As the 2017 Sydney Beer Week kicks off, we return to the streets of the New South Wales capital for another Crafty Crawl. Here, Judd Owen takes us through Redfern in the manner only he can.
Hops tend to grab most of the craft beer world's attention when it comes to beer's core ingredients, but as more maltings – big and small – open across Australia, giving brewers new malt varieties to play with, the much-loved flowers may soon be sharing a little of the limelight.
After a four year break, we returned to the most epic of beer styles, imperial stout, for our latest blind tasting. Old favourites and beers not around four years ago went into battle. Who would win?
Australia's craft spirit industry is enjoying a rapid rise not dissimilar to that enjoyed by beer in recent years. The connections between the two are strong, particularly at a growing number of breweries that are distilling in house.
After an unplanned seven month break, we brought our blind tasting panel back. We focused on hoppy reds and ambers, with readers helping select the featured beers. Here's the results – and how readers can join us for a public version of the tasting.
After an eight month hiatus, we've found the time to bring our Blind Tasting Panel back together. And, given there's so many beers to pick from these days, we're inviting our readers to help us pick the beers we'll put to the test.
The New Zealand hop industry produces some of the most sought after varieties in the world. Jono Galuszka spent time with NZ Hops and one of the lead scientists behind the development of new hops to find out more.
There's been a fair bit focus on Ballarat recently, with the launch a Beer Trail and announcements of a $100m brewery project and a Brewing Centre of Excellence. Here, one of the city's barmen tells us what's happening on the ground.
The Victorian State Government recently announced it was contributing half a million dollars towards the development of a Centre of Excellence for beer in Ballarat. Will Ziebell finds out more from the man driving the project.
Each summer, Ballarat attracts thousands of beer fanciers to its City Oval for its annual festival. But, with four breweries and a growing number a craft venues, there's plenty of reason for beer lovers to visit at other times.
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It's hop harvest time across Australia. And this year's offers more chances than ever to get up close and personal with the little green flowers, not least thanks to a pair of festivals celebrating the harvest and fresh hops beers.
New year, new beers, new offers! The Crafty Cabal is kicking into action for 2017, and there are plenty of cool events and offers in the wings to grab the attention of our existing and future Cabalistas.
Our latest roundup of the latest breweries, venues and bottleshops added to our directories is actually more of a baker's dozen as we got a little ahead ourselves. So here's the last 13 of the 73 new additions to the site in 2016.
Each year, we assemble panels of experts around the country to come up with lists of the best new releases to come out of Australian breweries in the previous 12 months. This year, we kick off in Victoria, home to the most brewing companies in the land.
A whole year has passed since the Crafty Cabal was launched into the beerosphere. In that time, we've given away more than $10K in tickets and beers, poured 25 kegs for members, hosted 14 events – and it's just getting started.
The rise of craft beer has spawned all manner of related businesses. Among them are small malting operations dedicated to providing malt for microbreweries. They include Not For Horses. Bert Spinks caught up with the man behind the Launceston business.
Bridge Road's Ben Kraus is one of the Australian beer world's most innovative brewery owners. Yet it's one of his oldest brews that has brought triumph at this year's Sydney Royal Beer & Cider Show.
A tiny number of Australian brewers have played with mead and braggots, but there's now a small yet growing number of people specialising in these ancient beverages. Marie Claire Jarratt spoke to some of them in her debut article for the site.
While some might have forecast the renaissance that beer has been enjoying globally, would many have predicted the rise of sours? Award-winning writer Michael Donaldson laps up the tsunami of sours breaking on Kiwi shores.
There's little left for brewers to put into beer. Locally, we've seen squid ink, belly button fluff and whale vomit used, while elsewhere there's been much more besides, as showcased in the new Brewed With Balls book.
For our latest Who Brews...? feature, we head to the Surf Coast where crowd-funding helped Valhalla get off the ground. Their second release is coming soon, while are plans for a taproom on the coast too.
As the beer landscape in Australia becomes ever more crowded and competition intensifies, it's not enough simply to brew good beer. How a brewery presents itself and its beers is perhaps more crucial then ever before, so we're addressing branding as our second "Big Issue" topic.
Red Duck this week marks a decade of brewing. It's been a decade in which boundaries have been pushed and history plundered for inspiration, with spirits next on the agenda.
It's taken its sweet time but Ballarat is finally developing a beer scene worthy of the name. In advance of the opening of Hop Temple, Ballarat beer lover Clayton Morrison rounds up the city's craftiest spots.
South Australia's newest microbrewery sees historical brewing return to Robe Town as a Latvian couple open the doors of one of the country's most unlikely breweries.
Two stalwarts of the Victorian beer industry celebrated a decade of brewing in recent weeks. Here, Bridge Road and Red Hill look back on ten years of beers and cheers.
With the Southern Hemisphere hop harvest coming to a close and fresh hop beers on their way, we chat to the man heading up NZ Hops.
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…
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…
If you had the last keg of a limited release baltic porter, what would you do? Most of us would grab an empty glass and start pouring but Justin Fox, head brewer at Colonial Brewery, instead saw an opportunity…
In their increasingly challenging battle to meet the world’s insatiable desire, hop producers the world over are constantly looking to produce more hops. Not just more in terms of volume, but more in…
It started as a bit of fun. Challenged with brewing an unusual beer for the Media Brew beer competition at Beervana, The Crafty Pint approached Murray’s to be its partner. They agreed and were soon afterwards…
Big brewer: bad; craft brewer: good. It's a hoary old perception and one to which no thoughtful beer drinker would give any credence. Just because beer brand X is ultimately owned by brewing giant Y, it…
This week sees the launch of the eighth edition of James Halliday’s Wine Companion Magazine, in which we have an article looking at the Australian craft beer industry’s position in the wider world.…
The year was 1824. Beethoven was still alive and composing his symphonies, though you'd need to hear them live because radio wouldn't be invented for about another eight decades. In that year, the MCG…
The people that have done as much as anyone in Oz to introduce drinkers to hops in beer have been playing around a little. Coinciding with this year’s hop harvest, the brewers at Little Creatures attempted…