Julian Lelah and his surfing buddies used to love nothing more than touring Margaret River's breweries after a morning catching waves. Now he's turned the tours they used to do for fun into a business, launching the region's only beer only tour company.
Australian whisky makers are garnering serious attention across the world – and from local brewers keen to lay their hands on used barrels. We visited Melbourne's Starward, best known to beer lovers for its involvement in Boatrocker's Ramjet.
The beer choices along Victoria's Surf Coast are unrecognisable from a few years ago, with many of the beers appearing on tap and in fridges coming from breweries that call the region home. Among them is Aireys' Inlet's Rogue Wave.
The most famous – and contested – beer law in the world turns 500 at the weekend. To mark the occasion, Ross Lewis spoke to one WA brewer who is a passionate believer in Reinheitsgebot and one Melburnian who certainly isn't.
When asked to forecast five breweries to watch out for in 2016 for James Halliday's Wine Companion magazine, we included Colonial. The WA brewery has long had the potential to explode; its new Eastern outpost should see that happen.
Three years ago, Britt and Colin Butler knew next to nothing about hops. Now, as new owners of Hopswest in Albany, they're expanding their hop farm and providing new ingredients to local brewers, including the hybrid Kracanup.
After an "amazing, exciting, frustrating, depressing, uplifting, expensive and sometimes ridiculous" journey, a WA couple finally opened Three Rivers Brewing Company an hour south of Perth. Guy Southern paid the family-run brewery a visit.
An American couple who have been growing hops for their home brew for years have launched a hop farm in Margaret River. Karridale Hop Farm has enjoyed a successful first harvest and is looking to bring an old variety back to life.
It looks like we've added another dozen new brewery, bar and bottleshop listings since last time we did a roundup. So, if you missed them, here's the latest additions to the Crafty directory from QLD, NSW, VIC, SA and WA. More very soon!
You can find breweries off the beaten track in Australia these days, but few, if any, in as remote a location as Beaten Track itself. For our latest Who Brews? we find out the story behind the Boulder brewery six hours drive inland from Perth.
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From casks to Champagne ale to birthdays and farewells, this week's roundup of new events provides a colourful snapshot of how diverse the local beer scene has become. And how you can enjoy being part of it.
Submissions are open for the 2016 Australian International Beer Awards, which includes a new trophy for New World Pale Ales. It's also a third chance for people covering the beer world to be crowned AIBA Media champ.
We're kicking off a new series looking at the story behind some of the coolest, most iconic and downright funky beers to come out of Australia. With 100 kegs ready for a major release, first up is Feral's Watermelon Warhead.
It's not just brewers and those that sell their beer that are thriving as the craft beer industry grows; others are sharing in the success. One WA firm has a fast-growing division that has small brewers to thank for its existence.
Cicerone certified staff, expertly curated beer lists and fine food and wine in the very heart of Perth. The WA capital has been slow on the craft beer uptake but, as Petition Beer Corner shows, now it's catching up it's doing it in real style.
Margaret River brewery Bootleg has scored quite the coup and been invited to become one of a handful of breweries invited to brew Stone's legendary Arrogant Bastard. And all because of a bit of cheek and a spot of mountain biking through WA.
Summer's here, which means it's beer garden time. Matt King has been visiting many of the best and craftiest that Adelaide and surrounds has to offer, asking owners and patrons what makes a beer garden great.
Visitors to WA's Great Southern region will probably have visited Boston Brewery and sampled its wares. Now, with a new brewery in place and bottling line on the way, you may not have to travel quite so far to check them out, as Pia Poynton discovered.
When Lion announced its decision to move White Rabbit to Geelong, many bemoaned its loss from Healesville. But now two former White Rabbit brewers and their partners have set about bringing a new brewery to the town.
The long-mooted expansion of the Beer DeLuxe brand across Australia is gathering pace. In the coming weeks, new venues will open in Wagga Wagga and Darling Harbour with more planned, as Nick O discovers.
Having returned from the outer reaches of Northern Europe to his home state of Tasmania, wandering storyteller Bert Spinks has been out bushwalking. Here, he ponders the whys and wherefores of doing it with beer.
Australia's longest running beer week kicks off tomorrow night. One of the defining features of this year's WA Beer Week is the proliferation of colourful collabs. Guy Southern gets the lowdown.
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.
Guy Southern chatted to Colonial Brewing's manager-cum-raconteur Richard Moroney to get the story behind their uniquely packaged Small Ale. He walked away with an insight into the essence of beer and why it pays to remember that it is, after all, just beer.
The Sydney Royal Beer & Cider Awards saw the Sydney Brewery take out trophies in both beer and cider, with the majority of the record number of golds awarded also going to NSW breweries.
WA's Feral Brewing has been a genuine trailblazer for the Australian beer industry. Key to their success in recent years has been brewer Will Irving, owner Brendan Varis' trusted lieutenant in the breweries.
Australian brewers continued their success at the UK's prestigious International Beer Challenge as Edge Brewing Project followed in the footsteps of Redoak and Hawthorn Brewing Company.
The beer food guru behind Beersine is back with another of his favourite beer food recipes. This time Mitch offers up his versatile twist on Béarnaise sauce as well as what to pair with it.
Having resurrected our focus on Australian beer bloggers with Brews and Bacon, we're switching our gaze to the west and What's Mashing WA, a blog that focuses predominantly on the state's beer scene.
Last night's Perth Royal Beer Show awards saw home state brewers win big. And even the trophies that went outside the state had strong WA connections.
Time for another of our regular roundups of the breweries, bars and bottleshops added to The Crafty Pint's directory in the past few weeks.
Smiling Samoyed, Prancing Pony and Vale Brewing were all smiles after taking out the major trophies at the 2015 Royal Adelaide Beer & Cider Awards
The Monk in Freo has a new dream team in charge and is busy redesigning the venue, the beers and the menu – and starting a barrel room program to boot.
Eight months after it started brewing operations, Young Henrys Beer Farm in WA is breaking away from Young Henrys to become a separate entity.
Yesterday we announced Mitch from Beersine was to be our regular beer food guru. Here he presents the dessert he created to pair with Clout Stout at Good Beer Week's Mega Dega III.
This week, we're kicking off regularly features on beer and food pairing and cooking with beer in the company of WA beer food maestro Mitch from Beersine.
A host of Sydney's best craft beer venues took out most of the awards at the second Time Out Sydney Pub Awards, with Dove & Olive collecting Best Pub and Publican of the Year.
Having won fans and awards in its short lifetime, NSW brewing company Wayward will be a gypsy no more after building its own brewery in Annandale.
We bring back our Brew & A series by firing some questions at Craig Eulenstein, who recently moved from Mountain Goat to The Monk in Freo.
We’d originally planned to run this Brew & A with the head brewer at Indian Ocean Brewing this week as a precursor to WA Beer Week starting. Then we got the results of this year’s Perth Royal Beer…
A few weeks back we ran an article by Holgate brewer Nick Rhodes, who had not long touched down in Norway to commence a brewing internship with Nøgne Ø. It was part of a brewer exchange that has seen…
A week ago, Nick Rhodes from Holgate boarded a plane in Melbourne bound for Norway. Coming the other way was Norwegian brewer Ingrid Skistad from Nøgne Ø. We brought you the story behind their brewer…
Western Australia: it’s to craft beer in Australia what Iraq is to human civilisation. Home to dozens of craft breweries, including some of the country’s very best, as well as some spectacular bottleshops…