Adelaide, we're coming for you! After five years in which it's been one of the highlights of the annual Good Beer Week festival, The Crafty Pint is taking Pint of Origin on the road. Our pocket of Australia's biggest celebration of the broad good beer community will be taking over taps at seven (and a bit) venues in the South Australian capital for nine days from this Saturday (July 2).
On the lineup will be beers and breweries never seen in SA before, including some from brewers who rarely, if ever, send beer outside their home state. Some interstate brewers will be making their way to Adelaide to chat to punters too, with Pint of Origin SA taking place in the lead up to the second Adelaide Beer & BBQ Festival, whose organisers initially approached us about bringing the concept to town.
As in the first year of Pint of Origin in Melbourne (way back in 2012), we're focusing solely on Australia, with the states represented by the following venues:
- NOLA Adelaide – Queensland
- Gilbert Street Hotel – Victoria
- Clever Little Tailor (and Pink Moon Saloon) – Tasmania
- The Franklin Hotel – New South Wales
- The Kings Head – South Australia
- Jack Ruby – Western Australia
The seventh venue is The Wheaty, where they've lined up a one-night-only collaboration special featuring beers they've created with brewers across Australia.
You can find out which brewers are sending beers to each venue here, with the likes of Ocho, Hop Trial, Old Wives Ales, Fury & Son, Black Hops, Croft Brewing, Colonial, Akasha and Stockade Brew Co appearing on tap in Adelaide for the first time. Many beers, including the newly crowned Champion Australian Beer, Little Dove from Gage Roads, will also be taking their South Australian bow.
As with Melbourne, the concept remains the same: beer lovers can explore the world of Australian beer at their own leisure by wandering from venue to venue. In its first year, however, as it's a standalone showcase rather than part of a wider beer week, we're not asking venues to be open every day from lunchtime so do check each participating venue's opening hours.
Adelaide Beer & BBQ Festival organiser Marc Huber says he and his colleagues hope Pint of Origin's SA debut will be the springboard to create a beer week in the city each year.
"With appetite growing in South Australia for good beer, and following the success of last year’s first Adelaide Beer and BBQ Festival, we wanted to give South Australian drinkers the chance to try beers they may have never tried or seen in SA before," he says. "We also wanted to involve local venues that supported the craft beer industry.
"PoO was the logical choice and a partnership we hope will be the springboard in transforming Adelaide and its surrounds, with the support of the local community and venues, into an Australian destination for lovers of beer, cider and good food during the first couple of weeks in July."
It's a big week for us in Adelaide as, on the Friday, we're brewing a beer with the Wheaty Brewing Corps and three of our Crafty Cabal members (we're just waiting for the third to confirm they can attend before announcing the winners). We're then hosting a couple of seminars at the Adelaide Beer & BBQ Festival on Saturday, where you'll also be able to sample beers from The Crafty Pint Container Bar after we helped the organisers source some sweet beers from some of our favourite local brewers.
We'll return to Adelaide some time in August for the launch of the Wheaty collab brew, which will also be the occasion of our SA Crafty Cabal Launch Party. For those already signed up as supporters, we'll announce the winners of the all session double passes to the Adelaide Beer & BBQ Festival at the end of this week.
So, if you're a beer lover living in or near Adelaide and want to get in from the start, check out the first Pint of Origin SA lineup here. If you're planning to take part, don't forget to tag your activities #PoOSA16.
And if you're in New South Wales, we'll be bringing Pint of Origin to Sydney Craft Beer Week in October too.
