The beer offering in Melbourne's CBD has come a long way since we ran our first Crafty Crawl guide. So it's time to rework it into a two-parter. Here, we kick off in the city's southern half.
The combination of good music and craft beer has become a common sight at music festivals across the United States. In Australia, progress is slower, but the ironclad grip of the big boys is slowly loosening and local Australian breweries are sneaking their way in.
To suggest you could conquer Portland in anything less than literal years is an utter falsehood. If time is limited, the best one can hope for is to tick off beer meccas such as Deschutes or Cascade while hoping to get under the skin of one of the world's best beer cities. Kerry McBride gave it a go.
Russian River Brewing Company - the home of Pliny the Elder - is one of the world's most admired breweries. Kerry McBride caught up with its owners to hear the lengths they go to so in keeping their fans sated and asks: "Will their beers ever make it to Australia?"
The west of Melbourne is undergoing a period of massive growth, and craft beer is expanding right alongside it. The Crafty Pint visited new venues Mr West and Bar Josephine, as well as Two Birds, to find out what the west will do next.
Small, independent Australian brewers didn't get the news they were hoping for today. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) released the results of its multi-year investigation into tap access and declared the status quo was here to stay.
Just weeks after the CBIA became the Independent Brewers Association, the body has released research showing Australia’s independent beer industry now includes more than 400 breweries, generating $740 million in economic output in one year.
Some breweries print a best before or packaged date on the label, some put a date on the bottle, others have nothing at all. For the consumer standing in a bottleshop, how are they to know what’s new, what’s old, and what’s been kept in a warm warehouse for months?
He may not be a "bird", but Two Birds head brewer Wilson Hede has certainly played an important part in helping the Spotswood brewery stretch its wings. Here, he shares his brewing tips and insights as part of our Brew & A series.
Before Paul Holgate sat down to chat about the sizeable expansion his brewery is undertaking, he said something to Kerry McBride that was immediately apparent on entering the new space. “It’s bloody big, isn’t it?” He wasn’t lying.