News & Feature Stories
Local Beer For Local People
Late last year, when compiling the list that would become 150 Great Australian Beers, we put a shout out to any Australian breweries who had packaged product we may never have come across before. One of…
Colonial Can Do It
If you like cheesy word play and canned local beer then you're going to like this article because it's got both in spades. Recently Margaret River's Colonial Brewing welcomed a new member to their brewhouse…
The Pondering Pint: Beer in the Media
Earlier this year, we embarked on a spot of chin-stroking in consideration of the validity of rating beers. Today, we bring The Pondering Pint back and look at the state of craft beer in the Australian…
Who Brews: Black Hops Eggnog Stout?
In the second of our Who Brews...? features offering a quick snapshot of some of the newest brewing companies around the country, we turn our attention to the Gold Coast and a trio of mates who, faced…
More Aussie Craft Beer Goodness
We usually do one of these roundup articles once we've added another nine breweries and venues to our craft beer directories as nine makes for a nice beery montage image. This time around, however, it…
Two Decades of Bootlegging
The other day, a young dad was drinking beer at Bootleg Brewery while his child made full use of the playground. Almost two decades earlier, as a 10-year-old, he had been the kid in the playground while…
Craft Beer Heroes: Miro
Brewers make beer. Without them there would be no beer. Thus it's easy to fall into the trap of focusing on them and them only as the stars of the beer world, especially in the craft beer industry where…
Gourmet Brew
While most of the promotional focus surrounding the Margaret River Gourmet Escape has been on the stellar names they've attracted to WA for this weekend's event, there's a solid showing for the region's brewers too, not least in the form of a brewer-chef hook up.
Who Brews Wolf of the Willows XPA?
Hot on the heels of the relaunch of our once-regular Brew & A feature with Doug from Brookes Beer (who has set the bar pretty damn high for future respondents), it's time to kickstart another regular spot.…
Brew & A: Brookes Beer
For the first Brew & A feature since the relaunch of The Crafty Pint, we head to Bendigo where Doug Brooke talks classical music, megabrewers, getting old and cocaine.
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The Little Brewery That Can
A few days ago, Matt Bebe had a moment. A little over four years ago, he was working as an HR manager. And now here he was packaging cans of IPA bearing his brewery's name – the first Aussie IPA to appear…
Cold Hard Facts?
It would seem that the phrase "craft beer" has been deemed clickbait worthy by editors in the media in the past year. Where once you'd struggle to find any coverage of beer anywhere in the Australian mainstream,…
White Rabbit's On The Hop
Little Creatures' little sibling is to leave its warren in Healesville and move to a new home in Geelong. Lion is to build a new dedicated White Rabbit brewery in one of the currently vacant buildings…
Matilda Bay To Close
Matilda Bay's Port Melbourne home is to close. The decision to cease brewing operations and close the brewery bar at the Bertie Street site was announced to staff on Thursday morning (13/11). Both will…
Getting Reddy For Summer
Back when The Crafty Pint started up four years ago, Scott Wilson-Browne was something of a lone duck in the world of Australian craft beer. Sure, Richard Watkins was having fun in the underbelly of Canberra's…
Bombs Over Bacchus
Next week, the G20 leaders will gather in Brisbane to further advance their plans to hollow out and poison the Earth while concentrating the entire planet's wealth in one person's hands and leaving those…
The Crafty Six: Alternative Melbourne Cup Beers
We all love Melbourne Cup day. Even (or maybe especially) those of us that don’t give a stuff about horses or gambling. Victorians get a public holiday (and usually turn it into two days off, if not…
Crafty Gets Tapped
A few months back, we caught up with a chap who had just launched a new app designed to help beer lovers find out what was on tap at their local venues. It took all of, oh, two minutes for the mind to…
James Halliday Feature: Community Service
Any day now, the latest edition of James Halliday's Wine Companion Magazine will hit shelves across the country. Inside will be a feature article penned by The Crafty Pint's founder looking at the renaissance…
Give Them A Big Hand
When they were formulating the idea that was to become Big Shed Brewing Concern, home brewing mates Craig Basford and Jason Harris always hoped to be able to give fellow home brewers a leg up. Ten…
Beer From The Far Side
In recent years, we've had craft beer arrive in Australia from the usual suspects, such as North America and New Zealand, as well as some less expected places, including all parts of Europe, the Middle…
MO Brewing, No Problems
A three-month-old Sydney brewery has swept the board at the inaugural Craft Beer Awards, taking out four trophies including Champion Australian Craft Beer.
