New Beers
Barely a day goes by without another seasonal or one-off special flying out of an Australian brewery (if not ten). Here and in our weekly newsletter, we'll bring you news and, if we've sampled them, our take on as many of them as possible. Happy hunting!
Holgate Brewhouse Hop Tart Blush
Tapped Today
Beers that combine fruity hops on one side and a level of tangy, tart or puckering sourness or acidity on the other are becoming ever more visible in the local beer scene. What's more, in an interview to mark ten years of Hop Hog, Feral's Brendan Varis – a man who knows a thing or two about designing iconic beers – posited that the next beer to capture Aussie beer lovers' imagination in the way his former IPA or, say, Stone & Wood's Pacific Ale had done would be "a ripping hybrid, a… Read more
Red
- Style
- Wild Berry Sour Ale
- Strength
- 4.6%
- Stockists
-
Other stockists TBC
More stockists...
Two Birds Brewing Tea Party English Summer Ale
Tapped Today
Two Birds continue to kick goals – or should that be hit home runs – with spring 2018 seeing the Spotswood brewery tie up a deal with baseball clubs Melbourne Aces and Geelong-India to supply beers at their games. And, of course, the new beers keep coming too, with this big bottle release inspired by a trip to England and in which they look to capture "the best parts of English hospitality", which in this case (aside from the beery parts) is Earl Grey tea, lemon and cucumber. Head brewer… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Fruit Tea Summer Ale
- Strength
- 5.2%
- Stockists
-
Grape and Grain Liquor Cellars
More stockists...Two Birds Nest
And select good beer outlets in VIC & NSW
Hop Nation & Footscray Historical Society The Patron
Tapped Today
Back in the 19th century, well before Centrelink and the Australian Labor Party, the social welfare of the working class was rarely at the forefront of the government’s mind. In industrial suburbs like Footscray, it meant the wellbeing of the poor often fell into the hands of their employers. Though a quick glance over a Charles Dickens novel might lead to the assumption employers would do whatever they could to avoid spending their money on workers, it wasn’t always the case. Drawing inspiration… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Mid-Strength
- Strength
- 3.5%
Dainton Brewing Cranny Sour & Smoked Sour
Tapped Today
There appears to be nothing that's off limits for the eclectic production line at Dainton, with everything from sours to barrel aged beers to big Belgians to lolly spin-offs and IPAs coming thick and fast. Among the spring 2018 splurge are these two sours that are rather different in nature. Cranny Sour is a salted cranberry gose, one with the faintest hint of colour from the fruit that has it looking somewhere between rosé and chardonnay, albeit far from either in character. There's much in the… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Cranberry Gose & Apricot Lichtenhainer
- Strength
- 5.0% & 4.5%
- Bitterness
- 10 & 7 IBU
Dainton Brewing Raspberry Rye Milk Porter
Tapped Today
They may have dropped the word "Family" from the brewery name but it seems Dan Dainton's relos still play a role in influencing many of the beers. In this case, it's childhood memories of hand-delivering chocolate ice cream with raspberry to his dad in the bath. Thankfully, the recreation of this cherished memory is kept to what was in the bowl. The beer version is stickier and fuller than ice cream and delivers on the flavour and aroma front. Imagine melting some raspberry liquorice into… Read more
Dark Brown
- Style
- Raspberry Porter
- Strength
- 6.0%
Dainton Brewing Rock Toffee Belgian Dubbel
Tapped Today
If you're going to bring the worlds of rock toffee and beer together, a Belgian dubbel isn't the worst host for your sugary parasite. And thus it was that the Dainton team boiled up some toffee rocks in place of candi sugar in creating this one-off. Little surprise that it's an approach that conjures borderline sickly sweet, mouth-coating toffee characters, which are joined by hints of banana, raisin, marzipan and a little fruitcake spice. There is a little dryness at the finish to add a little balance… Read more
Rich Brown
- Style
- Belgian Dubbel
- Strength
- 6.3%
- Bitterness
- 26 IBU
Dainton Brewing Sav Brute
Tapped Today
