lab
The Collaborators: Craft Instinct
Jessie Jungalwalla has spent close to three years leading Craft Instinct, a branding agency dedicated to making the craft beverage world look better. We caught up with her to talk branding and beer.
One Hell Of A Brew
He's their most-capped player, longest-serving captain and leading goalscorer – and has his own brewing company. Now, David Neitz has combined his two passions with the launch of Demon Brew with Melbourne FC.
The Collaborators: Binary Beer II
Missing or stolen kegs can be a major pain for brewers, both in terms of cost and lost time. A Wollongong operation, Binary Beer, hopes it has the solution.
The Collaborators: FermenTasmania
FermenTasmania is a not-for-profit organisation looking to boost all Tasmanian industries working with fermentation in one way or another. We got in touch with one of the founders to find out more.
Hoppy Campers
Ahead of the fifth High Country Hops festival in Beechworth, Bridge Road have hosted their first Beer Glamp, inviting winemakers and brewers to town to collaborate on beers (and sleep in yurts).
Punky Brewsters
Swedish punks Millencolin have toured Australia many times over the years. But their most recent visit was a little different as their frontman is now a brewer – and laid down a few collabs between shows.
Canned Laughter
It was a punchline that was waiting to happen as the beer world moves inexorably from bottles to cans and brewers strike up partnerships outside craft beer's original stomping grounds. It's Canned Laughter, a beer from Newstead and Brisbane Comedy Festival.
WA's Brewers Birth A Collabosaurus
Of all the states in the country, it seems none is home to as many people keen to collaborate as WA. And now that passion has been taken to the next level by the crew at Petition, who've created no less than 15 collab beers for WA Beer Week.
Victorian Heritage
Bad Shepherd have plundered a bit of local brewing history in creating their new Victoria Pale Ale. It features the historic Melbourne Ale Yeast, brought back to life recently but dating back to the late 19th century.
Craft Beer Heroes: Newstead, The Mill & Brewski At 5
Three of the key players in Brisbane's burgeoning beer scene in recent years all turn five as 2018 draws to a close. We caught up with the founders of Newstead Brewing, The Mill and Brewski to look back, forward and ask who'd win in a fight.
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Sowing The Seeds Of Hemp Beer
Young Henrys become the latest brewery to launch a hemp beer following law changes in Australia last year. We spoke to brewers using hemp as well as the researchers helping them get the flavours and aromas into their beers.
Toe The Line
The Independent Brewers Association has today released an exhaustive set of labeling guidelines for brewers. The aim is to ensure they are compliant and aware of anything that could potentially get them into hot water or hold them back.
The Patron of Footscray
In one of the more unusual collaborations of recent times, Hop Nation is releasing a new beer created with the Footscray Historical Society. The Patron is a mid-strength featuring the image of one of the suburb's past industrial leaders.
The Collaborators: Provenance Flour And Malt
Provenance Flour And Malt works with farmers using regenerative techniques to supply single source flour and malt to Australian producers. Hannah Louise Grugel spoke to founder John Campbell and one of the brewers using his malt.
Spirituous Away
The rise of craft brewers and distillers is creating ever more chances for cross-pollination. As Wolf of the Willows launches its Barrel Exchange Program with Lark, we speak to them as well as the small Gippsland operation blending boozes in house.
The Collaborators: The Barrel Dealer
The demand for barrels from craft brewers and small distilleries has grown to such an extent, being a barrel dealer is a viable business. We got in touch with one to find out more.
The Collaborators: Big Malt Thinking Small
The rise of craft beer continues to have an affect on the industries surrounding it, with large scale malt producers Joe White and Barrett Burston both introducing new lines designed with small breweries in mind.
Festival Beers
Major music events used to be the preserve of industrial lager and RTDs at music festivals, but things are changing. Music festivals are even looking to create their own craftier beer offerings, as Mick Wust discovers.
Valhalla Tumbles Into Geelong
Gypsy brewing operation Valhalla has created a beer with Tumbleweed and has followed news of the musical collab with confirmation that it will be setting up home in Geelong.
The Collaborators: Zendoke
Phone sex, Hardware Chic, Woolworths Homebrand and cute elephants... In just four years, Jarrod Fuller of Zendoke has become something of a go to designer for breweries in his home state and further afield. Guy Southern finds out more.
The Smith Street Beer
A tradition at Brisbane's Beer InCider Experience is for the headline band to brew a beer. For the 2018 festival, this has seen The Smith Street Band create an IPA with the crew set to open a brewpub in Smith Street: Fixation.
The Collaborators: House Of Malt
Another small business created to support the local craft beer industry is up and running in Ballarat. House of Malt is a small malthouse specialising in creating small batch, floor malted varieties.
The Collaborators: Feeling Animated
With more beers fighting for tap and fridge space than ever before, the challenge of capturing beer drinkers' attention has never been greater. Label manufacturer Graphix is hoping a moving new development will appeal to brewers looking to stand out.
The Collaborators: Leading The Charge
They were heading into the busiest period of the year and had started blowing fuses and losing power at their brewery. The Mornington Peninsula team needed a solution and it's one they believe could help regional brewers across Australia.
Royal Blood's Capital Connection
High flying UK rockers Royal Blood are heading to Australia for Groovin The Moo. And they've created their own beer too. Thanks to a friendship with one of Capital Brewing's owners, they've created Royal Brew, a blood orange IPA.
The Collaborators: Clint Weaver
The Collaborators is the series in which we shine a spotlight on people and businesses working in tandem with the craft beer world. Here, we meet a designer whose work adorns beer magazines, cans, decals and even a pub.
