Articles by Crafty Pint
The Crafty Six: Alternative Melbourne Cup Beers
We all love Melbourne Cup day. Even (or maybe especially) those of us that don’t give a stuff about horses or gambling. Victorians get a public holiday (and usually turn it into two days off, if not…
Crafty Gets Tapped
A few months back, we caught up with a chap who had just launched a new app designed to help beer lovers find out what was on tap at their local venues. It took all of, oh, two minutes for the mind to…
James Halliday Feature: Community Service
Any day now, the latest edition of James Halliday's Wine Companion Magazine will hit shelves across the country. Inside will be a feature article penned by The Crafty Pint's founder looking at the renaissance…
Give Them A Big Hand
When they were formulating the idea that was to become Big Shed Brewing Concern, home brewing mates Craig Basford and Jason Harris always hoped to be able to give fellow home brewers a leg up. Ten…
Beer From The Far Side
In recent years, we've had craft beer arrive in Australia from the usual suspects, such as North America and New Zealand, as well as some less expected places, including all parts of Europe, the Middle…
MO Brewing, No Problems
A three-month-old Sydney brewery has swept the board at the inaugural Craft Beer Awards, taking out four trophies including Champion Australian Craft Beer.
Beer Awards: Perth Royal Beer Show 2014
Mash Brewing continues to follow the golden path through 2014. The Swan Valley-based brewery last night collected the trophies for Best Commercial Brewery, Best West Australian Brewery and Best Ale Draught…
Handing Back The Baton
It's all change at Murray's, with the man who brewed the New South Wales brewery's very first beers when it first launched at the iconic Pub With No Beer returning to take up his old head brewer's role.…
Crafty Pint II: The Sequel
Four years on from its original launch, The Crafty Pint has a new look. It's more evolution than revolution, with Crafty Mk II designed to be more contemporary both in appearance and cross-platform functionality…
Holgate: A Love Story
In the opening moments of a video shot to mark the 15 year anniversary of Holgate Brewhouse, Paul Holgate points out that it’s 25 years since he and wife Natasha met. "So ours is a love story really,…
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World Beer Awards: More Redoak Success
Another week, another set of awards for Sydney's Redoak. Since we last posted articles on their wins at the International Beer Challenge in London and at the Sydney Royal Beer & Cider Show,…
Hold Tight Sydney!
In little more than a week, the fourth Sydney Craft Beer Week kicks off. It goes without saying that this will be the biggest yet as the festival has grown every year. But it's really the biggest yet, with the program bursting through the 100 events milestone, barely pausing for breath and cracking on to surpass 120.
The Great Keg Robbery
Making it as a craft brewer isn't easy. There's huge investment involved (particularly if you decide to open your own brewery). You're going up against big business with greater economies of scale and…
Register for GBW 2015
It may be more than seven months away but already registrations are open for next year’s Good Beer Week festival in Melbourne and Victoria. The festival organising committee today opened registrations…
Drinking God's Tears
We'd last seen Dave Adams at around 4am on October 3, 2010, as we savoured the afterglow of Collingwood's premiership flag on what paint-stained clothing later revealed to be an as-yet-unfinished trophy…
Beer Awards: Sydney Royal Beer & Cider Show
There are familiar names on the two main trophies at this year's Sydney Royal Beer & Cider Show. The medalists and trophy winners were announced last night (19/9/2014) and saw Sydney's Redoak follow…
Beer In The Valley
Not too long ago, it seemed that pretty much every brewery in Australia was falling over itself to add a cider to its range, whether brewed in-house or paid for and badged accordingly. Now, however, the…
Out Back
It’s not just beer styles being bastardised in the craft beer world these days. It seems that increasingly the lines between bars and bottleshops are being blurred too. In Victoria in particular, where…
Craft Beer Awards Need U
Next month will see Australia’s first Craft Beer Awards take place in Sydney. They have been launched by the Craft Beer Industry Association (CBIA), a national association representing craft breweries…
Stockings & Spice
Admittedly, you are opening yourself up to all sorts of danger when inviting a whole bunch of brewers into your home to brew a collaborative beer for which there is only a loose concept, plans to design…
Australia Reigns Supreme
Australian brewers have taken out the two most prestigious trophies at the world’s largest package beer competition. For the second year running, Sydney’s Redoak won the Supreme Champion beer award.…
James Halliday Article - Those Crafty Kiwis
Given we’ve just filed our next feature for James Halliday’s Wine Companion Magazine, this time looking at the reevaluation of lagers in the craft beer world, it must be time to pluck another past…
Setting Up Homestead
One of Australia’s most highly regarded brewers is set to return to the beer scene after a hiatus spent scouring the country for a new adventure. And he is doing so at the helm of a brand new brewery…
Riders On The Storm
These days, if you want to catch drinkers' eyes from the off, chances are you’ll plump for something overloaded with hops, high in alcohol, aged in a barrel or based on an obscure style. New Melbourne-based…
Hoppier Dogs
