In October, Paul and Natasha Holgate will mark a quarter century of brewing, a remarkable feat achieved by very few indie brewers in the modern era.
As part of their milestone celebrations, they set out to release 25 Beers for 25 Years: 25 limited releases throughout 2024 made up of longstanding favourites, new recipes, and collabs with many of their former brewers who now work, or run, other breweries.
Now they're inviting their fans to get involved by choosing one of their past favourites in a People's Choice vote run in partnership with The Crafty Pint. The (very) long list of past recipes not already featuring in the 25 Years of Beers series has been whittled down to a shortlist of fourteen – and now it's up to you to vote for the beer to be brought back to life.
Not only will the most popular beer return and be released on tap and in cans, but there's a sweet prize up for grabs for one participant who votes for the winning beer. The winner and a friend will be invited to Holgate's brewery in Woodend for a brew day at an agreed date before March 31, 2025. Both will be provided with lunch and beers, a merch pack, and a brewery tour and brewing experience*.
Looking ahead to the anniversary, brewery co-founder Paul Holgate said it was only last year that the enormity of the milestone dawned on him and wife Tash.
"It was a bit of a slap in the face," he says. "We hadn't really thought about it, but 25 seems like a big number!
"It's made us really reflect on what we've achieved; we're very proud of it and all the people that have been part of the business.
"It's been an enormous journey, with all the hacks we've had to do along the way."
As for setting out on a mission to put out 25 limited releases in 12 months – significantly more than they've ever done in the past, and at a time when most breweries have reined in their limited release schedules – thankfully that has proved to be fun too.
"As soon as [head brewer] Chris [Brady] suggested it, about 30 seconds later he said, 'I think I've shot myself in the foot there.' But we started planning in the second half of last year so we were on top of branding and styles and naming and they've all been really well received.
"It's been a good exercise to engage with consumers; we'll look to see which ones have really hit the spot and look to do a larger release next year."
Of those releases so far, regular annual releases Millennium Falcon and Campfire Red IPA have proven to be winners, as have Paddington Marmalade English IPA, the German Dunkel, NZ hazy IPA and mango lassi beer.
"Reengaging with some of our former employees has been fun. We had a great day with Jeremy [Halse] and [former Holgate brewer] Nick [Rhodes] from White Rabbit, doing a blend with their barrels and some of ours and swapping stories."
The People's Choice is another chance for them to connect with drinkers too: both longstanding Holgate fans who will be familiar with many of the old beers put up for this vote, and those who are newer to the brand.
"It's a bit of fun to engage with the consumers that have made the business and made the industry by buying these beers," Paul says.
At which point, it's over to you, the consumers, to choose which of the 14 beers below will help complete their 25 Years of Beers lineup! Voting closes August 6!
Cast Your Votes!
* Travel to Victoria / Woodend not included. The brew day will be midweek, upon arrangement between the winner and the team at Holgate.
TERMS & CONDITIONS
- By entering this competition, each entrant agrees to be bound by these terms and conditions.
- By entering, each entrant grants Holgate Brewhouse and The Crafty Pint to use their submitted ‘25 words or less’ copy, or to contact them, for marketing purposes.
- The winning ‘People’s Choice’ beer will receive the most public votes via the above entry form.
- The Brew Day winner will have voted for the winning beer, and will then be selected by a panel from both Holgate Brewhouse and The Crafty Pint, based on their ‘25 words or less’ entry.
- To claim their prize, the Brew Day winner will be required to pay for their own travel to Holgate Brewhouse in Woodend.
- The Brew Day prize includes:
- A Brew Day experience for two people
- Lunch and beer for two people in the Holgate Taproom
- A guided beer tasting
- A brewery tour
- A Holgate merch pack
- The Brew Day prize is non-refundable and cannot be redeemed for cash.
- The Brew Day date and time will be arranged between the winner and Holgate Brewhouse on a week day between the prize announcement date and 31 March 2025.
- The Brew Day winner agrees for photos and videos of the experience to be posted on social media.
- If the first selected winner does not reply to email correspondence from Holgate Brewhouse within three days, Holgate will then contact another winner.
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.
