Aunty Jacks Brewer
Thanks in large part to the gold rush, Ballarat is a city with a long connection to beer and brewing. As one of the wealthiest places on Earth for a period, it became not just a grand city, but one awash with pubs; at one time, you’d have found hundreds of watering holes scattered throughout the booming…
AVNGE Brewing Brewer
Craft beer drinkers tend to spend a lot of time talking about the liquid they’re enjoying, but the can that carries that liquid matters plenty these days too. Indeed, a can or a tap decal tends to be the first interaction anyone has with a beer, so eye-catching artwork to help your brand stand out…
Balter Brewing (CUB/Asahi) Brewer
To balter is to dance artlessly without particular skill or grace, but usually with enjoyment. It’s also the name of the Gold Coast brewery opened by a quartet of Australian surfing legends and some mates, with a trophy-winning brewer at the helm to ensure that when it comes to the beers there’s…
Bells Beach Brewing Brewer
Bells Beach’s surfing credentials are known far and wide. The Rip Curl Pro has been held there continuously since the 1960s and tourists regularly flock to the beach – and the surrounding Surf Coast region – for a dip, surf and wipe out. However, as anyone who’s spent time there over the years…
Bonehead Brewing Brewer
We all make bonehead decisions sometimes. But not all bonehead decisions need to be bad ones. And you’re unlikely to find a better example of that than Melbourne’s Bonehead Brewing. Sure, Travis Nott and Anthony Dinoto’s decision to leave their respective careers behind to create a brewery…
Bravo Brewhouse Brewer
There is something intensely gratifying in the surprise that comes with finding good beer in places you are not expecting it. But, as tastes have changed and ergo good beer can be found in airports and stadia, surprises are hard to come by. Enter Bravo Brewhouse, located within Kedron-Wavell Services…
Burleigh Brewing Company Brewer
“We’re in Burleigh Heads, which is absolutely the best place in the world.” This is a big call, considering Brennan and Peta Fielding’s brewing journey started in beautiful Hawaii – where Brennan grew up on a sailing boat – and included Japan and USA along the way. But from the moment…
Capital Brewing Co Brewer
As the home of politicians and public servants, Canberra has often suffered from something of an image problem. Yet, despite many Australians’ distaste for the political class (not to mention the city’s many roundabouts), more recently a new image of the nation’s capital has begun to take shape. It…
Curly Lewis Brewer
Bondi is a name that’s recognised across the world; for many overseas, the inner Sydney suburb perfectly encapsulates the vision that comes to mind when they think about Australia. But while the iconic beach, panoramic views and metronomic surf don’t require any introduction, introducing locally-brewed…
Five Barrel Brewing Brewer
Wollongong is a changing city. Built on the blue collars of smelting and heavy manufacturing, those industries that bought middle class prosperity are in decline, though hardly dead yet; you can still catch a whiff of them each time the open coal carriages roll through town or the smoke stacks of the…
Hard Road Brewing Brewer
At one point during our chat at their brewery taproom in Melbourne’s east, Lein Jenkins points out how surprised he and wife Angie were to discover the name “Hard Road” hadn’t already been taken by another brewing company. If you’ve spent time in and around the beer world, you’ll understand…
Hop Nation Brewer
It has been said before that winemakers love beer more than wine, whether it be for reasons of speed of production, or simply for a change of pace. Two such winemakers, Sam Hambour and Duncan Gibson, have taken that to its logical conclusion, and have now set up shop brewing beer in the back streets…
Little Creatures Geelong (Lion/Kirin) Brewer
For a long time, Geelong proved something of a mystery to people in the craft beer world. Despite being a large city only an hour away from Melbourne, the city driving the craft beer revolution in Australia, its people seemed strangely impervious to the lure of the good stuff. A few small breweries came…
Noodledoof Brewer
If you’re going to open a brewery in a part of Australia where craft beer has barely taken hold, you may well decide to play things safe when it comes to naming your business. Maybe you’d adopt the name of the town or region where you’re setting up, or plump for a prominent local landmark or…
Philter Brewing Brewer
Few breweries have burst onto the craft beer scene quite as triumphantly as Philter. A mere four months into existence, with only two beers to their name, the brewing company took home one of the most coveted titles in Australian beer – Champion Pale Ale at the 2017 Craft Beer Awards. It turned out…
