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

Black Arts West Coast Bière de Coupage & Red Wild Ale with Fresh Orange

Tapped May 27, 2020
As part of my personal #keepinglocalalive mission – and fondness for such beers – when I spotted Black Arts were releasing a couple of fascinating sounding barrel-aged blends, I leapt onto their site and placed an order. This was followed by a message to brewery co-founder Joshua Murnane to check how wide the release was and, thus, whether it was worth writing about them for the site. It transpired there was just a few dozen of each... Still, we figured it was worth sending thoughts into the… Read more
Style
Australian Wild Ales
ABV
5.5% & 6.0%
Stockists

Order direct from the brewery here

Rocky Ridge Choc-Coconut Porter 2020

Tapped May 27, 2020
The Rocky Ridge brewers have made a strong start in bolstering their winter lineup for 2020 and are showing no signs of slowing with their latest release, the decadent Choc-Coconut Porter. A revised recipe from last year's beer of the same name, this reiteration sees almost 60kg of toasted coconut added to a bold, porter base. If that wasn’t enough, a further 50kg of cacao husks, from local chocolatier Gabriel’s, also features to yield a beer bursting with robust chocolate and sweet coconut flavours. The… Read more
Style
Chocolate Coconut Porter
ABV
6.0%

Innate Brewers Sabro Single Hop DIPA

Tapped May 27, 2020
As one of two new US hops to spark particular fascination and excitement in brewers and punters alike this decade, Strata being the other, Sabro brings its neomexicanus heritage to new realms of hop expression. Given most contemporary hops have links to European noble varieties, it’s little wonder citrus, pine, grass, earth and floral notes feature through the family tree but no one expected coconut! And that lack of familiarity may be the polarising element for some with Sabro, even if there’s… Read more
Style
Single Hop DIPA
ABV
7.5%
Stockists

Find it at Innate's WA stockists

Hope Brewery Mango NEIPA & Imperial Raspberry Sour & Chardonnay Double NEIPA

Tapped May 26, 2020
Hope are one of the quiet achievers of the beer world, largely keeping to their picturesque corner of the world while steadily putting out new releases featuring interesting styles and ingredients. It feels strange calling this Mango Hazy IPA their least "different" new release, since it’s a style that didn’t exist a few short years ago, but such is the current fashion of the beer scene. Nevertheless, Hope’s version carries all the mango-ness you could hope for - it looks like mango… Read more
Style
Mango HIPA & Imperial Fruit Sour & Beer-Wine Hybrid
ABV
6.0% & 7.0% & 10.0%

Hope Brewery FKA Ginger Beer

Tapped May 26, 2020
A ginger beer with a difference: you won’t find any soft-drink-y sugar water here. Right from the pour, which displays the cloudiness and sediment that gives this brew its flavour, the FKA Ginger Beer offers complexity. A light sweetness mixes with a strong spiciness, but it’s not rough; it’s like the ginger cake served up by your lovely elderly neighbour. There’s also an earthy and slightly medicinal note, like the iodine character you sometimes find in a peated single malt whisky. And,… Read more
Style
Ginger Beer
ABV
4.2%

Ballistic Beer Co Sleep When You're Dead Red IPA

Tapped May 26, 2020
When Ballistic brought a double IPA into the Sleep When You’re Dead series, it was a punchy thing, advertised as such by the character on the label. But this Red DIPA is a more subtle creature, making the TNT-wielding cowboy on the label a little deceptive. Don’t get me wrong - there’s a heap of complex flavour here (thanks to five different malts and four hop varieties). But the long fuse may let this explosive beer sneak past your defences. The SWYD Red DIPA sparkles like a dark ruby in the… Read more
Style
Red IPA
ABV
8.4%

Ballistic Beer Co Brewunity

Tapped May 26, 2020
The hands of fate work with a creativity we mere mortals could never match. In 2019, brewers across Australia started playing with kveik, the fast-fermenting yeast that Norwegian homebrewers have been using for centuries. In 2020, COVID-19 threatened our economic security but by no means took away our desire for delicious beer. From these two completely unrelated phenomena, Brewunity was born. When the novel coronavirus sent Australia into lockdown, the team at Ballistic predicted people would be… Read more
Style
Aussie Pale Ale
ABV
4.0%

