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Brewing Traditional Beers In The High Country featuring King River Brewing
In the 14-plus years we've been running The Crafty Pint, we can't recall a year in which there have been so many Oktoberfest-themed events taking place at breweries, pubs and bars across the country. At the same time, we've been witnessing a revival in interest in classic beer styles and figured the time was ripe to invite a brewer who loves nothing more than recreating such beers – and who hopes to turn his Oktoberfest-inspired event into the next major High Country beer festival – onto The Crafty Pint Podcast.
Nathan and Brianna Munt founded King River Brewing on the latter's parents' property in the heart of the idyllic King Valley in 2016. It was the culmination – or a least the biggest leap forward – of a beer journey that had started the previous decade.
Already someone with a passion for food and wine, it was Belgian beers – both classics such as Chimay Blue and Duvel and those from Canadian brewery Unibroue – that awakened an interest in beer that was to change his life. Initially, after a rather less-than-successful early batch of home brew, this saw Nathan fill their garage in Melbourne with more and more brewing kit before they took the decision to build a brewery in the High Country, and for Nathan to swap banking for brewing.
Given the nature of the beers that led him down this path, he launched King River with classic styles not commonly seen in Australia – at least in 2016 by which point all things hoppy and pale were leading craft beer's charge. Among his opening offering was an Altbier, a Kolsch and a Belgian tripel called Waiting For Godot, the origins of which he explains in our chat.
Despite consumer demand favouring more contemporary styles – his top three sellers at time of writing are a pale ale (which he finally relented and brewed five years after launching), a mid-strength lager, and a red IPA – Nathan and the team stuck to their guns and have continued to brew beers mostly of a traditional Belgian and German bent. King River's Doppelbock has picked up an Australian International Beer Awards trophy, the "voluptuous" Adambier they released earlier in 2024 is a double gold medalist, while we're pretty sure if you opened his veins, kolsch would pour out (but only if made with the right yeast).
So, in the midst of the scores of Oktoberfest events running across the country, we invited Nathan onto the show to talk about his passion for such beers, the bloody-mindedness that has gone into continuing to brew them, and the rewards that have come from doing so. He also discusses life as a small regional brewer – one that's part of the pioneering High Country Brewery Trail, the importance of taprooms, his love of pairing beer and food, and plenty more.
You can find the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube. Feel free to like and subscribe – and if you are enjoying the show, you can rate and review it too to help us reach more people and get them excited about the delights of Aussie craft beer.
And, if you're reading this in time, King River's Oktoberfest-themed event, Muntoberfest – which started out in Nathan's garage long before they opened the brewery – is shaping up to be their biggest yet. It's on October 19 – details here.
Prost!
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.
