for the brewery, not just because it’s been widely released on Australia’s East Coast but also because it's an IPA, a style the brewery has shied away from in the past, leaving it in the capable… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Mango IPA
- ABV
- 6.5%
- Bitterness
- 45 iBU
- Stockists
-
Sticky Nectar was sent here
Mr Banks Hawaii 5-Gose
Tapped October 4th, 2018
Is there an image that more colourfully conjures a tropical paradise than a pineapple catching a wave? If there is, the chances are good Mr Banks will have a go when summer fully rolls around. Yes, the Seaford based family brewery may have streamlined the look of its core range, but they're still having fun with the look of their eclectic limited release beers, including this, Hawaii 5-Gose, a Copacabana-coloured can filled with a gose laced with a mixture of guava, mango and pineapple. It’s also… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Fruit Gose
- ABV
- 4.2%
Beerland & Dainton Dom Passignon Brut IPA
Tapped October 4th, 2018
Recent commentary about the vinification of beer may be one thing but this makes a strong case, brutish perhaps, that the implied riddling of beer has tickled the zeitgeist more than a Nik Kershaw hit at an 80s party. Certainly, Dom Passignon’s decal carries the élan and excess of high end, carbonated grape juice, then delivers effortlessly on a Passion Pop budget. To this end, the collaborators used passionfruit puree in a souped up Brut IPA with an SRM level approaching the French icon it's… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Imperial Brut IPA with Passionfruit
- ABV
- 8.4%
- Stockists
-
And select WA venues
More stockists...
Old Wives Ales Old Man Yells At Cloud
Tapped October 3rd, 2018
Of all the New England IPAs to have made use of puns invoking the style’s hazy appearance, the Old Man Yells At Cloud NEIPA from Old Wives Ales seems to have really captured something in the fist of Abe Simpson. Maybe it’s the fondness many Australians feel for the The Simpsons, given how many beer drinkers will have been raised on heavy doses of the show. More likely, it's the way the name references the upset the rise of such beers caused among many brewers, often with plenty of kilometres… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- NEIPA
- ABV
- 6.5%
Mountain Goat Legend Of The Goat Double IPA
Tapped October 2nd, 2018
Benjamin Franklin once stated: "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." Had he lived a couple of hundred years later, he may well have added: "And that Mountain Goat will celebrate milestones with an IPA." And why not when the brewers make them so well, a skill to which a couple of champion IPA trophies can attest. As for the latest milestone, it's now 21 years since the first Hightail was poured. Back then, Melbourne’s beer scene was a different… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Double IPA
- ABV
- 7.6%
- Bitterness
- 63 IBU
- Stockists
-
Join the Goats for a 21st birthday party at the brewery – details here
BentSpoke Brewing Drifter Series: Cluster 8
Tapped October 2nd, 2018
Cluster 8 is a beer that’s long been poured at BentSpoke’s Braddon brewpub and is part of a series of Clusters that, as far as we're aware, has been pushed as high as Cluster 18 so far – with the biggest in the series an IIIIIIPA weighing in at 18 percent ABV. This is where the series started out, however, a double IPA that brings together one serious combination of hops in Galaxy, Citra, Mosaic, Centennial, Simcoe and Amarillo to create a beer that packs both a juicy and tropical punch along… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Double IPA
- ABV
- 8.8%
Rocky Ridge Holy S**t, It's A Mid – The Mandarin Edition
Tapped October 2nd, 2018
Given how many high octane IPAs have been leaving the Rocky Ridge farm in recent weeks, it's perhaps not before time that they're serving up a little balance in the form of the latest edition in the Holy S**t, It’s A Mid! series. This time around, the brewery team rescued tens of kilograms of perfectly edible but second grade mandarins from landfill. Normally, farmers would have to pay to dump this fruit, however, thanks to Rocky Ridge, it now receives a second life, reborn in a refreshing, seasonally… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Mandarin Gose
- ABV
- 3.7%
Ballistic Beer Co Sleep When You're Dead Double IPA
Tapped September 30th, 2018
You’ve heard of punchy IPAs. Prepare to meet the punchiest. This entry in Ballistic’s "Sleep When You’re Dead" series – 100 percent cold shipped, hoppy beers with an eight week Dead By date, which you can read about here – is an 8.3 percent ABV double IPA, armed with Columbus, Simcoe and Citra hops. The artwork on the label is of a robot outfitted as a London gangster, Peaky Blinders style, rubbing its fist to show it’s ready to brawl with anyone who dares accept the challenge.… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Double IPA
- ABV
- 8.3%
- Bitterness
- 100 IBU
- Stockists
-
The only keg to make it to Victoria is being tapped at Whitehart Bar on October 5
Innate Brewers Fruit Fest XPA
Tapped September 30th, 2018
Over the past 18 months or so, the XPA style has evolved from a broad collection of beers that weren’t quite pale ales or IPAs into a more defined style, in part thanks to the dominance of certain Queensland brewery’s example. Even within this more myopic field, Innate has decided to prove there's still room for a slightly different take that will appease punters' general understanding of a lean but fruity beer that probably has its origins in the seemingly long forgotten golden ale. Here the… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- XPA
- ABV
- 4.6%
- Stockists
-
Available from good beer retailers in WA.
