With Christmas approaching, the pages of newspapers and magazines the world over are crammed with end of the year reviews. Well end of year reviews and Best Of lists: the Best Albums, Best Films, Best Restaurants, Best Burgers, Best Best Of Lists… So why would The Crafty Pint wish to be any different, especially with 2012 turning into the most stellar year for craft beer in Australia since, ooh… 2011?
Sticking to the format that we used in 2010 and 2011, we’ve posed questions of crafty characters in the various states – brewers, bar owners, bottleshop head honchos – to find out how the year has been for them. After all, why have one viewpoint when you can have many?
First up, we pick the brains of a few Victorians. There’s Ben Kraus, from Bridge Road, who’s overseen a brewery expansion and brewed beers with international brewers and half of the nation’s bar staff. Then there’s Chris Menichelli, from Slowbeer, who moved sites and introduced an on premise element to his business. Alongside them is Guy Greenstone, part of the The Local Taphouse St Kilda team that cooked up the Great Australasian Beer Spectapular, among other things in 2012, and Scott Wilson-Browne, from Red Duck, who’s been banging out new beers for fun since moving to a new site in Ballarat.
Head here to read the Victorian roundup
And here for the Queensland roundup
Over the coming days, we’ll bring you the highlights and hopes from others across Australia as they reflect on a year in which craft beer has taken hold in more corners of Australia than ever before. Brisbane has seen a handful of excellent new bars open and is about to welcome another new brewery, the NSW scene has really started to come alive – aided by the rise of small bars, Hobart is buzzing like never before, The Wheaty continues to fly the flag for great beer in SA, while the good stuff might finally be creeping outside breweries and a handful of spectacular bottleshops into the bars and pubs of WA.
We’ve got a roundup of our own in the December edition of James Halliday’s Wine Companion Magazine, which is due on shelves before Christmas and features 50 beers that tickled The Crafty Pint’s fancy in one way or another in 2012. If you’d like to have your say, remember that the fifth Hottest 100 Aussie Craft Beers poll is now open, once again being run by The Local Taphouses in conjunction with this site and Australian Brews News. Head here to cast your vote.
And if you’d like to see whether the year panned out as we predicted back on January 1, you can do so right here. We weren’t far off…
