New Beers
Barely a day goes by without another seasonal or one-off special flying out of an Australian brewery. We'll do our best to tell you what’s coming when, where it’s going and – where possible – what it tastes like before it goes on sale. Be aware, however, that just because a venue’s getting a beer doesn’t mean they’ve tapped it straight away so maybe check it's pouring first.
Bridge Road Brewers B2 Bomber Mach 7.0
Tapped Yesterday
We're not quite sure when – or if – there will come an anniversary at Bridge Road Brewers upon which it becomes impossible to up the ante for what's been its birthday beer for the past seven years. But, clearly, this year isn't that year as the B2 Bomber returns, shiny and green, with the brewery claiming they've increased the levels of malt and hops once more in what is probably best described as an imperial Belgian black IPA. The gelatinous beast clocks in at a round 10 percent ABV and is best ··· Read more
Black
- Style
- Imperial Belgian Black IPA
- Strength
- 10.0%
- Stockists
-
Bridge Road Brewery
And good beer outlets nationwide
More stockists...
Mash Brewing Little NEIPA
Tapped Yesterday
Mash Brewing’s arrival into the turbid wort water of 2017’s style de jour sees a fresh take from the Swan Valley crew: a mid-strength New England IPA. This inspired iteration – one recently undertaken by Melbourne's Tallboy and Moose too – resolves the classic lack of body that plagues the lower ABV category, an issue the brewing world cheekily calls "donuts" – all upfront aroma and late bitterness with a big hole in the middle where the body should be. Little NEIPA’s suspension ··· Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Mid-strength New England IPA
- Strength
- 3.5%
- Stockists
-
Mash Brewing's venues
And select venues around Perth
Red Duck Mr Tom / Lemon, Lime & Bitters / Great White
Tapped Yesterday
Time for another update on the latest beers to make their way from the mind of Red Duck's arch innovator Scott Wilson-Browne into beer form. And they make for a collection as diverse as you'll have come to expect. Mr Tom is the latest Red Duck beer that looks to recreate a spot of history, or at least an urban legend. Apparently, in Ballarat in the 1920s, a gentleman by the name of Mr Tom who'd arrived via steamship in the Port of Melbourne, travelled by train to the Goldfields to see what all the ··· Read more
Golden
- Style
- Various
- Strength
- Stockists
-
Red Duck Brewery
And select bottleshops around Victoria
More stockists...
Two Birds Brewing Knock On Wood
Tapped Yesterday
June 2017 saw Two Birds Brewing turn six. Among the dozen of their own beers that lined the taps for the big day at at their Nest in Spotswood was a new birthday beer. It was Knock On Wood, not just a birthday beer but the brewery's first barrel aged release too – sixth anniversaries are traditionally celebrated with wooden gifts, you see. It's a beer that comes with echoes of the first time we recall Birds co-founder Jayne Lewis playing with wood, back in her days as Mountain Goat's head brewer. ··· Read more
Golden
- Style
- Barrel Aged Belgian Blonde
- Strength
- 7.1%
Old Wives Ales Horn Swatter
Tapped June 25th, 2017
Almost by stealth, it seems, the gypsy foursome that is Old Wives Ales has five beers out in bottles. The most recent is the first in what they're tagging the Shed Series, with Horn Swatter an American stout in which they've ratcheted everything up like the temperature controls in the brew shed. The description kicks off with the claim: "Blacker than Norwegian metal..." and it's one they waste little time living up to. Not only is it black as night but the dark malts have been layered in ··· Read more
Black
- Style
- American Stout
- Strength
- 6.0%
- Stockists
-
Other stockists TBC
More stockists...
Pirate Life & Ballast Point Trans Pacific Partnership
Tapped June 24th, 2017
Given so much of what makes up Pirate Life is inspired by the beers of West Coast USA, there can be few more suitable collaborations for them to enter into than one with a West Coast US icon. Ballast Point was one of the trailblazers of the influential San Diego scene, growing from a small brewery at the back of a home brew store in San Diego to one that operates from several sites and was picked up by Constellation Brands in December 2015 for an eye-watering USD $1billion. And now they've made a ··· Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Pale Ale
- Strength
- 6.0%
- Stockists
-
More stockists...
