act
Better Together With A Better Vision
A conversation with Emily Tankey about brewing venture Better Together grew into a conversation about brewing at Brouwerij De Molen, the importance of female ownership, and the need for distinction in contract brewing.
Capital Brewing: Five Years In Five Beers
It's been an impressive 2022 for Capital. Their green credentials have shone brightly and it also marks five years since their Fyshwick brewery opened. To mark the milestone, we invited them to head down Memory Lane.
Shut Up And Drink Your Dessert: Pastry Beers Part 2
Pastry beers are everywhere now, like it or not. In part two of our deep dive, we explore their appeal: who's drinking them, the brewers' intentions and why they're still "real beer" – as well as the cost to your wallet and waistline.
Shut Up And Drink Your Dessert: Pastry Beers Part 1
Sweet, thick beers that taste like dessert used to be few and far between, but now it feels like they're everywhere. In the first of this two-part deep dive, we look at what pastry beers are, where they came from, and how they're made.
2020: The Year In Beer – ACT
It wasn't just fires and COVID-19 that hit the ACT in 2020; they had a destructive hailstorm to deal with too. Yet, while there were losses, there were great beers, comebacks and new openings too.
Beer Travel: The High Country Breweries Pt 2
In part two of our guide to the High Country breweries, we start off in Myrtleford before taking the long, winding and beer-soaked road back to Melbourne. Join us!
Best New ACT Beers Of 2019
It's been an up and down year for ACT's beer scene with the capital's big two continuing to kick goals and new brewing companies launching yet with Wig & Pen and Pact calling it a day. Here, we look at the best new beers of 2019.
Crafty Crawls: Canberra's Breweries & Brewpubs
If Canberra's a good place from which to run the country, it must be a good place to brew beer. (That's how they choose a location, right?) So, here's our guide to where you can drink beer at the source in our nation's capital.
Bridge Road Splits From Australia
Bridge Road Brewers have issued a Declaration Of Independence, forming a micronation on the grounds of their brewery under the name Brewland.
The Milkman Of Human Kindness
For the past century, you were only ever likely to find lactose – AKA milk sugar – in the occasional sweet stout. These days, it's cropping up everywhere. Brewer and beer scholar Chris Brady examines why.
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Best New ACT Beers Of 2018
We wrap up our look at the year in beer for 2018 in the nation's capital as Mat Farrington, the man behind CanBEERra, collates the thoughts of two dozen ACT beer aficionados to see what's impressed most in the past 12 months.
The Gypsy Lifestyle
As Barrow Boys winds down and West City Brewing makes a comeback under new ownership, we speak to three other brewers about the challenges facing gypsy/cuckoo/contract brewers in today's evolving beer world.
Best New ACT Beers Of 2017
With new openings, new venues and growth aplenty, it's been a big year in beer for the nation's capital. Here, we sift through around 40 new releases from ACT's brewing companies and try to agree upon the best.
Crafty Crawls: Brisbane's Suburban Bars II
In part two of her Crawl through Brisbane's 'burbs, Julia Charalambous heads to the south. There, new breweries sit alongside crafty venues and bottleshops to offer locals plenty of the good stuff, often as fresh as you could wish for.
Tap Contracts Here To Stay
Small, independent Australian brewers didn't get the news they were hoping for today. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) released the results of its multi-year investigation into tap access and declared the status quo was here to stay.
Australian International Beer Awards Winners 2017
Last night's beer awards in Melbourne put the seal on an incredible first year for Balter as the Gold Coast brewery took out three major trophies. They were among several multiple winners, which included several locals and Dagon from Myanmar.
The Big Issue: Weird Beers
It's that time of year when more new beers hit the market than at any other thanks in part to GABS. A good percentage will be highly experimental or outright odd, with the oddest tending to gain the most media hype. But is all news good news?
The Secret Brewer: Gypsy Brewing Pt II
Yesterday, we launched a new series, The Secret Brewer, in which an unnamed brewer laid out their concerns about gypsy and contract brewing. Today, brewers from here and overseas respond to the points raised in the article.
The Secret Brewer: Gypsy Brewing
The Secret Brewer is a new series in which a local brewer lets off steam about an issue that's troubling them. First up: gypsy brewers. Tomorrow, we'll present responses to the points raised by our mystery brewer in part two.
Best New ACT Beers of 2016
We may have crossed the threshold into 2017, but we've still got one final blast from the year just gone. Completing our around-the-country best new beers review comes our panel's pick from ACT's burgeoning beer scene.
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BentSpoke Shifts Up A Gear
Canberra brewpub BentSpoke is getting closer to opening its second production facility. Already the canning line there is up and running. Patrick Baggoley caught up with co-founder Richard Watkins at the launch of the first two canned beers.
Gage Roads' Return To Independence
With many observers of the local beer world awaiting news of the next significant brewery buy out since Asahi took control of Mountain Goat, WA's Gage Roads is going the other way and buying back shares from Woolworths.
The Crafty Dozen – July 2016
It's only a few weeks since our last roundup of new listings on the site but, as the Crafty team expands with the industry, we're adding them faster than ever. So here's 12 more breweries, bars and bottleshops for you.
Canning & Expanding
It's all change at Barossa Valley Brewing as one of the longest-established of SA's microbreweries expands and repackages its beers in cans. It's also in the process of establishing its Tanunda base as a mid-size contract facility, as Matt King discovered.
Making Capital
Until recently, Canberra had little in the way of beer to call its own. Today, with Capital Brewing having followed both BentSpoke and Pact Beer, it has five brewing companies operating there. Will Ziebell caught up with the newest.
Best New Beers of 2015: ACT
ACT welcomed a new brewing company into the fold in 2015 as champion home brewer Kevin Hingston took his beers to market as Pact. It gave our ACT panel four local breweries to pick from for their best new releases in the territory this year.
Who Brews Hair Of The Dog XPA?
They met as part of the Merri Mashers, one of the youngest yet most proactive home brew clubs in Victoria, then decided that if they were making good beer, while not test it out on the public. And thus was born Old Wives Ales.
The Call of Hops
It was such a big deal, at first they thought it was a wind up. But it was true. The makers of Call of Duty: Black Ops III – one of the biggest gaming releases in history – really did want Gold Coast's Black Hops to create a beer for them.
BentSpoke Beer For All
Just 18 months after opening the doors of its Canberra brewpub, BentSpoke Brewing today took possession of a second site that will allow them to increase production and package their beers.
Capital Gains
Canberra has long been home to some of the finest beers in Australia, albeit on a small scale. As the capital's annual beer week and Beer Day Out approach, local home brewer Drew Sculthorpe finds the scene growing apace.
Who Brews Venom?
After a lifetime growing up in pubs and working for breweries, Joel Drysdale has brought friends and family into his new brewing venture, Venom, which launched recently with the Kiwi-hopped Golden Ale.
Five Years Of Endeavour
They are one of the longest-running contract brewing companies in Australia and put a unique spin on their beers. As they celebrated turning five, Nick Oscilowski chatted with two-thirds of the Endeavour team about their unusual path to success.