Ocho Eucalyptus
Tapped September 30th, 2018
While there have been normal beers along the way for Tasmania's Ocho, such as the ongoing seasonal IPA range, it's fair to say Stu Grant is a brewer that likes to experiment, be it with barrels, yeasts or less-than-obvious ingredients. It's also fair to say the beer he entered as a GABS 2018 festival beer is one that fits into the experimental category. And then some. Says Stu: "I conceived of the idea for the beer while walking through a local area of bush that had recently had a bushfire,… Read more
Rich Brown
- Style
- Spiced Dark Lager
- ABV
- 6.0%
Fury & Son Double IPA
Tapped September 29th, 2018
For the release of their first can, Fury & Son aren't messing about. Not only have they gone for tallboys complete with a striking purple label, but they've popped their biggest beer to date inside it: a double IPA weighing in at 8.6 percent ABV. They describe it on the label as "a full-bodied and boozy treat" and they're not wrong. There's plenty of hops crammed in, delivering predominantly piney characters with a touch of citrusy fruit at play too, but there's a solid supporting act… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Double IPA
- ABV
- 8.6%
- Bitterness
- 75 IBU
Flat Rock Brew Cafe Pale Ale
Tapped September 28th, 2018
Being the epitome of a brewpub, Flat Rock has never much bothered with packaging its beer. In the past, they’ve hand bottled some of their barrel aged stuff, and you can always get growler fills, but otherwise theirs has been a tap only proposition. But everyone’s putting their beer in cans these days, so if you can’t beat ‘em… They got in touch with their mates at Hope Estate and have had a crack at packaging a version of their longstanding Henry Lawson pale ale. It’s a beer that’s… Read more
Golden
- Style
- American Pale Ale
- ABV
- 4.5%
Flat Rock Brew Cafe IIPA & Black IPA
Tapped September 28th, 2018
A double IPA is a far cry from the easy drinking English cask ales which make up one of the key tenets of the Flat Rock Brew Cafe. Then again, maybe this one isn’t so different in principle considering it’s so supremely easy to drink. Ok, it may be dense and dank thanks to the Cascade and Chinook hops throwing up plenty of citrus and pine character, plus a very slight touch of spiciness, but it hides its power beneath a lush blanket of chewy caramel malt flavour that negates any harsh bitterness… Read more
Dark Brown
- Style
- Double IPA & Black IPA
- ABV
- 7.3% & 4.6%
Flat Rock Brew Cafe Chilli Stout & Belgian Dubbel
Tapped September 28th, 2018
Few edible substances are as divisive as chilli. Some can’t take the slightest hint of heat while others openly weep in the painful pleasure of dousing themselves in the hottest thing they can lay their hands on. Similarly, in beer it can provide an interesting enhancer to the natural spiciness and capsicum-like characters offered by some hop varieties, or it can be loaded up in doses that are borderline lethal. Flat Rock’s Chilli Stout sits in the latter category. Apparently, the steam from… Read more
Dark Brown
- Style
- Chilli Stout & Belgian Dubbel
- ABV
- 6.0% & 6.3%
