sour beer
BecauseWeCAN Vol.6: Sour Power
There's little in beer as divisive as sours: often people love ‘em or can’t bloody stand ‘em in any way, shape or form. So, for the sixth edition of BecauseWeCAN we tackle three of the kookier offerings to hit stores over summer.
The Wild Ones: Van Dieman
The Wild Ones is a series showcasing Australian brewers creating spontaneously fermented ales. Following our launch piece last week, here we head to a farm in Tasmania to catch up with Van Dieman founder Will Tatchell.
The Wild Ones
A spontaneously fermented beer won Champion Australian Beer at this year's AIBAs, and a number of Australian brewers are creating beers inspired by the lambics of Belgium. In The Wild Ones, we join them down the rabbit hole.
The Dark & Disgusting Minds of The Scratch
No one's ever accused the folk at The Scratch of being normal. Their festivals have cult followings, and the videos they make to promote them can be downright disgusting. We sat down with manager Becca King to find out more.
Carwyn's Forgotten Beers
The mission at Carwyn Cellars has always been focused on bringing better booze to the people and now the bottleshop and bar team has started brewing. Well, brewing again. Well, releasing beer.
2020: The Year In Beer
Well, who saw that coming? We kick off our end of 2020 coverage with a look back at some of the biggest trends and standout moments of the past twelve months.
A Sour Taste In Their Mouths
Sour beers have really taken off in Australia in the past couple of years, but what are they? Ahead of Blobfish, a festival dedicated to sour, wild and funky beers, we chatted to four Australian and Kiwi breweries who love them.
Black Arts: Brand New. Kinda.
The beer scene in Melbourne's west – and the country's cluster of barrel-ageing and blending specialists – is set to grow again this week with the launch of Black Arts. Luke Robertson called in.
Brewing On The Banana Farm
Spend time in South East Queensland talking about new and interesting beers and it's not long before Currumbin Valley Brewing comes up. We joined Smokey and Luke on the former's banana farm to find out why.
The Golden Age Of Mids?
There's never been a better time to be in the market for a lower alcohol beer. But why is that? And is demand growing as fast as the quality new releases? We speak to brewers and retailers to find out whether it's the golden age of mids.
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Around The Blend
There will be many new beers launched at Good Beer Week and GABS next week, but none quite like Woods Of The North: it's a blend of barrel aged beers from five Australian brewers. We chatted to two of the brewers involved about the art of blending.
Brew & A: Ben Simmons
When the family that owned the Clifton Hill Hotel decided to move it from being an Irish pub with TAB to inner-city brewpub, we doubt they envisaged it would lead to the development of a sour beer program. We caught up with the brewer that started taking it in that direction.
Getting Blind With Crafty: Session Sours
For our first blind tasting of 2018, we lined up a pretty eclectic selection of beers that form part of the beer world's current fondness for sour styles. And the year got off to a fine start with a winning beer from a brewpub few readers will yet have visited.
Behind The Hottest 100 Kiwi Beers Of 2017
There were plenty of stories within the second GABS Hottest 100 Kiwi Beers countdown, from Panhead holding on to top spot to Garage Project supplying almost one in five beers and Liberty claiming the highest new entry. But we're going to tell three different ones.
The Gang Of Sour
A Brunswick warehouse that initially housed Himmel Hünd's brewery has been turned into an incubator of sorts for small brewing companies playing with barrels. Will Ziebell finds out more.
Help Us Get Blind: Session Sours
For our first Getting Blind With Crafty tasting of 2018, we're going to embrace the broad church of beers that might be tagged "session sours" – Berliner weisse, gose, kettle sours and so on. And now is your chance to help us decide which to feature.
Show Us Your Sour Side
For the first Getting Blind With Crafty of 2018, we've decided to focus on all things acid. Alongside NEIPAs, at the pointier end of the beer world, sours have started appearing in ever greater numbers so we figure we should give them a blind taste test.
Beer Travel: 48 Hours In Portland
To suggest you could conquer Portland in anything less than literal years is an utter falsehood. If time is limited, the best one can hope for is to tick off beer meccas such as Deschutes or Cascade while hoping to get under the skin of one of the world's best beer cities. Kerry McBride gave it a go.