Beer Awards: Perth Royal Beer Show 2014
Mash Brewing continues to follow the golden path through 2014. The Swan Valley-based brewery last night collected the trophies for Best Commercial Brewery, Best West Australian Brewery and Best Ale Draught…
Handing Back The Baton
It's all change at Murray's, with the man who brewed the New South Wales brewery's very first beers when it first launched at the iconic Pub With No Beer returning to take up his old head brewer's role.…
Willie vs The Daleks
Slowly but surely, the dots on the map of Sydney’s Inner West are joining up. In the past couple of years Newtown, Marrickville and Alexandria have all fallen under the spell of the small brewery. Now…
Crafty Pint II: The Sequel
Four years on from its original launch, The Crafty Pint has a new look. It's more evolution than revolution, with Crafty Mk II designed to be more contemporary both in appearance and cross-platform functionality…
Holgate: A Love Story
In the opening moments of a video shot to mark the 15 year anniversary of Holgate Brewhouse, Paul Holgate points out that it’s 25 years since he and wife Natasha met. "So ours is a love story really,…
World Beer Awards: More Redoak Success
Another week, another set of awards for Sydney's Redoak. Since we last posted articles on their wins at the International Beer Challenge in London and at the Sydney Royal Beer & Cider Show,…
WAy To Go
If you like tap takeovers, beer dinners and schmoozing with brewers then WA Beer Week is going to be a pretty busy week. perhaps it’s best you call in sick to work now just to save the hassle later on…There’s…
Hold Tight Sydney!
In little more than a week, the fourth Sydney Craft Beer Week kicks off. It goes without saying that this will be the biggest yet as the festival has grown every year. But it's really the biggest yet, with the program bursting through the 100 events milestone, barely pausing for breath and cracking on to surpass 120.
The Great Keg Robbery
Making it as a craft brewer isn't easy. There's huge investment involved (particularly if you decide to open your own brewery). You're going up against big business with greater economies of scale and…
Register for GBW 2015
It may be more than seven months away but already registrations are open for next year’s Good Beer Week festival in Melbourne and Victoria. The festival organising committee today opened registrations…
Drinking God's Tears
We'd last seen Dave Adams at around 4am on October 3, 2010, as we savoured the afterglow of Collingwood's premiership flag on what paint-stained clothing later revealed to be an as-yet-unfinished trophy…
Beer Awards: Sydney Royal Beer & Cider Show
There are familiar names on the two main trophies at this year's Sydney Royal Beer & Cider Show. The medalists and trophy winners were announced last night (19/9/2014) and saw Sydney's Redoak follow…
Beer In The Valley
Not too long ago, it seemed that pretty much every brewery in Australia was falling over itself to add a cider to its range, whether brewed in-house or paid for and badged accordingly. Now, however, the…
Out Back
It’s not just beer styles being bastardised in the craft beer world these days. It seems that increasingly the lines between bars and bottleshops are being blurred too. In Victoria in particular, where…
Craft Beer Awards Need U
Next month will see Australia’s first Craft Beer Awards take place in Sydney. They have been launched by the Craft Beer Industry Association (CBIA), a national association representing craft breweries…
Stockings & Spice
Admittedly, you are opening yourself up to all sorts of danger when inviting a whole bunch of brewers into your home to brew a collaborative beer for which there is only a loose concept, plans to design…
Australia Reigns Supreme
Australian brewers have taken out the two most prestigious trophies at the world’s largest package beer competition. For the second year running, Sydney’s Redoak won the Supreme Champion beer award.…
James Halliday Article - Those Crafty Kiwis
Given we’ve just filed our next feature for James Halliday’s Wine Companion Magazine, this time looking at the reevaluation of lagers in the craft beer world, it must be time to pluck another past…
Setting Up Homestead
One of Australia’s most highly regarded brewers is set to return to the beer scene after a hiatus spent scouring the country for a new adventure. And he is doing so at the helm of a brand new brewery…
Riders On The Storm
These days, if you want to catch drinkers' eyes from the off, chances are you’ll plump for something overloaded with hops, high in alcohol, aged in a barrel or based on an obscure style. New Melbourne-based…
Hoppier Dogs
Having celebrated turning three with four days of festivities in Sydney and its hometown of Nowra, one of Australia’s most out there breweries is bigger, older and wiser. Well, the first two at least.…
Beer Travel: Beervana 2014 & The Road To Beervana
Last week, The Crafty Pint joined a huge contingent of Australian brewers and beer lovers to make the trek to Wellington. The Kiwi city now calls itself Craft Beer Capital and with good reason: Stu from…
A New Modus Operandi
For six months Grant and Jaz Wearin lived the beer lover's dream; travelling around the West Coast of the USA visiting every brewery they could. But it wasn't a holiday. Well, it was – but it wasn't…
Surf Coast Suds
On a recent trip to the Great Ocean Road, a post-beach drink at the Wye Beach Hotel threw up some pleasant surprises. On tap was a choice that included Mountain Goat, Prickly Moses, Southern Bay and Forrest…
Little Emerson
Other than play around with its younger sibling, White Rabbit, when creating the Little Rabbit beer for the 2012 Great Australasian Beer SpecTAPular, Little Creatures has kept its brewing mitts to itself.…
All Aboard For Beerland
Who wouldn’t want to go to Beerland? Aside from the fact that it just sounds so damn appealing, it’s also conveniently located in the heart of Northbridge, Perth’s nightlife centre… Northbridge…
Coopers Collaborates
Yesterday, Coopers brewed a pale ale. “So what?” you may ask, with good reason. “They must brew heaps of the stuff every week.” And you’d be right. Except this pale ale wasn’t the familiar…
Awards On The Move
The organisers of the Australian International Beer Awards (AIBA) have announced a new format for next year’s competition as well as confirming the identity of the Head Judge for 2015 and 2016. Judging…