SURE Brewing Brewer
“Fancy a beer?” “Sure!” “OK if my mate joins us?” “Sure!” Language is a wonderful thing, capable of expressing so many sentiments, alive with nuance, and so essential to pretty much every element of human life we’d be lost without it. And, as four letter words go, “sure”…
Beermash VenueBottleshop
Melbourne has a habit of ensuring restaurants, bars and pubs never rest on their laurels, with a cooler, fancier or more exciting venue seemingly always on the verge of opening just down the road. In such a city, adaptation and evolution are the best ways to keep yourself on the radar. This is a method…
Bo Gurks Venue
Bo Gurks might be a nonsensical phrase but spend just a moment inside the Melbourne bar and bottleshop bearing the name and you’ll quickly discover just how serious the crew behind are about everything they do. Located in the bayside suburb of Edithvale – directly over the road from…
Brewski Venue
Not too long ago, Caxton Street in Brisbane was known colloquially to some as CaXXXXton Street. Every single one of the strip of bars, clubs and restaurants a short walk from the city’s Suncorp Stadium had a Lion contract. Had someone suggested it would become home to one of the easiest craft beer…
Freddie Wimpoles Venue
In contemplating what you might look for in a craft beer venue, few people would think to put taxidermied deer heads and political references at the top of their must have list, but St Kilda’s Freddie Wimpoles manages to deliver on both so well that you couldn’t imagine it any other…
Harold's Food & Liquor Bottleshop
The name's a dead giveaway but bear with me on this: when we visit convenience stores, it tends to be for the convenience. Whenever you rush in to grab a quick snack, an easy meal or an ice cream, the quality and provenance of what you rush back out with seconds later is unlikely to be the first thing…
Liquor Shed Bottleshop
It began with a potato. No, seriously. Stick with us, as it’s hard to tell the story of the Liquor Shed without talking about potatoes. Why? Because the parent operation that began next door to the cavernous Jandakot retailer is the Spud Shed, a large scale, “farm to customer”…
Mane Liquor Bottleshop
If you want to know what it's like to experience the beer version of Santa's Grotto, you would do well to call in to Perth's Mane Liquor. Ever since its owners decided to try out this thing called craft beer five years after opening, the bottleshop located between the city and its main airport has amassed…
Moon Dog World Preston Venue
If there has been as much pre-launch hype and wall-to-wall coverage surrounding a new venue opening in Melbourne in recent years – especially one with craft beer at its heart – as was dedicated to Moon Dog World, we'd love to know. Then again, if there's been a new venue opening in Melbourne…
Near & Far VenueBottleshop
It’s no easy thing to create a bar capable of standing out in an area that is quite literally one of Melbourne’s best known drinking destinations. Yet, when Near & Far opened on Brunswick Street towards the close of 2019, it immediately filled a gap in a suburb famed…
Saccharomyces Beer Café Venue
For folks fixated on finding tasty treats, South Brisbane’s Fish Lane is quickly becoming a reliable source. Spanning four blocks back from Grey Street to Manning Street, you could almost forget you’re in Brisbane’s busiest tourist precinct. The area has undergone a rejuvenation; once dominated…
Stockade Barrel Room Venue
There are so many facets to the Stockade Brew Co story that it’s difficult to pick a place to start. So why not with their bar and barrel room in Marrickville? After all, it may well be the best part yet, the physical embodiment of everything the business has strived to become over the years. This…
Terminus Hotel Venue
It wasn’t too long ago that Fitzroy North’s Terminus was still operating as a hotel, the sort of hotel where the long-term residents living upstairs wouldn’t think twice about shuffling into the bar in dressing gown and slippers for a few pots of Draught. What a difference a change of ownership…
The Ambrose Bar Venue
The humble golf club, not a place usually synonymous with craft beer. That said, do golfers like a beer? It’s a resounding yes on that. But what do they like drinking? Fiona Williams, manager at the Ambrose Bar set out to find out. First established in 1926 in a small shed on the outskirts of Toowoomba,…
The Mighty Hunter Valley VenueBottleshop