Who Brews at the Ministry Of Beer?
While the state's bigger names tend to grab the headlines, South Australia has seen a large number of smaller operations come to life in the past couple of years. One of them is the experimental, farm based Ministry of Beer.
Beer Food: Pucker Tucker
Chef Paul Kasten explores the nuances of pairing sour beers with food, and how to work with varying levels of carbonation, sourness and the broad range of flavours to be found in sour beer.
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Brew & A: Mornington's Barrel Man
Earlier this month, Mornington Peninsula Brewery released the first beer from its barrel program, the luscious Old Pumping Station. Overseeing the program is young brewer Kristian Martin. Here, we find out more about him.
Holgate's Bloody Big Endeavour
Before Paul Holgate sat down to chat about the sizeable expansion his brewery is undertaking, he said something to Kerry McBride that was immediately apparent on entering the new space. “It’s bloody big, isn’t it?” He wasn’t lying.
Wildflower Blooming
Dozens of breweries will open their doors across Australia in 2017. They will come in all shapes and sizes, but we doubt any will be quite like Wildflower. Nick O spent time with the blendery's driving force, Topher Boehm.
Brew & A: Brendan O'Sullivan of 3 Ravens
As sour beers continue to grow in popularity, one man well set to reap the rewards is Brendan O'Sullivan. The 3 Ravens head brewer has been exploring that realm with success since long before he became a commercial brewer.
Hottest 100 Aussie Craft Beers of 2016: Analysis
With the results out and the resultant debate underway online, it's time for us to have a look at what the Hottest 100 of 2016 says about the local beer landscape.
Behind Bars: Joel Beresford
For our first Behind Bars interview with one of Australia's leading venue operators, we return to WA to chat with Joel Beresford. He's Perth's Mr Beer, is involved in many facets of the industry and just loves his sours.
Best New Victorian Beers of 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.
Here Gose
Perhaps nothing should surprise in the contemporary beer world, yet the rise of gose is still an unexpected development. We chat to a couple of gose brewers and also look back into the history of the style in Germany.
Behind Bars: Mane Liquor at 10
On November 14, Mane Liquor celebrated ten years in business. In this extended Behind Bars article, owners Elliot Moore and Josh Daley talked to Guy Southern about witnessing a decade of craft beer evolution from behind the counter.
Cool Times In Tassie
Last year, we wrote about Van Dieman's plans for a 100 percent estate grown ale. Now the Tasmanian brewery has taken another step into the unknown and brewed its first beers in a custom designed coolship.
Brew & A: La Sirène Ben
Costa Nikias is the face of La Sirène, Melbourne's "urban farmhouse" brewery. But, through 2016, a brewer previously at Beavertown has become central to all things La Sirene. He's Ben Turley and is the focus of this Brew & A.
Behind Bars: Josh Edmeades
Is anyone better placed to tell you what's hot in the beer world than the beer gurus at the country's best venues? Today, we kick off Behind Bars, a series that asks bar staff around Australia what their customers are digging.
Now Is The Sour
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.
Beer Travel: NZ Tiki Tour III Greater Wellington
Wellington may have the big name reputation when it comes to craft beer, but it’s being rivalled by what’s brewing in its outer regions, as Nick O discovers on the third of his four-part saunter through the North Island.
Best Beers of 2016 – So Far
We're not big fans of lists here at Crafty Towers, but with so many new beers released every week we felt we'd make an exception to take stock midway through 2016. We asked contributors to nominate their best new brews and here are the top picks.
Wild Things
With a reputation for walking on the wild side well established, Kiwi trailblazers Garage Project are set to get wilder still. Kerry McBride joined them for a tour of their new Wild Workshop where they'll be working with barrels, foeders and a coolship.
Sweet And Sour
A sour beer has been named Australia's best craft beer of 2015, while there was more champion glory for Two Birds and Modus Operandi, as well as Freo's Monk at last night's Craft Beer Awards in Sydney.
Crafty Like A Fox
For the most part, Australia's restaurants are paying little more than lip service to good beer. Footscray's Fox in the Corn, however, is a shining example of how well it can be done.