And other select venues in SA, VIC & NSW
Gage Roads Sea Devil Imperial Stout
Tapped June 23rd, 2017
Those who'd been paying attention closely for a while would have noticed something afoot. With Gage Roads' last rebrand of a few years ago came reworked recipes and a couple of new beers, none of which might have set a beer geek's world on fire, but were nonetheless fine examples of their styles, and were augmented by well received limited releases. Yet the surprise that many experienced when the WA brewery was called onstage to collect the 2016 Champion Australian Beer trophy was both palpable and ··· Read more
Black
- Style
- Imperial Stout
- Strength
- 9.0%
- Bitterness
- 70 IBU
- Stockists
-
And other good beer stockists
More stockists...
Loch Brewery & Distillery Oatmeal Stout 2017
Tapped June 21st, 2017
At least until their range of boilermakers and barrel aged beers are ready to roll, don't go expecting anything too wild to come out of this most traditional of breweries (and distilleries). Even then, we shouldn't expect to find anything too unusual in Loch's beers, just experiments to see where you can take flavour with little more than old school hops, malt, water and yeast – and a spot of oak. Thus, for its 2017 winter seasonal, Loch has released an update on its 2016 winter seasonal: an Oatmeal ··· Read more
Black
- Style
- Oatmeal Stout
- Strength
- 6.0%
Mountain Goat In-Breed Silence of the Rees
Tapped June 20th, 2017
The Mountain Goat In-Breed series started out as a spin-off from its Rare Breeds, the tag given to longneck one-off releases kickstarted with an IPA way back when they ditched the old core range for just Hightail and Steam Ale; so way back, in fact, it predates little ol' Crafty. In-Breeds joined Cross Breeds – collaborations with others – and was used to denote beers brewed by individual members of the Goat team, be they brewers or other members of the staff. This one, Silence of the Rees, comes ··· Read more
Black
- Style
- Coconut Vanilla Porter
- Strength
- 6.3%
- Bitterness
- 25 IBU
- Stockists
-
More stockists...
Goat Bar, Richmond
And other stockists in SA, VIC, NSW & TAS
Stone & Wood Stone Beer 2017
Tapped June 14th, 2017
By the very nature of its conception, each year's Stone Beer is a little different. After all, it's brewed as part of a celebration at Stone & Wood's Byron Bay home, to which friends and family are invited and can get involved in the almost ceremonial process of building a fire large and hot enough to heat the volcanic stones that will be lowered into the kettle to add an extra layer of caramelisation to the finished beer. Yet, after changing the recipe around regularly in the early years, it ··· Read more
Wayward Brewing Company Midnight Barley Cowboy
Tapped June 14th, 2017
If memory serves, when Wayward first launched the Midnight Barley Cowboy a few years ago it had the air of an enigma. The night was dark. There was a man at the bar wearing a cowboy hat. There was poetry. And there was this beer that didn't really fit neatly into a style. In the intervening years, the mystery drifted ever so slightly as they brewed it a few more times, the cowboy ended up riding off into the sunset, and the poetry – well, that part is still as confounding ever. But it leaves us ··· Read more
Black
- Style
- Hoppy Porter
- Strength
- 6.0%
Balter Brewing IPA
Tapped June 13th, 2017
As beer launches go, Balter's unveiling of their IPA to the hordes in attendance at their Good Beer Week Tins of Glory event may take some beating. For said event, the Gold Coast based brewery team designed and built a large, glowing shuffleboard inspired table and invited guests to take part in a game en masse, using the tins of IPA they'd been handed on the way in rather than the usual discs, with the whole affair conducted in the manner of a wild game show. The beer has now transitioned from shuffleboard ··· Read more
Golden
- Style
- IPA
- Strength
- 6.8%
- Bitterness
- 72 IBU
- Stockists
-
Find the beer here
Shenanigans Brewing Flower Power
Tapped June 13th, 2017
“It sounds awful. But it smells beautiful.” Such was the immediate response from the non-beer drinker in the room when first presented with the description, followed by a glass, of Shenanigans’ new beer, Flower Power. It’s their 2017 GABS entry, which has since been bottled and sent into the wider world, and it’s a 3.5 percent ABV kettle soured wheat ale that uses next to no hops, instead making the most of the addition of a floral bouquet featuring jasmine, chamomile, rose, marigold, ··· Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Flower Sour
- Strength
- 3.5%
- Stockists
-
The Local Taphouse Darlinghurst
