News & Feature Stories
Something For Everyone
“This is my fifth showcase,” says one guy, eagerly clutching the last of his tasting tickets and eyeing up his next sample. “It’s the first time I’ve been to one of these but I’m already a…
Show Us Your Hops!
Across the southern states, hop farmers, commercial brewers, their friends and home brewers have been busy picking this year’s harvest of hops in the past week or two, many of which will go into specialty,…
Win Out West
Entries are open for the 5th Annual Royal Perth Show, with both commercial and amateur brewers encouraged to take part. Last year, 250 beers were submitted – including 86 from home brewers –…
Critic's Choice: Best Beers
The hoo hah caused by the last best Aussie beer poll has just about subsided, so it must be time to start another one, don’t you think? Set to spark debate and get palates excited in equal measure…
Crafty Folk: Snag, Beer and Bubble Fest
Much as we’d like to, it’s simply not possible for The Crafty Pint to be everywhere all of the time. What’s more, we’ve always been keen to get as many beer lovers involved in what…
Australia's Growler Filling Stations
View a state by state list of Australian breweries, bottleshops and bars where you can get your growler, squealer or CANimal filled with fresh beer.
The Biggest Showcase Yet
Like everything else associated with Australian craft beer in 2011 – brewhouses, beers, sales, The Crafty Pint’s waistline – the Fed Square Victorian Microbreweries Showcase is growing…
Back With A Growl
The Great Aussie Growler Shortage of 2010/11 is over! Yes, the days when possessors of the two-litre vessels had to practice ninja-like stealth to get their refills done for fear of being ambushed by rabid…
The Yankee Monk
A great big beery slice of America is taking over a little corner of Australia next month. Freo’s Monk Brewery & Kitchen has released details of its long-heralded USA Craft Beer Week – and it’s looking…
Craft Beer For Brisbane
Elton John once regaled us with the Circle of Life. So how about the Circle of Beer? Just a couple of weeks after Brisbane saw the craft beer offerings at one bar severely reduced, another venue pops up…
Get more Crafty!
Sign up to our newsletters and get the latest craft beer news delivered free to your inbox. Choose from our Friday Roundup of the week, the quick-read, social feed-like Crafty Cuppa – or both!
Crafty Hits The Road
Today, we’re delighted to welcome the first non-Victorian listings onto The Crafty Pint. Having launched with purely Victorian venues just six months ago, it soon became clear that we couldn’t delay…
Blog of the Month: Here For The Hops
As we prepare to add the first non-Victorian brewery and bar listings to The Crafty Pint this week, we figured it was time to invite our first interstate blogger on board too. Here For The Hops documents…
Meet The Thorny Goat
The milestones keep on coming for Aussie craft beer, the latest being the first international collaboration by a local brewery. As we revealed here a couple of weeks back, Mountain Goat had arranged to…
Crafty Films: GABS Uncut
Last week’s roundup of the Great Australian Beer SpecTAPular brought you snippets from interviews we carried out with a number of brewers and punters at the St Kilda event. Yet it only seemed fair…
Beer Angels
We’ve always held an appreciation for beer angels, those mystery creatures who watch out for those who’ve had one too many and guide them miraculously back home at the end of the night (even…
Good Beer Week
For a few years now, there’s been a feeling that the craft beer industry has been gaining traction in Australia. But as we approached the end of 2010, there was more than just a buzz surrounding…
Crafty Films: The Great Australian Beer SpecTAPular
Apparently, a picture says a thousand words, so could anything have been more appropriate for the Crafty Pint’s first venture into the world of the moving picture than a film shot at the inaugural…
Crafty Goes Filming
When we came up with the idea for The Crafty Pint, the ultimate aim was the promotion of Australian craft beer in all its many forms. Part of achieving that aim has been to provide a means of bringing…
The Emperor's New Brews
They don’t mess about at Murray’s. If they can ratchet up the flavour another notch or three they will, whether creating one of the best lower alcohol beers to come out of Australia in the…
Feral's UK Takeover
You may already be aware that at some point in the coming months WA’s Feral Brewing will be handed the keys to The Local Taphouses, taking over all 20 taps with its beers. But it seems that taking…
New Brewer At Tooborac
It’s all change at Tooborac Hotel & Brewery, with new brewer Chris Haren making the step from passionate home brewer to professional. James and Val Carlin, owners of the beautiful bluestone hotel…
The Tipping Point For Taps?
