Articles by Kerry McBride
Crafty Crawls: Melbourne CBD – South
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.
Cans, Bands and Beer Lands
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.
Beer Travel: 48 Hours In Portland
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.
Beer Travel: Much Ado About Pliny
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?"
How The West Was Won
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.
Tap Contracts Here To Stay
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.
Strength In Numbers
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.
Enjoy By
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 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?
Brew & A: Wilson Hede of Two Birds
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.
Holgate's Bloody Big Endeavour
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.
Get more Crafty!
Sign up to our newsletters and get the latest craft beer news delivered free to your inbox. Choose from our Friday Roundup of the week, the quick-read, social feed-like Crafty Cuppa – or both!
First Among Equals
A brewery’s first beer can tell you a lot about how the owners want to present themselves, acting as a marker of what's to come. Kerry McBride chats to three brewers about the nature of what comes first, and how it sets up all that follows.
Cabal Update - 3.2.17
It might be Autumn, but the beer calendar is still hot, with events and festivals going strong, especially as fresh hop season gets closer. Cabalistas can make the most of it, thanks to a bumper crop of special events and new offers.
Cabal Update - 17.2.17
Beer festival season is not over yet, and The Crafty Cabal has got you well and truly covered. Throw in some tasty CANimals and a chance to meet a whole load of brewers, and February is proving itself to be one hell of a month for Cabalistas.
Beer Travel: High Country Part II
Earlier this week, we ran the first part of Kerry McBride's jaunt through the Victorian High Country, calling in on the members of the region's Brewery Trail. Today, she completes the trip at three more breweries.
The Big Issue: Exploitation
The official line is that craft beer is a resoundingly good thing. And that working in the industry means you're the luckiest person alive. Yet what happens when someone's goodwill or eagerness to be part of it is exploited beyond all reasonable limits?
Beer Travel: High Country Part I
The High Country Brewery Trail has expanded to stretch hundreds of kilometres and include seven breweries. Over the course of a three day weekend, Kerry McBride stopped in at each and every one.
Cabal Update - 3.2.17
A festival, a brewery tour, new offers including for Brewsvegas fans and the chance to win some free Balter beer. The Crafty Cabal is rolling through into February with a bang.
Cabal Update - 20.01.17
New year, new beers, new offers! The Crafty Cabal is kicking into action for 2017, and there are plenty of cool events and offers in the wings to grab the attention of our existing and future Cabalistas.
Our Man In NZ: Introducing Jono Galuszka
Like many Kiwis, Jono Galuszka’s first forays into beer were of the cheap, cold and tasteless kind while at uni. Things have changed significantly since, with Jono named New Zealand Beer Writer of the Year in 2015. In 2017, he joins the Crafty Pint team as our regular New Zealand writer.
Who Brews Once Bitter?
The founder of one of Melbourne's newest brewing companies first discovered a love for brewing in a place few could claim to have found theirs: the kitchen of an Israeli boarding school. We meet the man behind Collins St Brewing Co.
Want to know more?
A Day in the Life Of: A Draught Beer Specialist
Stone & Wood's Draught Beer Specialist Ed Bodey travels the country making sure Stone & Wood's beer comes out of the tap exactly how the brewery intended and that bar staff serving you know just how to look after it.
Tour de Brew
You don’t have to look far to find a beer lover who also spends a fair bit of their time in the bike saddle, especially in Victoria. Kerry McBride speaks to three Victorian breweries helping keep the state’s cyclists well hydrated about the bonds between the two worlds.
Beer Nuts: Matt Kirkey
Beer Nuts is our semi-regular feature focusing on people taking their love of beer to extreme levels. People such as Matt Kirkey, who quit his job this year to travel the world doing research for upcoming beer book, Beer Around The World.
Cabal Update - 2.12.16
A whole year has passed since the Crafty Cabal was launched into the beerosphere. In that time, we've given away more than $10K in tickets and beers, poured 25 kegs for members, hosted 14 events – and it's just getting started.
Cabal Update - 18.11.16
WA Beer Week is coming to its finale, one that includes a trio of The Crafty Cabal events. And there's plenty happening for our supporters elsewhere too, with a ballot just opened for a birthday tasting with Old Wives Ales.
Cabal Update - 4.11.16
It's all eyes to the West this week, as The Crafty Pint lines up a long-mooted WA launch party at the Dutch Trading Co, while new offers abound in South Australia, Queensland, and Victoria, where we've got a couple of exclusive new events coming up too.
Behind Bars: Nick Pogonoski
There was a time when Tooheys was pretty much all you could hope for in Newcastle, but today venues such as the Grain Store are bring craft beer to the people. For our Behind Bars series, the venue's manager Nick Pogonoski tells us where tastes are at in Newy.
Aussie Exports: Tracy Gan
Our Aussie Exports series has so far featured Australians who have gone overseas and are working in beer. This month, we change tack slightly to bring you Tracy Gan, a Hong Kong native by way of Queensland who now spends her days importing Aussie beers to her craft beer store. Literal Aussie Exports, if you will.