Let's be honest. There's few among us in Australia that really know what a Brut IPA is supposed to taste like yet. We've had some so dry all aroma and flavour has been stripped out and others that are rather more enjoyable yet don't seem to tick the alleged "style" boxes so assessing one to style is a pretty meaningless endeavour. That said, we reckon this one from Dainton could be close to working out what the right track at least is. Brewer Cam Turner used a sauv blanc wine yeast here,… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Brut IPA
- Strength
- 6.9%
- Bitterness
- 27 IBU
Otherside Brewing Co Experimental Series Strong Ale
Tapped Today
Strong ale isn’t a style seen too often these days, perhaps unsurprising when the US led push for bigger, more bitter and more aggressive beers has had such an impact globally that there are plenty of other beers that sit at or above the 7.5 percent ABV mark where you might expect to find one. In some ways, they could be considered a mid-strength or session barleywine, with English examples typically pushing the malt balance and America’s take asserting hop arrogance. The first Experimental… Read more
Rich Brown
- Style
- American Strong Ale
- Strength
- 7.2%
- Bitterness
- 74 IBU
- Stockists
-
Available from the brewery and select WA retailers and venues
Bodriggy Brewing Space Milk Vo. 1
Tapped October 15th, 2018
Now that Bodriggy’s brewery is firing on all cylinders we can expect to see a steady release of new and quirky tinnie releases leaving Abbotsford. Among them is a new series going under the Space Milk banner that will feature a rotating range of lactose-laced sour beers. Volume 1 is a kettle soured wheat ale in which the lactose is joined by cascara (the dried skins of coffee cherries) and wild Australian raspberries. That combination makes for a beer that pours a pinkish-orange hue with a soft… Read more
Red
- Style
- Fruit Cream Sour
- Strength
- 3.0%
- Stockists
-
And select good beer outlets in Victoria
More stockists...
Sailors Grave Blood and Sand & Grapefruit and Yuzu
Tapped October 12th, 2018
On a recent stop to see Gab and Chris at Sailors Grave, they revealed they had one new beer a week coming out at the minute (although hope to slow things a little after the current rush of madness). And these are two of the newbies seeing the light of day for the first time this spring. Blood and Sand is a collaboration with Lark Distillery, albeit one far removed from that announced by Wolf of the Willows around the same time. While the latter features an imperial smoked porter, here the former… Read more
Red
- Style
- Cocktail Ale & Fruity Farmhouse Ale
- Strength
- 5.7% & 5.4%
Modus Operandi Pittwater Premium Draught
Tapped October 12th, 2018
It’s funny how things come full circle. When Modus Operandi opened in 2014, it felt like a limitlessly exciting time in the beer world, one where small breweries were popping up with a frequency that allowed time and space for intrigue. They were becoming, to borrow parlance assumed by the tech world, disruptors. There wasn’t enough competition for them to be especially competitive with each other so more or less everything that came from a microbrewery was enough to cause a ripple in its own… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Beer
- Strength
- 4.4%
Wayward Brewing Raspberry Berliner Weisse
Tapped October 12th, 2018
One of the unexpected but unbridled success stories of the Wayward Brewing Company, in all its forms, has been its Raspberry Berliner Weisse. It first came out in 2012, when company founder Peter Philip was a still gypsy brewer making his beer at breweries in and around Sydney, and was released very sporadically under the name Sourpuss. When Wayward got its own brewery in 2015 Sourpuss moved right on in, became part of the furniture and a platform for a gamut of sour beers over the ensuing years.… Read more
Red
- Style
- Fruit Berliner Weisse
- Strength
- 3.8
Wayward Brewing India Pale Ale
Tapped October 12th, 2018
For more than three years Wayward’s flagship India Pale Ale was Oatis, an oatmeal IPA the brewery had debuted at the 2015 GABS festival. It wasn’t a beer that necessarily got people vocal about but it nonetheless had legions of admirers, meaning that when brewery decided to overhaul its core range in the latter part of 2018 there was little chance it would lose it place. It did, though, lose a couple of other things. For starters they sought to remove any confusion on the label by taking away… Read more
Golden
- Style
- India Pale Ale
- Strength
- 6.0%
Wayward Brewing Everyday Ale
Tapped October 12th, 2018