As with any number of Australian regions traditionally known for wine, today the Hunter Valley has plenty to satisfy those on the hunt for local beer. Indeed, make your way from Newcastle to the heart of the valley via Maitland and you'll rarely go more than a few kilometres without the chance to…
White Oaks Saloon Venue
More than a century ago, White Oaks was an American town awash with people, booze and revelry. The discovery of gold turned the outpost located towards the middle of New Mexico into one with a booming population, where tents sprung up faster than they could be counted, and led to White Oaks becoming…
Whitehart Bar Venue
Late on Christmas Eve 1974, much of Darwin’s population was facing up to Cyclone Tracy, a storm that tore through the city, ensuring it would never look the same again. Many fled the cyclone and never returned, but for those who did, they needed a replacement for the pubs destroyed by Tracy. Thankfully,…
Deeds & Beer Cartel The Syndicate Hazy IPA Beer
Beer Cartel have been bringing the world's beers to Aussie beer lovers for [more than a decade now](https://craftypint.com/news/2241/behind-bars-beer-cartel-at-ten). And, while Deeds haven't been around as long, in recent years they've been causing much excitement for many of those same beer lovers,…
Tallboy & Moose La Blanche & Pulpa De Oro & Hey Gang! & Zing Tang Beer
It doesn't seem that long since we last rounded up the new releases from Tallboy & Moose but, clearly, it's been long enough for them to release four new beers... **La Blanche** is only their second dip into Belgian waters, a witbier of sorts, albeit bigger and fuller in body than most. You'll pick up…
Moon Dog Dunbar's Dream Beer
An admission. There was a ripple of excitement at Crafty Towers when we first heard the name of Moon Dog's latest limited release. Knowing that, for all the silliness, there are some sharp and broad minds at the Abbotsford brewery, we figured it might be a reference to Yossarian's buddy from the novel…
Moon Dog & Rogue The Beard Down Under Beer
As soon as word arrived at GBW HQ in September last year from Rogue’s importer, Phoenix Beers, that John Maier was planning to head to Melbourne for Good Beer Week, the third Masterclass collaboration event wrote itself. Who else from the Melbourne scene would you pair the brewer behind beers as colourful…
Nail Brewing Beazle Brew American Amber Beer
For a man who used to brew only a couple of beers all year round, Nail's John Stallwood is certainly keeping us busy with new releases these days. As well as the core range, he's been sending beers out under the Brew Log moniker every few weeks, has an ever-growing lineup of imperial beers and is starting…
Bridge Road Bar Series 1: Josie Bones Revolution Beer
A few weeks back, Bridge Road kicked off its Bar Series, a project that will see it invite staff from some of the country's top beer bars to come up with their idea for a beer then travel to Beechworth to brew it. Each beer is then sold at the brewery and all of the participating bars. You can read more…
Wheaty Brewing Corps X Bridge Road Brewers X Ferveo Grisette Beer
The Wheaty crew have been collaborating with long term allies Bridge Road Brewers again, this time bringing new-to-the-scene Ferveo Brewing along. The man behind Ferveo is Tommaso Watson, who has a doctorate in fermentation microbiology and has been using his talents to start up a fresh yeast business…
Hepburn Springs Brewing Co Cold IPA Beer
When Nick Galik decided to test the recipes he'd been honing as a homebrewer on the wider world, he did so with a range of beers rarely seen pouring at Australia's craft brewpubs and beer bars. He's a fan of old world, traditional styles and that's what you'd find across the Hepburn Springs Brewing Co…
Reckless Brewing BX Old Beer
When they opened their Bathurst brewery in the second half of 2022, Reckless launched their BX Lager: a crisp knock-em-back lager that captures the spirit of traditional Aussie beer and is at home in a brewery pub out in regional NSW. Now they’ve launched this golden beer’s dark counterpart: BX…
Green Beacon Mr Sparkle & Cannonball & POG IPA & Journey X TDH IIIPA Beer
Disclaimer: I’m going to get nostalgic in this write-up. Damn. Ten years. That’s a fair chunk of time that’s passed since I went and checked out that new craft brewery in Teneriffe called Green Beacon. “It’s in this cool old brick warehouse, and everything’s maritime themed, and the beer…
Behind Bars: Jac Morgan News
Dr Morse Bar & Eatery is a hidden gem within Melbourne’s bevy of craft beer bars – in spite of its close proximity to the heart of the city’s beating beer scene. This could be due to craft beer sharing the stage with coffee, casual dining and even disco at this multi-faceted Abbotsford local…
Behind Bars: Oldfield Cellars News
