Australia’s burgeoning love with beer weeks shows no sign of abating as today we can announce that, in just a few weeks' time, Hobart will host its first Beer Lovers Week. It will feature a series of events at the city’s key craft beer venues in the run up to this year’s Tasmanian International Beer Fest and has been pulled together in record time by a pair of passionate beer lovers keen to give fellow Tasmanians a taste of what’s been happening in the likes of Melbourne, Sydney and Newcastle in recent years.
We were first notified of plans just a couple of weeks ago, spoke to the organiser Ryan Morgan shortly afterwards to offer some thoughts on our experiences with Good Beer Week, and, hey presto, in no time at all Beer Lovers Week was up and running. It will take place from November 10 to 14 and features the likes of tap takeovers, beer and food events and a couple of Crafty Pint events too.
“We are doing this because Tasmania has an amazing craft beer scene, with some really passionate and dedicated people both in and out of the industry,” says Ryan, who also runs the home brew competition Battle of the Brews. “We feel it is the right time to shine a light on that.
“The punters leaning on the bars in Hobart are very beer savvy, they are really interested in tasting and learning the story behind beers, not just pouring them down their necks. And, for their part, the venue managers and staff at the bar coalface have taken on that challenge. They aren’t just responding to the customers taste – they are educating and guiding people.”
And it’s the owners of these venues that have jumped on board, with events booked in at the likes of Tattersalls Beer & Food Hall, the New Sydney, The Winston and Preachers. They will be showcasing beers from both home and abroad, as well as offering attendees chances to meet the brewers.
For our part, we’re bring the Crafty Curates concept to Tattersalls as well as running a Pint of Origin Pale-Off Blind Tasting. For the uninitiated, Crafty Curates is something we’ve run at the first and third Good Beer Weeks, where we take over the taps to showcase beers from some of our favourite brewers across Australia. As for the Blind Tasting, we’ve had so much fun doing them for the website that we’ve always planned to make them public events too. We’ll be doing that on November 14, with a guided blind tasting of pale ales from each state and some international classics at which guests get to assess and judge the beers to see which will be crowned champion. Full details will follow soon.
“With Hobart being named one of Lonely Planet’s top 10 destinations in the world, it is the perfect time to launch the Beer Lovers Week,” says Ryan. “Leveraging off the success of MONA and setting the dates in the lead-up to the excellent Tasmanian International Beerfest, we hope that we can get as many Tasmanians as well as ‘mainlanders’ into our local craft beer bars to experience that dedication and passion firsthand.
“Both myself and [co-organiser] Glenn Carson started out drinking the local Cascade Pale Ale before moving on to taste some really phenomenal local and international beers. We got involved in the home brew scene in Hobart and for the last ten years we’ve gathered a really good group of mates around us, and we have good quality craft beer to thank for that. I guess in some ways, starting the Beer Lovers Week was always going to happen to us, we just had to wait for the right moment.”
He says the aim for the first year is to get the foundations right and giving people “a small taste of what to expect in the future.
“This first Beer Lovers Week is not just about setting up a new festival,” he says. “It is about giving more people a chance to appreciate good beer, to start their own beer journeys.”
You can check out the program on the festival website here. They expect more events to be added so keep checking back in or start following them on Facebook and Twitter.