The only clue you need about Wayward’s Everyday Ale is in the name. It’s meant as a go-to beer for every day and situation. They must’ve been mighty tempted to just call it a pale ale (because, at its heart, that’s exactly what it is) but there’s also a sense they’re trying to push people a bit beyond the ordinary, to not have you settle for the status quo and get you dreaming of being the one astride the motorcycle on the label artwork, riding a road to who-knows-where as long as its… Read more
Golden
- Style
- Pale Ale
- Strength
- 4.2%
Wayward Brewing Pilsner
Tapped October 12th, 2018
When the Wayward range was rejigged and repackaged towards the end of 2018, the Pilsner was one of two new recipes to be debuted. And after a couple of sips you get a sense they’d put a lot of effort into getting this recipe right. After all, there’s a common line in the brewing world that beers of this ilk are the toughest to make, their lighter body and character limiting the ways a brewer can hide a potential flaw, so you really ought to get it right. This one’s hard to fault. Being an… Read more
Pale Yellow
- Style
- Pilsner
- Strength
- 4.2%
Wildflower & Mike Bennie Foudre #1
Tapped October 11th, 2018
You’ll notice, if you care for such details, that there are two especially large oak barrels at Wildflower. They’re called foudres and each holds around 2,500 litres of liquid. One of them belongs to Wildflower. The other belongs to drinks writer Mike Bennie who realised a promise made in the early days of Wildflower to, one day, stake out a small corner of the place to be his own. In December of 2017, both were filled. Wildflower’s would go on to house the Solera series. Bennie’s would produce… Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Foudre Beer
- Strength
- 5.2%
Beerfarm & Clancy's Gose From The Black Lagoon
Tapped October 11th, 2018
While the Beerfarm may be landlocked, their collaborator’s affinity with the ocean has manifested in a quirky take on one of the most enduring renaissance styles of the past half decade. To think that only four years ago gose was nigh on extinct and, yet, here we are with a playful creativity that is normally reserved for styles with a rich history is somewhat mind-bending. Mind-bending is also a term likely to crop up when describing this black gose with lobster. Lobster, you say? In a beer?… Read more
Dark Brown
- Style
- Lobster Gose
- Strength
- 4.8%
- Stockists
-
Available now from the Beerfarm and all four Clancy’s Fish Pub venues.
Wolf of the Willows & Lark Distillery Imperial JSP
Tapped October 10th, 2018
In a world in which the release of barrel aged beers seems to be a weekly occurrence, The Barrel Exchange Project is a meeting of malts with a difference. The collaboration between Wolf of the Willows and Lark Distillery saw the Wolf brewers head to Tasmania to select six Lark barrels to be shipped across Bass Strait. Once they arrived in Cheltenham, within seven days the freshly emptied barrels were filled with an imperial version of the brewery's JSP and left to mature. When the beer was ready,… Read more
Black
- Style
- Whisky Barrel Aged Imperial Smoked Porter
- Strength
- 11.2%
- Stockists
Loch Brewery Cask Aged Boilermaker Stout & Boilermaker Stout
Tapped October 10th, 2018
It takes something to stand out from the crowd in the ever-busier local beer world, but Craig and Mel at Loch Brewery & Distillery in South Gippsland manage to. Not only do they brew English style beers and produce gins, gin liqueur and whiskies but they've been blending their various wares too. These two Boilermaker variants – of which you can read much more here – are, in many ways, a summation of their story. Both take their stouts and add a portion of the new-make malt spirit with which… Read more
Black
- Style
- Stout-Spirit Hybrids
Endeavour Kolsch & Red Rye IPA & Dessert Stout
Tapped October 10th, 2018
As he prepares to move on from the Endeavour Tap Rooms to pastures new, head brewer John “JB” Bogan is leaving a lineup of new beers that are a fair representation of the journey both he and the little brewery in The Rocks have been on in the past 18 months. The first is a Kolsch, a beer that nestles comfortably in the realm of easy-drinking styles with which Endeavour first rose but whose early reputation is being slowly shed thanks to the brewpub releases. As with the Rauchbier and Altbier… Read more
Red
- Style
- Kolsch & Red Rye IPA & Sweet Stout
- Strength
- 5.2% / 6.1% / 6.4%