It's getting ever easier to find a decent beer selection wherever you find yourself in Australia these days. Sure, there remain black spots for the discerning drinker, but they're getting steadily squeezed. The Central Coast is a region where, at time of writing, you can enjoy the beers and hospitality…
Behind Bars: Josh Edmeades News
Here at The Crafty Pint we've got a growing band of writers and contributors across Australia helping us provide coverage of the local craft beer scene that's made the site comfortably the most read beer news source in the country. Yet sometimes it's nice to hear from voices other than our…
Behind Bars: Mongrel News
When Gabs, Henry and Annie first called their business Mongrel, I wonder if they knew they’d need the tenacity of a tough mutt that could survive any circumstances. A week after the 2022 floods put their street underwater and caused a week-long blackout that kept away customers and caused them to…
Behind Bars: Dane Adkins News
In the outer Adelaide ‘burb of Semaphore, Sweet Amber Brew Café is doing its darnedest to bring craft beer to the people. As something a cultural hub for Semaphore and surrounding suburbs, the bar regularly hosts live music and art exhibitions, while on the beerier side of things they…
Behind Bars: Old Faithful Amos News
After spending any amount of time with Amos Polglaze it’s impossible not to be impressed by his passion. Passion for beer, music – metal in particular, quality food, stream of consciousness answers and profanity (dear reader, you have been warned). Luckily, as the resident "Beer Walrus" at Perth…
Behind Bars: Nick Pogonoski News
Beer lovers in Newcastle have been enjoying something of a renaissance in recent years. Venues like The Blind Monk and FogHorn Brewhouse are following in the footsteps of trailblazers like the Grain Store and opening the doors for beer exploration like never before, aided and abetted…
Behind Bars: Joel Beresford News
In no time at all – just 18 months at the time of writing – The Dutch Trading Co has become a major port of call for Perth’s craft beer explorers. The venue has managed to strike the perfect balance between craft beer hub and relaxed, convivial environment. And at the helm…
Behind Bars: Adam Lesk News
Last month's trip to Perth for the closing weekend of WA Beer Week was a fruitful venture. Not only did it allow time to catch up with the site's contributors in the west, call in on old friends and check out many of the newest, shiniest venues and breweries, but it offered a reminder too. It was…
Behind Bars: Big Ears News
"We just wanted a place in Geelong where you could drink Rodenbach Caractère Rouge." As far as goals go, it has to be among the noblest. And, as far as first impressions go, they don't get much better. It was with those words The Crafty Pint was introduced to Big Ears, a Geelong bar dedicated to good…
Behind Bars: Copper & Oak News
Brothers Jose and Nelio Pestana have a long-standing liquor retailing background, both here and in South Africa. Locally, their Copper & Oak bottleshop in Perth’s northern corridor was one of the early independent retailers north of the CBD to drive craftier beer options, a place from where they’ve…
Behind Bars: Hopheads News
Back in the early days of The Crafty Pint, Adrian Chong was one of those keen beer lovers we'd see at events across Melbourne. Since then, he's enjoyed one of the most unlikely tales of anyone involved in the local craft beer industry. He joined forces with relatives to launch Taps Beer Bar in Kuala…
Behind Bars: Wilbury & Sons News
Lucky, Lefty, Nelson, Otis and Charlie T and Jr. There might be more recognisable names when it comes to music but it's hard to think of a supergroup that rivals the above when it comes to the impressive careers of its players. To use their birthnames (actually, we wouldn’t be doing that either),…
Behind Bars: Miles Hull News
Our Behind Bars series normally focuses on what's happening at a moment in time in a particular part of the Australian beer community, as seen by someone behind the bar of a key venue or retailer. However, when the opportunity arrived to chat with someone who has help shaped Australian beer…
Behind Bars: The TapHouse Townsville News
Thinking back to the early days of sourcing beer for The TapHouse Townsville, owner Mark Rugg can’t help but laugh at the reactions he’d receive from certain sales reps. “We were searching for beers to put on tap," he says. "We’d ring breweries and they’d be like, ‘Where’s…
Behind Bars: The Hive Bar News
Before Sydney's Inner West beer boom began, The Hive Bar was a tiny space in Erskineville championing local produce. From when it opened in 2009, Hive's staff did what they could to keep the beers, wines and spirits they stocked as close to home as they could. Likewise, the bar's food…
