News & Feature Stories
Rocking On
The first time we caught up with the guys behind Rocks Brewing at their spiritual home, Harts Pub, they talked excitedly about plans for their own brewery. While they hoped to open one in The Rocks, they…
Beer Travel: The 9th Australian Hotel Beer Festival
It’s been a big few days for craft beer in Sydney. On Saturday, the third Sydney Craft Beer Week kicked off while, preceding it by a day (or six years depending on how you look at it) was the 9th…
All Killer. No Filler
There was a time not too long ago when the term “contract brewer” was deemed an insult by many in the Australian beer world. And, in fairness, there was a time when many of those choosing to take that…
Two Brewers Abroad: The Great American Beer Festival
A few months ago, two WA brewers who are enjoying the adventure of a lifetime through the American craft beer industry featured in our Blog of the Month series. Steve Brockman (formerly of The Monk) and…
The Craft Press
With some of the most exciting new breweries in Australia calling New South Wales home and the small bar scene giving impetus to Sydney’s nascent craft beer scene, it would seem the sleeping giant…
Welcome To Brewsvegas
We love a bit of wordplay at The Crafty Pint, almost as much as we love awesome beer events. So imagine our delight when we received a phone call from the guys behind Brisbane’s marvellous The Scratch…
Brew & A: Young Henrys
Sydney Craft Beer Week is just days away, with its biggest, most varied and most exciting lineup of events yet. Among the local breweries taking part – and contributing some of the most varied and oddball…
From Woodend to Manila
Slowly but surely, Australian craft beer is beginning to make inroads overseas. In recent weeks, we’ve reported on Stone & Wood’s venture into the UK and the success enjoyed by the Australian Brewery…
Getting Blind With Crafty: Ambers and Reds
There was much change afoot for our latest Crafty Pint Blind Tasting Panel at the weekend. For a start, it featured an entirely new set of panellists. Each and every one of those who taken part in a previous…
Cans in Cairns
To those of us not born in Australia, the similarity between the pronunciation of the words “cans” and “Cairns” is far from obvious. So when we received a call a few weeks back from Cam Hines,…
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Drinking In Style: Amber and Red Ales
In order to keep pace with the Crafty Pint Tasting Panel, this month's instalment of Drinking In Style takes a look at two styles named for their respective hues: amber and red. If only there were a green ale to complete a brewer's traffic light…
Beer Food
One of the standout concepts from last year’s Sydney Craft Beer Week was Beer Mimics Food. The festival organisers invited a selection of chefs and writers to create beers inspired by their favourite…
Brew & A: Boatrocker Brewery
The Melbourne Festival kicks off today (Oct 11), heralding two weeks of arts events all over the city. Many of the best shows and gigs are taking place at the 1200 capacity Festival Hub that has been erected…
The Final Six!
After four weeks and hundreds of entries from all over the world, the competition for the World’s Best Beer Trip has been whittled down to a final six. Now it’s up to you, the public, to decide…
Crafty Tales 2: Boneyard
Earlier this year, we launched Crafty Tales, a series of short films looking at different aspects of the craft beer world. Created in conjunction with New McPherson, a Fitzroy-based video production agency,…
Competition: Raid Crafty's Beer Fridge
As first world problems go, the one we’re currently experiencing at Crafty Towers is likely to elicit precisely zero sympathy: we’ve run out of beer fridge space. Yep, despite the fact that…
All Together Now
It’s a Tuesday and I’m in the brewhouse at Eagle Bay Brewery looking down at a drain. "This is the Rolls Royce of brewery drainage," says Cowaramup Brewing’s’s Jeremy Good as Justin Fox, brewer…
The Latest Listings
It’s not that long since we posted our last roundup of new brewery and venue listings on The Crafty Pint. But it’s been long enough for us to add a few more. And, with another dozen or so lying…
Tassie Beer Lovers Unite!
