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Fighting For Indie Beer
“I think the thing that’s really important for consumers and the industry writ large to know is how many forces are currently at play that are going to make being a small brewer more challenging.
“We call this the death by a thousand cuts.”
If 2023 was a rough year for the indie beer world, 2024 has been worse – brutal doesn’t seem too harsh a term to describe the conditions faced by many in the industry. And those challenges have also been faced by the Independent Brewers Association (IBA), the body representing Australia’s indie brewers.
In the face of a major drop in income, they’ve been forced to tighten their belt in terms of what they’ve been able to offer. And, as with many businesses in beer and hospo, they've reduced the size of their team too. At the same time, faced with such challenges, they’ve kept fighting the fight on as many fronts as they can – “we’re small but scrappy” is how they put it.
So, before we switch to a series of state by state by territory podcast episodes reflecting on the year in beer, we invited IBA CEO Kylie Lethbridge and head of industry development Sabrina Kunz to join us on the show.
As you can imagine with the indie beer world dealing with battles on so many fronts, it’s a seriously wide-ranging conversation. We start by looking back on a year in which VAs, closures and business restructuring have dominated many of the headlines but during which there have also been new arrivals, expansions and growth.
We discuss the major uptick in honest, respectful coverage of the beer world by mainstream media, the challenges and opportunities when it comes to state and federal governments, building long-term relationships and partnerships around the country, the biggest issues on the table for 2025, and how to build consumer awareness and support for the industry.
The chat with Kylie and Sabrina kicks off a little before the eight minute mark.
Prior to that there's just the briefest of intros as we had to record this week's preamble early. That was because we were hitting the road for SA before dawn on Wednesday for a sold-out event at The Wheaty, as well as a bunch of podcast recordings you'll get to enjoy over the coming weeks and months.
We discussed the return of one of craft beer's key figures, Phil Sexton, to brewing alongside son Harry with the launch of Keeper Brewing at the former home of Temple, as well as our upcoming event with Molly Rose.
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Cheers!
Thanks to this week's show sponsors FOBOH and The High Country Hop. 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.
