Many fun things have come the way of The Crafty Pint since the site was launched: a night on an island in the middle of a croc-infested river; a trip to the States to talk about Aussie beer; beer trivia for 220 people in the Fed Square Atrium; Good Beer Week to name but four. Few compare to the chance to conceive a beer, then help brew it and see it released to the world.
But, as of Saturday just gone, the last of those has come to pass. The Auld Bulgin' Boysterous Bicep, rather amusingly tagged on the decal by Murray’s as “Australia’s first Smoked Belgio Imperial Mussel and Oyster Stout” as if there will now be a rush of them, is pouring at Murray’s two venues and will get its Victorian launch later in the month at The Park, alongside a second brand new beer, the Hell of the North.
Crafty Pint NSW was there for a first taste and says the ten percent ABV beast featuring 600 beasties (200 Port Stephens oysters, 200 blue mussels and 200 green-lipped mussels) is tasting “better” than last year’s competition-winning pilot bash.
All of which is very exciting for us here at Crafty Towers, so we decided to mark the occasion by finally producing the first ever piece of Crafty Pint merchandise and running a little competition too. When the first beer was brewed last year, the story was relayed to an illustrator in Wellington who, two hours later, had come up with the image now found on the beer’s label and decal. And on t-shirts via Red Bubble.
Because we’d love to here what you think of our crazy little beer, we’re offering a t-shirt (in whatever size and colour the winner would like) to the person that comes up with the best review of the beer (whether they find the beer good, bad of indifferent) that’s posted to our Facebook page, tweeted to us @TheCraftyPint or emailed to crafty@craftypint.com. We’ll take entries up until Friday, August 9, to give the beer time to get out across Oz. You must be over 18 to enter and the winner will be judged by the two Crafty Pinters who brewed the beer at Murray’s earlier this year. Our standard competition rules, which you’ll find in the About section, apply.
Thus far, we’ve seen it described as “brutal”, “awesome”. “the best stout I’ve tasted” and “lip smackingly good” with Crafty Pint NSW going so far as saying it’s “like drinking Poseidon’s tears”. We’ve had a first entry into the comp too, from Matt Reed in Cronulla, who made a two and a half hour trek via public transport to sample it with his at Rubber Duckie on Saturday and declared it worth it. He says:
Our first bit of merchandise! Only taken 34 months…
Lovely, charcoal-black beer; thick, dark head. No aroma of mussel at first at all; rich, chocolatey-roast malty flavours dominate; after you’ve been drinking it for a bit the slippery-mouthfeel and umami come through. Goes down really well.
We look forward to hearing what the rest of you think. And if you can’t wait four weeks to find out if you’ve won a t-shirt, you can buy one now here. Who knows, this might even be the inspiration for us to finally sort out some more merch too; if it’s good enough for Bendigo Beer…
Best of luck!
