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The Indies 2024 & Life As An Indie Brewer
For the third episode of The Crafty Pint Podcast, we hit the road, travelling to Perth with lights, tripods, camera and various mics in tow. We were there for a number of events – one with FOUND., who will feature on a future show, plus the WA Beer & Brewing Conference and the 2024 Indies – and figured it was a great opportunity to focus an episode on one of the highlights of the beer calendar.
Thankfully, given how early we are in our podcasting adventures, mishaps were minimal. I did forget to switch on the lights for one recording (the sun shining over the Scarborough coastline did the trick) and we realised one microphone was facing the wrong way early enough in another that we could restart without too much pain.
Better still, after delivering the raw footage and audio to our producer, he's still with us and hasn't charged penalty rates.
So, what's in store this week, when we were joined by KAIJU! Beer co-founder and new Independent Brewers Association (IBA) chair Callum Reeves?
Reflections on the results of the IBA's first annual awards to be held in WA and some of the announcements made at the conference earlier in the day. Life as an indie brewer in 2024, including the impact of bi-annual excise tax hikes. What brewers, beer lovers and others in the beer community can do to push for changes that will help the industry survive these tough times. Interviews with some of the Indies winners on the night. What's happening at KAIJU! in their second decade. And much more besides.
You can find the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube. And, if you've not checked it out already, you might like to go back to our chat with Lindsay Astarita given she went from talking to us about running quality programs at breweries and beer judging to collecting three trophies for Stomping Ground.
Apologies if we're a little croaky in the main interview – it was recorded the morning after the awards, after all. That said, we were in far better condition than Mondo...
We're keen to work with partners looking to reach new audiences and achieve their objectives in fun and creative ways. So, if you'd like to be part of the action, get in touch.
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.