Hawkers Around The Orchard We Roam

Tapped May 26, 2020
They're not the sort of beers with which you'd instantly associated Hawkers, yet they're quietly amassing quite the collection of fruit cream sours. And with Around The Orchard We Roam, they're adding a peaches and cream-inspired addition to the lineup. It's a fine liquid rendition too, one in which it's far easier to pick out the various components than it is to read the label. Indeed, it delivers everything – peaches, cream and sour – in spades, with the peaches and lactose hitting first on… Read more
Style
Fruit Cream Sour
ABV
6.0%

Tallboy & Moose Terminal Velocity, Solid Gold & Chaiger King

Tapped May 26, 2020
As Melbourne venues look to reopen, Tallboy & Moose's new release machine keeps whirring, with three beers ready for taps and available in crowlers direct from the Preston brewpub. Terminal Velocity has been dubbed a Juicy Kveik IPA brewed with Galaxy and Lotus, a new American hop breed officially launched last year. The historic (but new-to-many brewers) Norwegian yeast mixed with the modern hops brings a touch of tart lime and grapefruit along with passionfruit and some vanilla to match with… Read more
Style
Kveik IPA, Hazy IPA & Spiced Stout
ABV
5.9% & 6.5% & 5.9%

Blackman's Brewery Vanilla Choc Mud Cake Stout

Tapped May 25, 2020
You couldn't throw too many more words at the name of this beer that would make it significantly richer, sweeter or more gooey in your mind's eye. It sounds like the proverbial GABS stout and left the Torquay brewery around the time GABS should have been on. Yet the beer comes from Blackman's so isn't quite as it might have been in other hands... Sure, the experience is overwhelmingly one of dark chocolate fudge mud cake in a glass, yet these are brewers with a tendency towards dry and balanced finishes… Read more
Style
Vanilla Choc Stout
ABV
7.5%

Moon Dog The Pav Is Ours

Tapped May 22, 2020
They started the week with a beer recreating berry crumble in a can and are ending it with a pavlova pale ale. What has the world come to, eh? Let's start with the name. Not so much The Pav Is Our, but the pale ale bit. Now, it is on the paler side, possibly with a hint of blush from the strawberries (added with passionfruit, kiwifruit and vanilla). But if you know your pale ales as hop forward and bitter, this isn't that. Rather than a blast of fruity hops hitting you first, it's vanilla forward;… Read more
Stockists

Moon Dog World

This is a Dan's / BSW exclusive

Or available from Moon Dog's two breweries

More stockists...

The Mill & Everyday Coffee Mènage à trois

Tapped May 22, 2020
Collingwood’s The Mill Brewery has been one of the small brewers embracing tinnies as a means of getting their beer into homes, ratcheting up the frequency of their canned releases since COVID-19 hit. Among their autumnal releases is Ménage à trois, a collaboration with neighbours Everyday Coffee that’s made its first appearance in cans after appearing as a keg only release in 2019. Dubbed a Coffee Chocolate Vanilla Porter, it’s brewed with cold brewed Mucho Gusto – a bold espresso blend… Read more
Style
Coffee Chocolate Vanilla Porter
ABV
4.4%

Modus Operandi Modus Beer

Tapped May 22, 2020
The brewery might have first made a name for itself on the back of big, trophy-winning, hop forward releases but anyone who knows Modus - particularly its locals - knows the team like to keep a broad range of beers coming from their Mona Vale home. Beers like Pittwater Premium Draught don’t just namecheck the locale but were brewed with enjoying a beer by the water and drinkers with more mainstream tastes in mind. And now that approachable offering has been followed by what’s simply called Modus… Read more
Style
Lager
ABV
4.2%