With craft beer bucking the overall trend of falling beer sales in Australia and gaining traction in more and more corners of the country, there’s been much talk recently of the industry reaching…
Calling All Beer Bloggers & Writers
As those of you who frequent the interwebs and read the weekly Crafty newsletter may have ascertained, there is in existence a body going by the rather grandiose name of the Australian Beer Writers Guild.…
Truly SpecTAPular
They came. They saw. They concurred: the inaugural Great Australian Beer SpecTAPular was a soaraway success. The biggest event of its kind held at The Local Taphouses had a queue of 65 people waiting outside…
Calling All Hop Heads
Dry-hopped, wet-hopped, late-hopped, mash-hopped. However beer can be hopped, it’s happening for the third running of the Paddy’s Brewery beer festival. The brewery in Sydney’s west has brought this…
When Worlds Collide
It never rains, but it pours. Yesterday, we had a story about Australia’s first two collaborative brews in Epicure – both to be tapped at GABS on Saturday. And today, we can reveal that the…
The Great Beer Debate
In The Crafty Pint’s short life, we’ve noticed that people like a bit of debate when it comes to beer. Whether it’s just arguing over who makes the best, what is or isn’t craft…
Hobart's Holy Water
We’ve all been to pubs we really like. Often we’ll go back to them. Sometimes we’ll tell our friends to go there too. At a push, we might even write something nice about them for strangers to find.…
Aussie Beer Geek Heaven
The final lineup for next week’s Great Australian Beer SpecTAPular has been announced. And it has to be the most outrageous collection of Aussie-brewed beers ever to appear in the same place at one…
The Interstate Beer Off
Living in Melbourne, it’s easy to believe craft beer’s making huge inroads into the Aussie beer drinking market. But, while it’s an industry that’s growing fast as the major beer…
H100: Beer's The Winner
Well, what a palaver! A light-hearted poll to get people talking about craft beer turns into a spiky bun fight. Who’d have thunk it? While the debate continues elsewhere on this site, with comments ranging…
The Hottest 100 Revealed
Well I never. WTF! Knock me down with a feather. And other assorted idioms. Who saw that coming? That being the news that Little Creatures Pale Ale has been usurped at the top of The Local Taphouse’s…
Hottest 100 Aussie Craft Beers 2010: The Full Rundown
You’ve seen the top ten, so what about the rest? Here they are from one to 100. You’ll have to agree it’s a pretty colourful selection and, as a snapshot of where the Aussie beer market is today,…
Hopinators Hit Hobart!
A man walks into a bar. And spots a great big towering Hopinator. In Hobart. Crammed with hops and malt. On the bar. For $4.50 a pot. Seriously, who needs a punchline in a situation like that? Not The…
The Rainbow Reborn
Just over a month after the King brothers waved goodbye to the much-loved Lambs Go Bar, their new pub, Fitzroy’s historic Rainbow Hotel, has reopened its doors following extensive renovations. Tucked…
The Latest Flood Appeals
The ongoing efforts to help Queenslanders recover from the floods continue to attract support from the Aussie beer industry. After last week’s fundraising drives from the likes of Stone & Wood…
Happy. Happier. Happiest.
If you live in Melbourne, like going to pubs and have an eye for a bargain, chances are you’ll be aware of The Happiest Hour, a website set up by a pair of students in 2004 with the intention of…
Moovin' On Up
They already have the sexiest beer bottles in the land and produce some exquisite beers with which to fill them – and now Moo Brew has opened a rather splendid bar in which visitors to Tasmania can sample…
H100 Poll Is Closed!
In, ooh, approximately 13 hours and 34 minutes from the posting of this update, voting for the 2010 Hottest 100 Aussie Craft Beers will close, leaving the staff at The Local Taphouse with the joyous task…
H100: Behind The Pale
Tick tock. Tick tock. In the world of Aussie craft beer, we’re almost at the point where Bruce Willis (or Leslie Nielsen, depending on your personal preference) bursts into a small room in the basement…
H100: The Hightail Tale
As the deadline for voting in this year’s Hottest 100 Aussie Craft Beers draws ever closer, we’ve just got time for a look at the stories behind a couple more of the beers that have proved extremely…
Flood Relief Appeal Roundup
As the full scale of the floods in Queensland and Northern New South Wales becomes apparent, a number of fundraising drives have been kickstarted throughout the Australian beer industry. We’re going…
Bruthen = Brewthen
It seems the title “Victoria’s newest brewery” is becoming ever more hotly contested. On Monday, we ran a story about Forrest Brewery in the state’s west, which is just days away…
Beer Under The Stars
Given the weather currently battering the East Coast, the chances of enjoying beer in the great outdoors might seem somewhat limited. But if you’re in Sydney and find a gap in the clouds, the roof…
Brew Forrest, Brew!
Before the month is out, the first beer brewed at Victoria’s newest microbrewery will be poured as the patience of brother and sister team Matt and Sharon Bradshaw finally pays off. More than eight…
Aussie's Top Craft Beers
Voting for The Local Taphouse’s third annual Hottest 100 Aussie Craft Beers closes in just over a week, making it the perfect opportunity to look back at some of the beers that have proved popular with…
Brew & A: Otway Estate
Kickstarting Crafty’s Q&As for 2011 are the brewers responsible for one of the widest ranges of beer in Australia. Luke and recent recruit Hendo knock out Prickly Moses, Otway Organic and Otway Estate…
New Year, New Beer
While most of us were kicking back over the festive period, two of Australia’s most established and highly-regarded craft brewers were beavering away on a new brew. It’s a brew with a difference…
Quick Christmas Roundup
It’s been a little quiet on the Crafty front this week as Christmas approaches, so a quick heads up on a few happenings. First up, Biero’s holding its Christmas party on the 23rd, where the…
Our Man In: America II
On-road Goat Tom Delmont spent a month touring some of America’s finest craft breweries earlier in the year. His first article for The Crafty Pint compared the scenes here and there. Today, he reveals…