Beer Travel: Christchurch
For a city with an extensive brewing history, Christchurch breweries are not as prominent in beer drinkers’ thoughts as those from Wellington and Auckland. But Our Man in New Zealand, Jono Galuszka, found a beer culture comfortable in its own skin.
More Pink Boots Made For Brewing
The evolution of the Pink Boots Society, set up to assist and encourage women working in beer, continues apace. As the 2018 series of collaborative brews kicks off, the Australian wing of the global society has its own hop blend to play with and is launching in Tasmania too.
A Day In The Life Of: A Hop Farmer
Of beer's four main ingredients, it's hops, those pungent, sticky wee green cones, that have done more to drive the growth of craft beer than any other. Pia from girl + beer spent a day during harvest at Karridale in WA getting up close and personal with them.
Brewed With The Screams Of A Thousand Souls
How do you make a Jack Daniels barrel aged, 11 percent ABV imperial stout even more gnarly. If you're the Brewditos and White Lies Brewing, you expose it to the entire discographies of 14 metal bands while it's taking shape.
Trailblazing Women Of The West
The trailblazing women of Two Birds Brewing and the AFL Women's team Western Bulldogs have launched a new beer together. The Trail Blazer lager will be available throughout the 2018 season and sold across Australia too.
Newstead Forges An Old Alliance
It's 90 years since Sir Charles Kingsford Smith made the first trans-Pacific flight. To mark the occasion, Alliance Airlines has had one of its aircraft specially decorated and created a new collaboration beer with Newstead Brewing.
Throw A Foo Town Down
Newtown brewery Young Henrys is no stranger to the rock 'n' roll collaboration. But, as someone commented to us the other day, they may have reach peak collab with their latest, a beer brewed for the Foo Fighters 2018 Australian tour.
The Collaborators: Rostrevor Hop Gardens
We took a trip to one of Australia's largest hop farms months out from harvest to learn about the farm's history, its ups and downs, the invigorating effect of craft beer and more in the company of the third generation family that runs it.
A Day In The Life Of A Barrel Room: Boatrocker
In May, Boatrocker and Goose Island came together to create a barrel aged beer together. Given they're at the forefront of barrel ageing in their respective countries, the release of October Beer seemed a perfect opportunity for us to run side-by-side features on life in their barrel rooms.
The Collaborators: Ryefield Hops
The owners of a former dairy farm in the south of New South Wales have embarked on a new direction: hop farming. Ryefield Hops harvested its first crop earlier this year, with some of those hops going into Waratah, an all NSW beer released by Wildflower during Sydney Beer Week.
Goat At 20 – Part II
Time to bring the story up to date. In part II of our look back at two decades of Mountain Goat, we tell the last 11 of the 20 stories of people, moments and beers that helped build the Melbourne legend.
Heathcote's Hops
A nanobrewery and tiny hop farm join forces this weekend to launch their collaborative Wet Hop IPA as part of a mission to show Heathcote can be known for more than Shiraz. We spoke to Skull Gully Hops and Cornella Real ahead of the launch.
The Collaborators: More Craft Malt
Hops tend to grab most of the craft beer world's attention when it comes to beer's core ingredients, but as more maltings – big and small – open across Australia, giving brewers new malt varieties to play with, the much-loved flowers may soon be sharing a little of the limelight.
The Collaborators: Binary Beer
A homebrewer is working with a team at the University of Wollongong to create a keg tracking device that could offer brewers real-time information their kegs. Binary Beer is currently being trialled with Five Barrel Brewing and the Headland Hotel.
Stomping Ground Strikes For Melbourne City
Melbourne brewery Stomping Ground has struck up a partnership with Melbourne City FC. They brewed a beer for the club's FFA Cup launch in what's the latest win for craft brewers striving to gain a toehold in an area traditionally dominated by the big brewers.
The Artisan
There are few people in Australia who have explored so many facets of the beer world as Brian Fitzgerald. Now winning plaudits for his Belgian style beers as Artisan Brewing, he's a beer judge, Cicerone, yeast importer and more.
The Collaborators: Voyager Craft Malt
The Collaborators is an ongoing series looking at businesses growing in tandem with the local craft beer industry. Here, Marie Claire Jarratt chats to the man behind a craft malthouse in NSW and brewers who use his malts.
The Collaborators: Spark Breweries & Distilleries
We know plenty about the Aussie brewers, hop growers, venues and festivals helping the local industry grow. But did you know there's a local business designing and installing innovative breweries? Meet Spark.
Stepping Up
Newstead Brewing is deep into stage two of its development, building a large brewery close to XXXX and launching a project to study Brisbane's indigenous yeasts. In a broad-ranging interview, Judd Owen speaks to founder Mark Howes and new head brewer Dr Kerry Claydon.
Beer Travel: 12 Hours In San Diego
When Aussie beer lovers head to the States, they usually give themselves several weeks to explore the beer scene. What if you've only got 12 hours? In San Diego for a conference, Marie Claire Jarratt discovered the answer is: plenty.
Grab The Slab
Journalist Glen Humphries was already writing a beer book when he scooped the 2016 AIBA Media Award. That win changed his view on his writing and inspired him to turn it into a very different beer book, The Slab.
Through The Looking Glass
While 2016 was a monumental year in many pretty terrible ways globally, for craft beer in Australia it was another in which we witnessed huge growth and ever greater diversity. So surely we're set for even greater things to come.
The Collaborators: Growing Gladly
We've often shone a light on Australian businesses that have launched or discovered new and fruitful avenues thanks to the rise of craft beer. Today, we chat to a New Zealand maltster winning fans at home and abroad.
WA Clubs Together Again
With WA Beer Week imminent, Guy Southern takes a look at some of the highlights from the many beer collaborations spawned at this time each year by an extremely tight beer community. They involve more than brewers, with spirits, coffee, chefs and more getting involved.