Moo Brew IPA

Tapped May 21, 2020
Considering Moo Brew have had a US-inspired pale ale in their core range far longer than most breweries have existed in Australia, it might seem a little odd they've waited until now to put an IPA alongside it. Then again, while the story goes that owner David Walsh isn't a fan of the style, it's also true that this is a brewery that's tended to beat its own path: they've also had a damn fine Pilsner in their lineup since day dot not to mention a trophy-winning Hefeweizen. But, after finding critical… Read more
Style
IPA
ABV
6.66%
Bitterness
65 IBU

Eagle Bay Brewing Single Series: Red IPA & IPA

Tapped May 20, 2020
Eagle Bay have brewed a long list of styles in their ten years of operation, including many a forgotten or out of focus style, making a habit of homing in on recipe and execution over trend and hype. One of their latest Single Series releases is a perfect example of this: a malt-driven Red IPA featuring New World hops that's refreshingly void of haziness and acronyms. Hops and malt are cleverly at play in this richer style of IPA with impressive dark, ruby hues topped with an off-white head. A robust… Read more
Style
Red IPA & IPA
ABV
6.0% & 6.2%
Bitterness
49 & 60 IBU

Moon Dog In The Crumble, The Might Crumble: Berry Edition

Tapped May 20, 2020
It's a sign of the beer times that, even when including water among the traditional ingredients, the list of ingredients marked as "Other" on a can manages to outgun the water, hops, malt and yeast by eight to seven. Making up the eight here are lactose, vanilla, cinnamon, apple and raspberry purée, blackberry juice and lactobacillus; no one ever said Moon Dog was in Munich. Their impact, at least visually, is as far from the lagers of Munich as you could imagine too; the murky amber liquid… Read more
Style
Fruit Pastry Sour
ABV
5.8%

Hargreaves Hill Babooshka 2020 & Pursuit of Hoppiness No.5: Cabin Fever

Tapped May 20, 2020
Rich and creamy or hazy and hoppy (and, in many cases, boozy too) are order of the day for many a beer nerd on the hunt for their latest fix right now. So one assumes there will be a fair few beating a path to their nearest bottlo for a taste of this autumnal double release from Hargreaves Hill. Babooshka is making a return: initially brewed from the second runnings of their Russian Imperial Stout in 2019 she's just as wanton in her piling on of lactose and vanilla this time around. As with the first… Read more
Style
Vanilla Milk Stout & DDH DIPA
ABV
6.0% & 8.0%

Bodriggy & Birdsnake MandyMuck

Tapped May 20, 2020
The brewers at Bodriggy turned to one of Melbourne's other purveyors of tasty treats, Birdsnake Chocolate, in creating MandyMuck. The chocolatiers bring a similar ethos to the cocoa bean as many local coffee roasters do to their handiwork, where the focus is on working closely with growers to ensure what you shove down your mouth is sourced as ethically as possible and handled with great care. Together, Bodriggy and Birdsnake came up with a beer in which the “Muck” name is borrowed from the… Read more
Style
Mid-strength Stout
ABV
3.2%

Black Hops G.O.A.T.

Tapped May 20, 2020
Calling a beer G.O.A.T. is a ballsy move, yet the Black Hops brewers clearly knew they were onto a good thing with their hazy IPA. The first batch took out gold at the Australian International Beer Awards; a later batch gold at The Indies. Unsurprisingly, it quickly became a fan favourite too; when people are falling for pretty much anything hazy and hoppy these days, what chance do they have when one is done really well? And now the life of the G.O.A.T. reaches its logical conclusion: a move from… Read more
Style
Hazy IPA
ABV
6.0%
Stockists

Find em here

Black Hops North Coast & South Coast IPAs

Tapped May 20, 2020
Hops are grown elsewhere in the world, most notably across stretches of Northern Europe - home to the varieties from which many of today's superstars have been birthed over the decades. Yet, in the contemporary craft beer world, it tends to be those from the New World – the US, NZ and Australia – that get brewers and beer lovers alike chomping at the bit. So Black Hops decided to give drinkers the chance to see how those from one side of the equator fared against the other. That said, this US… Read more
Style
US & Australasian IPAs
ABV
Both 6.8%
Stockists

Find em here

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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