The polling is long closed, the votes counted, and of the 1,877 beers to receive votes from the 400-plus breweries that entered the GABS Hottest 100 of 2023, Mountain Culture Status Quo Pale Ale has landed in top spot for a second year running.
The Blue Mountains-based brewing company debuted in top spot with the same beer in 2022, and have landed their sequel. They ended up with four beers in total in the Hottest 100.
Completing the top three are Balter XPA and BentSpoke's Crankshaft, both of them past winners. As for the fortunes of other past winners, Stone & Wood's Pacific Ale dropped four places to eight, Little Creatures Pale Ale is back up nine places to 13 after at one point dropping into the 60s, with Feral's Hop Hog and Vale Ale no longer appearing in the top 100.
Once again, the poll received a record number of votes, with 28 of the top 100 beers either new or returning entries. The highest ranked new entry* and the biggest climber is Moffat Beach’s Passenger Pale Ale, up 295 to 25 as the Sunshine Coast brewery made their first appearances in the Hottest 100.
READ OUR ANALYSIS HERE
The best-performing breweries were Balter and Coopers – both with five beers in the top 100; Capital and Mountain Culture each landed four in the 2023 list. Bridge Road Brewers' flagship Beechworth Pale Ale maintains its run as the only indie beer to appear in every poll since it started in 2008, back into the top five.
Meanwhile, New South Wales again pipped Queensland with the most beers in the Hottest 100: 27, the same as last year. The Sunshine Coast claims local bragging rights in Queensland too, with 11 beers from six breweries to seven from two on the Gold Coast, and six from four in Brisbane.
GABS managing director Mike Bray described the number of breweries and beers to receive votes as “fantastic”, telling The Crafty Pint: “The campaigning was really creative and fun – that was the key thing.
“Breweries didn’t have to have big budgets: you could go and buy a costume at a local costume store and just do something on a phone and have a bit of fun.
“What is certainly coming through is those younger, trending breweries, the likes of Range and One Drop – breweries that have just nudged into the poll over the years – are going deeper and deeper, and that’s fantastic to see.
“There are 63 breweries in the list – it’s far and wide and indicative of where the market is. And there are 28 beers rotating in the list, so around a third rotating, which is really good, so all in all we’re pretty happy.”
You can read The Crafty Pint’s analysis of this year’s top 100 here and keep an eye out for more results – including the next 100 and top 100 new and indie beers – to be revealed by the GABS team here.
The Hottest 100 Aussie Craft Beers
1. Mountain Culture Status Quo Pale – NSW
2. Balter Brewing XPA – QLD
3. BentSpoke Brewing Crankshaft IPA – ACT
4. Your Mates Brewing Larry – QLD
5. Bridge Road Brewers Beechworth Pale Ale - VIC
6. Gage Roads Single Fin – WA
7. Coopers Brewery Original Pale Ale – SA
8. Stone & Wood Brewing Pacific Ale – NSW
9. Young Henrys Newtowner – NSW
10. Pirate Life South Coast Pale – SA
11. Philter Brewing XPA – NSW
12. Black Hops Brewing G.O.A.T. – QLD
13. Little Creatures Pale Ale – VIC/WA
14. Beerfarm Royal Haze – WA
15. Capital Brewing Coast Ale – ACT
16. Range Brewing Disco – QLD
17. 4 Pines Brewing Pacific Ale – NSW
18. 10 Toes Brewery Pipeline – QLD
19. Grifter Brewing Pale – NSW
20. Rocky Ridge Brewing Jindong Juicy – WA
21. Coopers Brewery Sparkling Ale – SA
22. Mountain Culture Cult IPA – NSW
