On the evening of the 2012 Perth Royal Beer Show Awards Presentation Gala, I was pondering which of Feral’s brews would win the trophy for Best Western Australian Beer. I wasn’t the only one who felt that the result was a foregone conclusion: the brewer sitting next to me suggested a game where we drained our glasses every time the serial winners won a trophy! So imagine our surprise when the night was over and the trophies for Best WA Beer and Best Commercial Beer had both been won by the little known Billabong Brewery, for their Bavarian Wheat.
In this era of resinous Double IPAs, tar-like Imperial Stouts, smoked this and barrel aged that, wheat beers tend to get forgotten by a lot of craft beer drinkers. For me, a cloudy Weissbier expertly poured into its traditional glass, topped with a mountain of soft-serve-like head is beer ecstasy in one of its purest forms.
Billabong’s wheat beer is a Kristalweizen – a pale wheat beer that has been filtered clear, in the same style as the Matilda Bay beer known as Redback Original (the original Redback was a cloudy hefeweizen). Billabong’s Bavarian Wheat is brewed with Australian pale and wheat malts, bittered with Bohemian Saaz hops and fermented with a classic German liquid yeast strain. The yeast is the star ingredient, producing classic wheat beer aromas and flavours of banana, vanilla and clove. I first tried the beer in the week prior to the 2012 PRBS awards and thought it to be every bit as good as the best Bavarian examples of the style.
So dominant was Billabong’s wheat beer at the 2012 PRBS that it won two gold medals (one each for draught and bottled) and four trophies all by itself! There to receive the accolades were the brewery’s owner and managing director, Alan Proctor, and head brewer Rob Murphy. Both men are humble about the brewery’s success, asserting that keeping their beer to a consistently high standard is foremost and that any awards or recognition are a nice bonus.
Proctor started Billabong in 1993 as Western Australia’s first brew-on-premise (BOP) operation. Today, Billabong is based in Myaree and still offers enthusiasts the opportunity to make their own beer on professional equipment at a fraction of the cost of commercial beer. Customers simply select a recipe from over 120 beer styles, follow the simple instructions and turn up two weeks (or more) later with clean bottles to package their beer. It’s a great introduction to brewing and something I wish I had done – to get a better understanding of the process – before I started home brewing. Perhaps a couple of drain-pour brews could have been avoided!
In 2006, Proctor made the move to diversify his business, releasing a range of commercial beers under the Billabong name. The brewery currently produces a Pilsner, NSA (American Pale made with Nelson Sauvin hops), Porter, Dark Wheat and the award-winning Bavarian Wheat. In addition to their regular beer range, Billabong also makes three gluten-free beers: a Blonde, Ginger Ale and Australia’s Pale Ale.
At a similar time to when Billabong were going for their commercial licence, the brewery began producing gluten-free beers. The decision to do this was based on requests made by customers with coeliac disease who wanted a beer that they could drink. Barley and wheat contain gluten, so Billabong utilise grains such as sorghum, buckwheat, millet amaranth and rice in their gluten free brews. Clearly the decision to listen to their customers was a smart one – today the gluten free beers account for 60 per cent of Billabong’s total sales.
They also have their own Brewery Bar in the country town of York. The Imperial Hotel is the only venue where you can try the full range of Billabong’s beers, as well as Percival Proctor – Billabong’s malty 4.5 per cent ABV English Pale Ale which is available only in York.
In 2011, Billabong underwent a major overhaul, installing a new 12 hectolitre, three vessel system with a mash kettle, mash lauter and hot liquor tank. Since then the the quality and consistency of the brewery’s beers have noticeably improved, culminating in their awards success in 2012. With entries for the 2013 PRBS soon to close, it will be interesting to see if Billabong can back up their win with another strong performance.
Follow the author of this article – himself an award-winning homebrewer – via his BeerHatMan Twitter feed.
Entries are currently open for the 2013 Perth Royal Beer Show. The winners will be announced in November.
