Ahead of the 2023 High Country Hop festival in Beechworth, Bridge Road Brewers put on a Technical Symposium sponsored by the Independent Brewers Association.
The event featured a world-class lineup of speakers, panels and presentations, and drew more than 100 people to the Victorian High Country from the beer industry across Australia and further afield. The day went well beyond hops to cover topics such as sustainability and succeeding as a small independent producer, and at times went outside the world of beer too, while Firestone Walker brewmaster Matt Brynildson (pictured above) flew in to give a keynote presentation on behalf of the Hop Quality Group.
The Crafty Pint team MC'd and recorded the event and you can listen to each of the panels and presentations below. Thanks again to the Bridge Road team for inviting us to be part of such a great event, one they hope to build into an essential fixture on the beer calendar with a growing reach beyond Australia.
View on Zencastr
Independent Brewers Association – State of the Industry
Hop Products Australia – The Past, Present & Future Of Aussie Hops
Matt Brynildson – Hop Quality and Optimising Hop Impact – A Field to Glass Approach
The Crafty Pint, Ryfield Hops, Bluestone Yeast, Organically Greenwood and Woodstock Flour – Establishing Brand and Keeping Your Head Above Water
Fermentis, NZ Hops and Bintani – Effects of Yeast Selection on NZ Hops Variety Superdelic
Pink Boots Society – Got Pink Boots?
Birchal – Standing Out From The Crowd, Funding Wise
Topher Boehm, Bruce Maynard, Matt Brynildson, Barry Morey and Ash Truscott – Sustainable, Much?
James Smith launched The Crafty Pint in 2010, two years after moving to Australia from the UK. He was taken to Mountain Goat within weeks of landing in Melbourne, joined their indoor cricket team, and is still navigating the rabbit hole that is craft beer to this day.
The beers that turned you on to good beer:
- Watching pints of McEwan's 80 Shilling settle when visiting family in Edinburgh.
- Pints of flat Bass from the jug at the Cap & Stocking in Kegworth.
- A first Paulaner Hefeweizen when working in Munich in 1998: “This smells of bananas!”
- Castle Rock Harvest Pale – how could a 3.8 percent ABV beer be so good? (It turns out it was an early example of the three Cs – Cascade, Centennial and Columbus – in an English bitter).
- Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA poured through hops at the Sunset Grill in Cambridge, MA, in the company of a man who turned out to be the Beer Nut (while we were both covering a double murder case at the time).
- Ordering a Mountain Goat Hightail on my first day as an Aussie resident as it was local and I’d never heard of it; “A dark Australian beer; well I never…”
- Murray’s Icon 2IPA at Beer DeLuxe Fed Square, recommended by a guy I’d not long known who's now the main man at Fixation, served by Mik Halse, now head of sales at Hawkers. How could an Australian beer smell as good as that?!?
You've got three beers to turn someone else on to good beer; what are they and why?
- Any really good, fresh and balanced West Coast style IPA. Punchy hop aromatics are the most obvious way to capture someone's attention and these IPAs, done well, present the key components in beer (if you're sticking to just water, malt, hops and yeast) in harmony yet with the volume turned up.
- Saison Dupont. Arguably a selfish choice here as I bloody love the broad saison style and dearly hope it will finally take hold in Australia one day. Given a choice, I'd probably crack one enlivened with Brettanomyces like Molly Rose Matilde for myself but, when it comes to turning on someone new, you've got to go with the classic.
- Rodenbach Caractère Rouge. Because if you don't enjoy or can't appreciate this beer, I'll never win you over. And because Filip, the fruit and wood specialist at Rodenbach that designed it, is a beautiful human.
The last beer you enjoyed:
Fixation IPA at The Incubator.
Three things that represent you:
- The Soft Bulletin by The Flaming Lips
- Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
- Golden Plains
NB All articles written by James in the first eight years of the site appear as By Crafty Pint. Today, that's used for collaborative efforts by the wider team.
