The first Craft Beer Rising is a wrap. And, if the feedback we’ve received directly and the noise on social media at the weekend is anything to go by, it seems the idea was embraced far and wide. We hope you had a great time celebrating our local craft beer scene, wherever and however you did that. Certainly, from the handful of events and venues we managed to pop into, people were getting into the spirit of things and the brewers involved were feeling our collective love.
Without a doubt, it will become an annual affair. Soon, we’ll start thinking about 2015 and how we can raise the profile of Aussie beer even more. Hopefully, by that stage, national media might start paying attention to such grassroots movements rather than only offering airtime and print columns to faux beer experts concocted by the marketing departments of the multinational brewing companies…
We’ll be catching up with the people behind the Craft Beer Rising festival in London – something we only discovered existed after plans were well underway for our national day in Australia. A positive, mutually beneficial way forward will surely be easy to agree. In the meantime, if anyone has any ideas on where we could take this concept in the future, feel free to add your comments below or email us at crafty@craftypint.com.
If anyone has any photos from the day they like to share with us, please also send them to that email address. As for the photos submitted for our Instagram competition, we decided to award three winners. They are not all necessarily based on the quality of the photos, but in some cases on the celebration that went with them.
We’ll be sending a selection of beers up to Brisbane to Darren Magin, of 250 Beers, who has been a great supporter of the Craft Beer Rising concept from day one but owns his prize for this photo of the following day at the Magin household (and in recognition of the fact that he was locked out of his own house on Saturday after celebrating at many of the city’s venues). Roast Beef Rising (above left) indeedâ¦
There are also beers in order for Scott Thomson, a.k.a. Beardface, who took up our challenge of trying to spread the crafty word to newcomers and, throughout a day that started at Boatrocker and took in various other CBR venues, traversed Melbourne armed with Moon Dog Love Tap. Under the “Father Craftmas” banner, he attempted to win over newcomers, finding success with various members of the public but also being ejected from the Quarry Hotel after trying to give one to the bar manager. Great work!
And, finally, we will be sending a t-shirt and beers (the previous two already have t-shirts) to the man behind “mattteachingbeernerd”, who appears to have joined Instagram for the day and used Craft Beer Rising for a little bit of Ebenezer Scrooge action. In other words, via three beers, he explored his Australian craft beer journey past, present and future. Going from Little Creatures Pale Ale via Monster Mash Hopped Out Red and ending up with Riverside Brewing 77 IPA, he finished with the words:
“Now the future. Riverside 77, brilliant and as good as anything the world has to offer. Thank you @craftypint for providing one with the opportunity to reminisce and realise how great this journey has been. It’s only the start of a lifelong adventure.”
And if that, like the wonderful messages posted by the likes of The Scratch and the Woodlands Hotel on Facebook as Craft Beer Rising was kicking off, doesn’t encapsulate what the day was all about, nothing does.
Here’s to another great one in 2015.
Big Beer Bashes
We can’t leave this without a quick mention for the inaugural Big Beer Bashes. This event was conceived by the creative minds at The Local Taphouse as a fun and family-friendly way to mark the day. Two teams rocked up at St Kilda Primary School under cloudy skies on Saturday afternoon. The Hop Hounds represented the venue, while we were asked to form a team from the beer world – brewers and beer writers – under the Maestros of Malt moniker, with our call taken up by players from Mountain Goat, Prickly Moses, Red Duck, Tooborac, The Royston, Ale of a Time, From Beer to Eternity and the Beer Diva.
Mountain Goat supplied discounted cans of Summer Ale, while a local butcher donated some high quality snags. Off the pitch, $800 was raised for the school through sales of said beers and snags, while on the pitch the beer world team, captained by Glenn Harrison – formerly of Hargreaves Hill and now head brewer at Temple, earned the urn: a mini keg filled with burnt hops and malt. They did so after posting a huge total of 184 in their 20 overs, a total that – despite some epic hitting late on in the innings – the Hop Hounds were unable to overhaul, despite umpire-cum-commentator Prof Pilsner’s attempts to level the playing field.
The match will return in 2015, with the organisers hoping it can become a fun-for-all-the-family event inspired by the likes of the Community Cup. Thanks to all those organised it and all those who played and came down to watch. Here’s a few snaps from the day:
