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.
Each year, we assemble panels of experts around the country to come up with lists of the best new releases to come out of Australian breweries in the previous 12 months. This year, we kick off in Victoria, home to the most brewing companies in the land.
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.
You could search every corner of the Australian craft beer community and you'd struggle to find someone held in greater affection by as many people as Neil Whittorn. So we asked the man well into his fifth decade of brewing to be our latest Craft Beer Hero.
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.
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.
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.
There's little left for brewers to put into beer. Locally, we've seen squid ink, belly button fluff and whale vomit used, while elsewhere there's been much more besides, as showcased in the new Brewed With Balls book.
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.
The return of our not-often-enough-for-our-liking brewer Q&A series heads south to Hobart. There, amid a flurry of new brewery openings, you find Hobart Brewing Company, whose head brewer Scott Overdorf has seen more beer than most.