More stockists...And other good beer stockists in NSW
Wayward Brewing Company Fat Charmer
Tapped June 13th, 2017
At the risk of exposing oneself to the suggestion of being late to the party, here's a new beer that’s been out for about two years. It was back in 2015, the year they opened their brewery, that Wayward gave its flagship Charmer India Red Ale a bigger sibling, the Fat Charmer. The idea was to essentially double everything that had made, and continues to make, the original so popular: more hops, more malt, more alcohol. Since that first one-off brew it’s actually had a few re-releases, but now ··· Read more
Red
- Style
- Double India Red Ale
- Strength
- 8.3%
Pirate Life Stout
Tapped June 12th, 2017
It's taken until tinnie number eight (or seventh equal given it's released at the same time as the Mosaic IPA) for Pirate Life to put a beer that isn't hop forward into cans. Sure, there have been barrel aged beers, a porter and a Berliner Weisse released in bottle or on tap, but now winter 2017 sees Stout join a lineup previously reserved for a series of pales, IPAs and a golden ale. They've switched the focus to dark malts in typically unreserved fashion: inside the eye-catching 500ml mass of swirls ··· Read more
Black
- Style
- Export Stout
- Strength
- 7.1%
- Stockists
-
Available nationwide
Odyssey Craft Brewing Jersey Caramel Porter
Tapped June 12th, 2017
In I Wanna Go To Marz, off his debut album Queen of Denmark, John Grant builds a song around lyrics listing the very many sweet treats that, in his youth, he would enjoy from the candy store of the same name. Give it a couple more years and he could do the same based on the desserts and lollies recreated in beer form at GABS. Joining the growing list of lolly-inspired festival beers in 2017 was the Jersey Caramel Porter from Odyssey Craft Brewing. According to the team at the brewing company (and ··· Read more
Black
- Style
- Caramel Porter
- Strength
- 6.0%
- Stockists
-
Brother Burger and the Marvellous Brew
More stockists TBC
More stockists...
KAIJU! Beer Aftermath Double IPA (Can)
Tapped June 10th, 2017
Aftermath is the beer that announced, in no uncertain terms, that there was a new hop fiend on the scene. However you look at it, opening your account with a 9.1 percent ABV "ludicrously hopped" double IPA is a bold statement. It was one that was noticed by Aussie beer lovers, particularly as – then under the Monster Mash banner – the KAIJU! crew managed to deliver their ludicrous hop barrage with a meaty enough backbone of malt and booze to keep it together. As is usually head brewer ··· Read more
Golden
- Style
- Double IPA
- Strength
- 9.1%
Seven Sheds & Bruny Island Beer Co Island Hopper
Tapped June 10th, 2017
Tasmanian brewer Evan Hunter gets about. On various trips to the island since The Crafty Pint started out, we've met him making wash at Lark Distillery and brewing beer at Seven Sheds. He's turned out at Moo Brew and, at one point, ran a crowdfunding campaign to launch a brewing company that would specialise in unique, off kilter brews featuring lesser used ingredients from his home state. In the end, he joined forces with Bruny Island Cheese, where he's bringing many of those ideas to life. And ··· Read more
Golden
- Style
- Belgo Tasmanian Ale
- Strength
- 5.0%
Pirate Life Mosaic IPA
Tapped June 10th, 2017
It is no secret that the Pirate Life crew love their hops. With rare exceptions, the hoppier the beer, the better the beer in their books. It's a tradition that continues with one of a pair of previously draught only beers making a first appearance in 500ml cans for winter 2017. The Mosaic IPA was originally brewed for their second birthday beach party but proved to be so popular it was soon making its way through the brewhouse again and given the tinnie treatment. It's a showcase for their all-time ··· Read more
Golden Yellow
- Style
- Mosaic IPA
- Strength
- 7.0%
- Stockists
-
Available nationwide
Hop Nation The Kalash 2017
Tapped June 9th, 2017
With a name like The Kalash and an image of an armed soldier on the label, you'd expect there to be no messing with this beer. And that's certainly the case. Hop Nation duo Sam and Dunc put the base beer for the second vintage of their Russian imperial stout into bourbon and Port barrels (last year's went into Pinot Noir barrels, just so you know), where it spent months ageing before being blended into the final beer. And it's a big one. Tipping the scales at 10.2 percent ABV, this year's Kalash ··· Read more
Black
- Style
- Russian Imperial Stout
- Strength
- 10.2%
- Stockists
-
Hop Nation Brewery
And select venues on tap in Melbourne
More stockists...