The Finer Things: Beer and Fine Dining
While craft beer has snuck its way onto growing numbers of beer lists in pubs and bars, the realm of fine dining is still primarily dominated by grape rather than grain. But, in certain pockets of Australia, beer is beginning to be treated with equal reverence.
Behind Bars: Dane Adkins
We've written plenty about the burgeoning SA beer scene. Now, in our second Behind Bars feature, the owner of Sweet Amber Brew Café tells us what's hot at his bar and where he sees Adelaide's beer scene heading.
Beer Food: The Chuck Norris of Collingwood
When you've got a brewery, restaurant, bar and deli under one roof, it makes sense to cross-pollinate. And that's what they're doing at The Craft & Co where the symbiosis between beer and food goes beyond simple pairing.
Who Brews as Mr Banks?
The Mornington Peninsula is becoming quite the craft beer destination and the ranks are swelling again as new kids on the block Mr Banks Brewing Co set up shop in Seaford. Meet them in our latest Who Brews...? feature.
Aussie Exports: Brendan Without Borders
We head across The Ditch for our latest Aussie Exports feature. This time we chat to a familiar face from the Melbourne beer scene now working for Beer Without Borders in Auckland, Brendan Amos.
Big Little Bottleshops
As the Wine Republic team opens a third store and Slowbeer prepares to open a second in Fitzroy, Kerry McBride looks at the little bottleshops thinking big.
Beer Travel: Malaysia
Five years ago, two Melbourne brothers enticed their cousins to join them and open a craft beer bar in Kuala Lumpur. Taps has ended up spawning Malaysia's nascent craft beer scene, as Kerry McBride discovers.
Pairings From Portland
Meet Paul Kasten, a chef who helped pioneer beer and food pairing in Portland and now calls Melbourne home. The head chef that helped launch new brewpub Stomping Ground is coming on board as a beer food expert at The Crafty Pint.
Aussie Exports: Jimmy Krekelberg
From homebrewing in Victoria to hammering at the doors of breweries in Scotland then ending up at one of the world's best in The Netherlands, life on the road's turned out pretty darn well for Jimmy Krekelberg.
Arts & Craft
The link between beer and art has never been stronger than it is today. Kerry McBride speaks to three breweries from Australia and overseas in order to explore how a label can be so much more than just a label.
A Day In The Life Of A: Senior Brewer
What's life like as a commercial brewer? We spent a day with Adrian McNulty, the well-travelled brewer now in the Señor role at Moon Dog, to find out what goes into heading up brewing operations at one of Australia's quirkiest breweries.
Cold As Ice – Brewing In Antarctica
In Antarctica, beer selection is understandably limited. But a group of Australian Antarctic researchers is helping to broaden the options via a growing homebrewing program at Australian research base Casey Station.
The Big Issue: Gotta Catch 'Em All II
In part I of Gotta Catch 'Em All, we looked at the rise of beer hunting, collecting and rating in the craft beer community. Today, we delve deeper in the company of a diverse panel from the beer world, including Untappd's co-founder.
The Big Issue: Gotta Catch 'Em All
For some, tasting every new, rare and highly rated beer has become an addiction, one that's aided by sites and apps like RateBeer and Untappd. Over two days, Kerry McBride explores whether this is a good thing for beer.
Who Brews Footscray Ale?
Melbourne's west is enjoying a boom in both brewing and beer venues. West City Brewing is, for now, a gypsy operation that has been enjoying success with its hoppy Footscray Ale and hopes to open a place in the west soon.
Aussie Exports: Newfoundland Nardia
From brewing braggot in Beechworth to starting her own brewery in Newfoundland, it's clear that Nardia McGrath's enjoying life to the full. With Pig & Pepper Brewing set to open, we caught up with her for our Aussie Exports series.
By The Power Of Dainton
It's been a long time coming for Dainton Family Brewery but they're close to brewing in their own brewery. As they celebrated, Kerry McBride sat down with Dan Dainton and father Kevin to chat about the winding road that led them to Carrum Downs.
A Day In The Life Of: A Beer Rep
Ever wondered what it's like to work in the beer world? Is it as much fun as you think it would be? And what skills do you need to take on roles in the beer industry? A Day In The Life Of seeks to answer those questions and more. Starting with #replife.
Aussie Exports: The Lone Pine
For our latest missive from an Aussie overseas, we return to the UK. There, former 4 Pines man Adrian Lugg has landed a role at Sambrook's Brewery in London. He offered Kerry McBride his insights into brewery life on both sides of the planet.
Wild Things
With a reputation for walking on the wild side well established, Kiwi trailblazers Garage Project are set to get wilder still. Kerry McBride joined them for a tour of their new Wild Workshop where they'll be working with barrels, foeders and a coolship.
The Evolution of Beervana
Wellingtonian expat Kerry McBride returned home and caught up with the woman tasked with driving New Zealand's leading beer festival, Beervana, as well as a local brewery making its debut, to find out what attendees can look forward to in August.
Aussie Exports: Oh Danada!
Aussie Exports is supposed to be a series of features on Australians doing fun things in craft beer overseas. Yet, this once, we're doing something a little different as we feature honorary Aussie Dan Johnston, now back in his native Canada at Collective Arts.