Behind Bars: Cambrian Hotel News
The Cambrian Hotel has long brought a sense of community to its corner of North Bendigo. When it was built during the gold rush in the 1870s, it would fill with thirsty miners, eager to sweat the afternoon away with a cold beer in hand. And, while plenty has changed in the goldfields…
Behind Bars: East of Everything & Rosalita's News
In 2004, siblings Michael and Gen Cotter opened Bar None in Hawthorn East and, in doing so, brought a quality cocktail bar to a part of Melbourne where there was pretty much nothing even vaguely like it. Located on the western edge of Melbourne's century-old dry zones, where new…
Behind Bars: Zach Hill News
There's been a fair bit focus on Ballarat recently, with the launch of the city's Beer Trail (which led us to create a Crafty Crawl guide to the city) and the subsequent announcements of a $100m brewery project by Broo and a State Government backed Craft Beer Centre of Excellence. Here,…
Behind Bars: Refuge Small Bar News
The Perth suburb of Subiaco has long been known by many – particularly those from outside Western Australia – for one thing in particular: the Subiaco Oval. With the closure of the stadium at the end of 2017, following the completion of the the city's new Optus Stadium, some…
Pop Up Bar at Pentridge Prison Event
There's been a fair bit of a beery action going on at the former home of Chopper Read and his ilk.Pentridge Prison hosted a craft beer festival in its cells last year that attracted more than twice the visitors the organisers expected, they've lined something up for Good Beer Week and, throughout summer…
Font of Darkness at The Wheaty (SA) Event
With so many awesome dark beers coming out of Aussie breweries and into the country from overseas this winter, it's good to see bars and bottleshops getting behind them. We've had a fridge of stouts at Carwyn Cellars and now pretty month a whole month of darkness at The Wheaty. Font of Darkness will…
WA Good Food Guide Beer of the Year 2021 Award Event
If you're a WA-based brewer keen on seeing how your top beers stack up against some of the best of the rest of the state, get your entries in for the WA Good Food Guide Beer of the Year 2021. The award is part of the wider WA Good Food Guide awards which for a number of years have focused…
Pint of Origin At Brewsvegas: March 20 Event
The Pint of Origin - The Crafty Pint's corner of Brewsvegas - is back for its third year. It’s there to showcase the best beers from Australia and the rest of the world, with bars and pubs across Brisbane welcoming scores of brewers through their doors too. As well as weeklong tap takeovers,…
Bushfire Fundraisers Event
Since bushfires began wreaking destruction across the country last year, many beer businesses have been hosting fundraisers and now there's a coordinated series of Beer For Bushfire Relief events taking place on January 18 and plans for a fundraising brew are well underway too. You can find out more…
Napoleone & Black Pearl Brownlow Ale Launch Event
The collaborations between high end bars and brewers continues to gather pace and go well beyond the brewing of a beer to be badged with the venue's name without acknowledging the brewer behind it.In Melbourne alone, we've seen ventures such as the Dainton / Everleigh Manhattan Ale and, more recently,…
No Worries, Bro At Bitter Phew (NSW) Event
The Copenhagen neighbourhood of Nørrebro is known as one of the trendiest corners of Scandinavia. Famed for its bars, restauants and breweries, the suburb even has a hipster bridge called the Dronning Louises Bro . Bitter Phew is hoping to recreate a slice of the neighbourhood in Sydney by dedicating…
Set Sail For Kiwi Craft Beer Paradise Event
New Zealand is home to an incredible craft beer scene, as countless Aussie beer lovers who've made the trip across the Tasman can attest. And now there's an opportunity to experience the country, its beers, its breweries and its bars in luxurious style. Dave Phillips, founder of Dave's Travel and…
Oktoberfest at The Ambrose Bar Event
The Ambrose Bar is the newest addition to Toowoomba's City Golf Club. And, for readers of The Crafty Pint, it's the most exciting. Why? Because it's home to a rotating lineup of delicious craft beers (and other tasty beverages). You can read the story behind the bar here, or get along to sample it…
Deadline for GABS Volunteers Event
The hunt is on for volunteers to help ensure this year's Great Australasian Beer SpecTAPular is a success. This time around, the organisers are after 420 people to help run the show, which takes place at the Royal Exhibition Building from May 23 to 25 - the closing weekend of this year's Good Beer Week. Volunteers…