23. Balter Brewing Eazy Hazy – QLD
24. Stomping Ground Gipps St Pale – VIC
25. Moffat Beach Brewing Passenger Pale Ale – QLD
26.Mountain Goat GOAT – VIC
27. Better Beer Zero Carb – NSW
28. Blackflag Brewing Rage Juicy Pale – QLD
29. Heads of Noosa Japanese Style Lager – QLD
30. Blackman's Brewery Juicy Banger – VIC
31. Green Beacon Wayfarer – QLD
32. Heaps Normal Quiet XPA – ACT
33. KAIJU! Krush! – VIC
34. CBCo Brewing Pale Ale – VIC/WA
35. Matso's Mango Beer – WA
36. Feral Brewing Biggie Juice – WA
37. Hawkers Beer West Coast IPA – VIC
38. Bright Brewery Alpine Lager – VIC
39, Brick Lane Brewing One Love Pale – VIC
40. One Drop We Jammin' – NSW
41. Mountain Culture Be Kind Rewind – NSW
42. Balter Brewing Hazy – QLD
43. BentSpoke Brewing Barley Griffin – ACT
44. Capital Brewing Capital XPA – ACT
45. Balter Brewing Cerveza – QLD
46. Mountain Culture Summer Pale Ale – NSW
47. James Squire One Fifty Lashes – NSW
48. Your Mates Brewing Co Sally – QLD
49. Gage Roads Brewing Side Track All Day XPA – WA
50. Little Bang Brewing Sun Bear – SA
51. Hop Nation Rattenhund – VIC
52. Hiker Brewing Cloudscapes – QLD
53. Bodriggy Brewing Speccy Juice – VIC
54. Akasha Brewing Super Chill Pacific Ale – NSW
55. Hop Nation J-Juice – VIC
56. Range Brewing Lights + Music – QLD
57. Seeker Brewing Mystic NEIPA – NSW
58. Heads of Noosa Black Japanese Lager – QLD
59. White Rabbit Dark Ale – VIC
60. Bridge Road Brewers Bling IPA – VIC
61. Coopers Brewery Australian Lager – SA
62. Dainton Beer Blood Orange NEIPA – VIC
63. Grifter Brewing Serpents Kiss – NSW
64. Moon Dog Old Mate – VIC
65. Hawke's Brewing Patio Pale – NSW
66. Shout Brewing Mullet Pale Ale – NSW
67. Modus Modus Cerveza – NSW
68. Deeds Brewing Juice Train – VIC
69. Coopers Brewery XPA – SA
70. Kosciuszko Brewing Kosciuszko – NSW
71. Black Hops East Coast Haze – QLD
72. Balter Brewing Captain Sensible – QLD
73. 4 Pines Brewing Japanese Lager – QLD
74. Stone & Wood Brewing Hinterland Hazy Pale – NSW
75. BentSpoke Brewing Sprocket – ACT
76. Capital Brewing Hang Loose Juice – ACT
77. Little Creatures Rogers – WA
78. Sunday Road Brewing Cryotherapy – NSW
79. Rocky Ridge Brewing Rock Candy – WA
80. Margaret River Beer Co In The Pines – WA
81. Big Shed Brewing Boozy Fruit – SA
82. Blackflag Brewing Affinity Tropical Pale – QLD
83. Lord Nelson Brewery Three Sheets – NSW
84. Brouhaha Brewery Strawberry Rhubarb Sour – QLD
85. Helios Brewing Co Dionysus Oat Cream DIPA – QLD
86. Banks Brewing Cake Eater – VIC
87. Coopers Brewery Best Extra Stout – SA
88. 4 Pines Brewing Hazy Pale Ale – NSW
89. Fixation Brewing IPA – VIC
90. Little Creatures Little Hazy Lager – VIC/WA
91. Bad Shepherd Brewing Peanut Butter Porter – VIC
92. CBCo Brewing IPA – VIC/WA
93. Yulli's Brews Amanda Mandarin IPA – NSW
94. Stone & Wood Cloud Catcher – NSW
95. Moffat Beach Brewing Moff's Summer Ale – QLD
96. Capital Brewing Trail Pale Ale – ACT
97. Young Henrys Hazy Pale Ale – NSW
98. Wolf of the Willows Wolf PUP – VIC
99. Range Brewing Dripping In Green – Citra – QLD
100. Your Mates Brewing Co Macca – QLD
Read The Crafty Pint's analysis of the 2023 poll here. You can download the H100 poster here.
* The team at Balter has been in touch to point out their Cerveza (45th) is the highest new entry for a beer first released in 2023. At The Crafty Pint, for the purposes of our analysis, we've always measured new as "new to the Hottest 100", which is true for Moffat Beach's Passenger Pale. However, the beer has appeared in the poll – outside the top 100 – in the past.
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.