Having celebrated turning three with four days of festivities in Sydney and its hometown of Nowra, one of Australia’s most out there breweries is bigger, older and wiser. Well, the first two at least.…
Beer Travel: Beervana 2014 & The Road To Beervana
Last week, The Crafty Pint joined a huge contingent of Australian brewers and beer lovers to make the trek to Wellington. The Kiwi city now calls itself Craft Beer Capital and with good reason: Stu from…
A New Modus Operandi
For six months Grant and Jaz Wearin lived the beer lover's dream; travelling around the West Coast of the USA visiting every brewery they could. But it wasn't a holiday. Well, it was – but it wasn't…
Surf Coast Suds
On a recent trip to the Great Ocean Road, a post-beach drink at the Wye Beach Hotel threw up some pleasant surprises. On tap was a choice that included Mountain Goat, Prickly Moses, Southern Bay and Forrest…
Little Emerson
Other than play around with its younger sibling, White Rabbit, when creating the Little Rabbit beer for the 2012 Great Australasian Beer SpecTAPular, Little Creatures has kept its brewing mitts to itself.…
All Aboard For Beerland
Who wouldn’t want to go to Beerland? Aside from the fact that it just sounds so damn appealing, it’s also conveniently located in the heart of Northbridge, Perth’s nightlife centre… Northbridge…
Coopers Collaborates
Yesterday, Coopers brewed a pale ale. “So what?” you may ask, with good reason. “They must brew heaps of the stuff every week.” And you’d be right. Except this pale ale wasn’t the familiar…
Awards On The Move
The organisers of the Australian International Beer Awards (AIBA) have announced a new format for next year’s competition as well as confirming the identity of the Head Judge for 2015 and 2016. Judging…
Expanding The Flock
Like a sculptor chipping away at a giant block of granite (albeit a block that keeps growing at a rate of knots), we’re steadily making progress through the list of venues and breweries keen to be…
The Flight To Beervana
In less than three weeks, what’s becoming an ever larger annual trans-Tasman migration of Aussies to Wellington will be well underway. The goal is Beervana, New Zealand’s biggest craft beer festival,…
The Kings of Queenscliff
An iconic Victorian hotel which only started stocking a handful of local craft beers a few years back has been awarded the Best Beer List title for 2014 in the Australian Wine List of the Year awards.…
Crafty's Book Is Out!
It’s International Beer Day! No, we’re not really sure what it’s all about either, but what we do know is that it coincides with the launch of the new book by Crafty Pint founder James…
The Pondering Pint: Rating Beers
The other day, an email arrived about a new beer that was the result of a collaboration between breweries. There were two attachments both purporting to be about said beer. A cursory glance showed that…
Band of Brewers
"It was only a matter of time before something like Band of Brewers happened in Brisbane. There’s an unfathomable amount of beer love around town so it should be no real surprise that local craft brewers…
The Best Of Aussie Craft
A new competition that will allow Australian craft brewers to pit their beers against each others launches next week. The inaugural Craft Beer Awards: the Best of Australian Brewing is a new venture by…
Copy That
There is an American style India pale ale brewed in the heart of WA’s Swan Valley that took home the trophy for Champion Australian Beer at this year’s Australian International Beer Awards. By name…
Australia's Craft Beer Festivals
Australia is home to beer festivals of every size and shape. This page is updated with details of the best of them, along with freebies for Crafty members.
Craft On The Rise
New figures just released from a nationwide survey seem to support what we know: craft beer is on the march. Figures from a pool of approximately 20,000 Australians questioned about a range of habits by…
Melbourne's Top Pubs
Several of Melbourne’s top craft beer venues were among those honoured at the inaugural Time Out Melbourne Pub Awards. Pub of the Year went to The Terminus in Fitzroy North, People’s Choice went to…
Beer Me In, Scotty
Technology has been used to enhance beer tastings in Australia before. Venues such as The Local Taphouse St Kilda have beamed in brewers and experts via Skype or other means to take part in their appreciation…
Barossa Beer Is SA's Best
An IPA from a brewery located in the heart of South Australian wine country has taken out the top beer prize at this week’s Royal Adelaide Beer Awards. The Canis Majoris from Barossa Valley Brewing,…
A Very Crafty Beer Book
In a couple of weeks, copies of 150 Great Australian Beers – Your Guide To Craft Beer and Beyond will appear on shelves across Australia. It is written by the founder of The Crafty Pint, James Smith,…
The Bigger They Are...
One of the new breed of high quality New South Wales micros is celebrating after coming out on top in a two-year battle with one of the world’s global brewing giants. SABMiller India, a subsidiary of…
Getting Blind With Crafty: Porter
After a six-month hiatus instigated by a combination of incapacitation at Crafty Towers, a disgusting workload and then the inexorable passage of time, we finally got the Blind Tasting show back on the…
Drinking In Style: Porter
After a rather lengthy break, we reconvened the Crafty Pint Blind Tasting Panel at the weekend for a look at porters. As ever, before publishing the results, here we have our Resident Beer Scholar, Chris…
Sylvanian Family Ties
There’s a minor obsession in the craft beer world with market share. Depending on who you believe, and which breweries you argue should be lumped in with the crafty crowd, in Australia the figure is…
