Last year, the James Halliday Wine Companion launched a bi-monthly magazine. The Crafty Pint was asked to contribute a feature on craft beer in Australia for the launch edition. The mission: tell the tale of the rise of the modern craft beer industry in 1200 words. In the end, we couldn’t do it – meet the word count, at least – so they gave us a few more to play with and we gave them “Big Things Brewing”, which ran as a four-page spread.
They seemed to like it and as a result we’ve been writing a feature for them on craft beer in every magazine since. Bearing in mind we’re writing for a predominantly wine-drinking audience, we’ve tried to make them as approachable as a gateway beer (although we might have started running before walking with a feature on collaborations…). Our sixth and latest feature on the growth of barrel-aging in the beer world will be in the magazine due to be released on August 24. In the meantime, here’s our first. We’ll be running the remainder over the coming months too, which look at the aforementioned collaborations plus pale ales, hops and dark beers.
Anyway, first up – a condensed history of the modern Aussie craft beer scene featuring:
- Phil Sexton and the story of the Sail & Anchor and Matilda Bay
- Ben Kraus of Bridge Road on how beer has started gaining the respect that wine garnered decades earlier
- Murray’s brewer Shawn Sherlock on the development of a uniquely Aussie craft beer scene
For more on the James Halliday Wine Companion magazine, check out its Facebook page or head to the website.
