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Year In Beer 2024: Tasmania
We move past the halfway mark in our Year In Beer 2024 series with this jaunt across the Bass Strait to Tasmania. Thanks to all the guests who've given up their time at this crazy time of the year to share their insights with us on the show.
If you want to play catch-up, you can find all of the articles and podcast episodes in the series here.
We enter the second half of our Year In Beer 2024 series by heading across the Bass Strait to find out what's been happening in Tasmania.
Unlike much of the country, the beer industry in the southern state has survived the year relatively unscathed. And just like much of the country, it's also seen the renewed interest in lager styles we've been writing about for a while now continue to grow.
Joining hosts James and Will first is Matt Fielding, one half of the Science Made Beerable team; we had hoped to chat to the not-for-profit's co-founder Kelsey Picard too, but Kelsey was back home in New Zealand, leaving Matt to hold the fort, which he did with aplomb.
With Matt based in Hobart, we took a trip north to catch up with our second guest, Scott Seymour. We first crossed paths with Scott in Bendigo when he was one of the early driving forces behind Bendigo Beer's efforts to encourage the regional city to embrace craft beer.
He's since moved to Tassie after falling in love with the island on a family holiday, going on to open a trio of beer businesses in the north of the state: Penguin Beer Co, Island State Brewing, and The Pier.
As well as filling us in on how 2024 has been for them and their hopes and plans for 2025, they reflect on the beer scene across the state, suggesting some top beer spots for visitors to the state, highlighting a couple of newcomers to the scene, heaping praise upon Spotty Dog Brewers and their enviable location, and doffing a cap to 20 years of Two Metre Tall.
The chat with Matt starts just after the 90 second mark before we join Scott on 13 minutes.
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The Crafty Pint's 2024 Year In Beer series is proudly presented by Mogwai Labs, leaders in liquid yeast solutions. For the perfect pitch every time, visit mogwailabs.com.au.
To find out more about supporting the show or otherwise partnering with The Crafty Pint, contact craig@craftypint.com.
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.
