Nobody needs reminding that there's plenty of gloominess around the beer world right now – and much of the rest of the world, for that matter. But there's plenty of great stuff happening in and around beer too, from new openings to endeavours to move the world in a more sustainable direction.
Here at The Crafty Pint, we're always looking to share the stories of people achieving amazing things in beer or those businesses embracing new opportunities even in these tough times – even if traffic to the site suggests people are so innately morbid they're attracted to negative tales like moths to a flame.
Such human behaviour explains why watching TV news can be such a depressing experience; as the saying goes: "bad news sells". But we refuse to be beaten down. We're having plenty of conversations of an upbeat nature with people throughout the beer industry. And we're doing our little bit to spread some joy too.
With Pint of Origin, which by all accounts is enjoying its most successful year yet in 2024, we've been able to do that in two ways: giving brewers, venue teams and beer lovers a reason to head out to celebrate great beer together; and injecting a good news story into the TV news at the same time.
As the opening weekend kicked off, we were lucky enough to land a bunch of slots on the major networks: hanging out with Allan Raskall at The Royston and Cherry Tree; joining the hosts of Weekend Sunrise from The Lincoln on Saturday morning; showing off Heartbreaker's beerified version of curling on 7 News; and scoring a "Must Do" slot on 10.
You can check out a few of those clips below. And, more importantly, if you're reading this before May 19, you can still check out the festival itself. The 21 venues still have heaps of amazing beers to tap, plus brewery showcases, feasts that include a lunch with Two Metre Tall's Ashley Huntington and a BBQ dinner featuring Parish beers from the States, an all-day dessert bar courtesy of One Drop, sours, trivia, bar shouts, meet the brewers, a live podcast streaming in from Japan, collabs and way more besides.
That also means there's heaps of time to grab a #PoO24 Passport (if you haven't already) so you can collect stamps on the 2024 Mini-Crawls that qualify you for the prize draws at the end of the festival featuring prizes from Brompton, Bogs, Beervana, Thirsty Merchants and The Crafty Cabal. So, gather your mates, pick the venues that tickle your fancy, and get ready to travel the world of beer at 21 great Melbourne venues before it's all done for another year!
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.