Australia’s burgeoning love with beer weeks shows no sign of abating as today we can announce that, in just a few weeks' time, Hobart will host its first Beer Lovers Week. It will feature a series…
It's Time To Talk Hops
Of all the brewers to have played around with the new wave of Aussie hops, none has delved quite as deep as Ben Kraus at Bridge Road. With one of the country’s main hop farms, Rostrevor, just down the…
Rocking The Rocks
In just over three weeks time, one of Sydney’s iconic hotels will host its annual beer festival. And, while beer festivals seem to be ten a penny these days, this is one that – like the hotel…
Brew & A: The Australian Brewery
The chances are that more Aussies – and indeed more beer drinkers overseas – are going to be hearing and seeing more of the Australian Brewery in the future. Having started up in Sydney’s northwest…
Aussie Export
You could never accuse the team at the Australian Brewery of lacking courage. For a start, they opened their brewery in the deeply un-crafty suburb of Rouse Hill in Sydney’s northwest. Then, while everyone…
A Beer With Real Clout
A couple of weeks ago, Nail Brewing founder John Stallwood signed off an email: “PS Looking forward to beating Brendan in the SRBC.” It was a reference to the Sydney Royal Beer & Cider Show and his…
The Good Beer Showcase
Good beer never sleeps. It just keeps on keepin' on. It might be more than 250 days until Good Beer Week 2014 returns to Melbourne and Victoria, but for those who can’t wait that long there is salvation.…
More Gold For Redoak
Just last week, we reported on the success enjoyed by Australian brewers at the UK’s largest beer awards. Hawthorn Brewing Company, 4 Pines and Redoak all picked up golds at the International Beer…
Bigger By The Bay
When the organisers were drawing up plans for last year’s inaugural Beers by the Bay beer festival on the Mornington Peninsula, the intention was always that it would be a fun day out for all the…
Get Ready For GBW 2014
It may still be 258 days away, but if you’re thinking of taking part in the fourth Good Beer Week and haven’t started thinking about your events yet then now’s the time. Event registrations…
World's Best Beer Trip
How would you like the chance to live, work and play with one of Australia’s best craft breweries? What if you could hang out with two of the country’s top brewers while they covered all accommodation…
Blog of the Month: Beer Is Your Friend
From music webzine editor to newspaper journo to beer blogger – all the while becoming ever more fascinated with great beer – Glen Humphries has spent a life writing, with Beer Is Your Friend his beer…
Best Of British
Speak to those recently returned from Beervana trips to New Zealand and you’ll hear evidence that, for all its recent advances, the Australian craft beer industry still trails a little way behind our…
Summer In A Can
There are many factors to consider when deciding whether to put beer, especially craft beer, into a can. They might include the willingness of the market to embrace such a product, how a beer will present…
Drinking In Style: Imperial Stouts
In conjunction with our blind tasting of imperial stouts, we return to our resident beer scholar, Chris Brady, to find out more about the historic style that is embraced my growing number of Aussie brewers each winter.
Back To The 'Rat
Victoria is set to be treated to a plethora of beer festivals over the coming months, as the seemingly insatiable appetite for mixing craft beer and live music sees the return of regional events on the…
James Halliday Article: Lock, Stock & Barrel
The latest edition of James Halliday’s Wine Companion Magazine has been dropping through the letterboxes of subscribers this week. It features an article we wrote on Farmhouse Ales (well, mostly Saisons)…
More Craftiness
Today’s addition of The Grifter Brewing Co to the collection of Aussie breweries and craft beer-supporting venues we’ve got featured on the site heralds what we hope will be a couple of weeks…
SCBW Program Is Live!
The program for the third Sydney Craft Beer Week is launched today. Featuring around 65 events at more than 40 venues, it can be viewed in full on the festival’s website. The eight day shindig runs…
Rebuilding The Temple
There was a collective gasp – and no little sadness – around the craft beer world when, earlier this year, word spread that Temple had gone into voluntary liquidation. The East Brunswick based brewery…
Royal Approval
Much has been made of the high profile chefs making appearances at this year’s Royal Melbourne Show. And with good reason too: if the local press didn’t run its six celebrity chef stories a…
Beer Festival Roundup
The festival calendar becomes busier by the week as the popularity of craft beer grows. We’ll do our best to ensure they’re all listed in our Events Diary but figured it wouldn’t hurt…
Festival Madness!
With summer peering distantly over the horizon, it seems that barely a week goes by without another beer festival or beer week being announced. It’s a sign that craft beer is gaining in popularity…
Getting Blind With Crafty: Imperial Stouts
So which beers came out on top in the biggest (in every way) Crafty Pint blind tasting to date? HOw did the Aussies fare against beers from the Old World. Read on to find out...
Ask Brewer Jayne: How to judge beers
This weekend is the occasion of the next Crafty Pint Blind Tasting Panel. We say “occasion” as it will feature Imperial Stouts and thus is the one causing the most ripples of excitement among panelists. Usually,…
Ask Brewer Jayne: Getting into the brewing industry
Way back in the distant mists of time (well, June), we announced that Jayne Lewis, co-founder of Two Birds Brewing, was joining The Crafty Pint as an occasional “agony aunt” for beer. She would take…
Beer Makes Pigs Smarter
Have a look at the photo above. In particular the billboard on the wall of Prahran Fish & Chips. What thoughts spring to mind? “Ooh, that’s silly – a pig wearing a tie and mortarboard” perhaps. Maybe:…
Gut Reaction
Last month, Matt Donelan put the St Peter’s Brewery he’d built – literally – from the ground up on the market. After 13 years brewing the likes of Cinnamon Girl and Killagh Stout for the Sydney…
Beer Travel: Beervana NZ 2013
The large contingent of Aussie beer lovers that made their way to Wellington’s superb annual Beervana festival last weekend should have just about shaken off the cobwebs by now. Among them was Tiffany…
Billabong's Killer Wheat
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…
Willy Beer Fest
The intention was merely to find a way to mark the 150th anniversary of his pub. But as Scott Meager considered ideas such as a commemorative beer, things started getting a little out of hand. Next thing…
Time For A Change
The Federation Square Victorian Microbreweries Showcase has been a fixture in the Melbourne beer calendar for years. In recent years, the bi-annual event has grown to fill every nook and cranny of the…
