The end of the year is nigh and with it comes one final splurge of beer events across the country. If all you want for Christmas is a new beer or a tap takeover, you're very much in luck, while there are dinners, festivals and more too.
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.
Birthdays galore in the latest fortnightly roundup of new and forthcoming beer events. There's also plenty for hop fiends, some cask ale action, bowls and, as is customary these days, some specials for Crafty Pint supporters.
Ideas for brewing companies can come from anywhere. In the case of Otherside, the aim was to create beers and cider for major events in WA. Guy Southern chats to the two guys charged with bringing Sunset Events plan to life.
As suspected, we've had such a flurry of new brewery, venue and bottleshop listings to add to the site in the past few weeks that we've got a second dozen to round up before November is out. Here they are...
Canberra brewpub BentSpoke is getting closer to opening its second production facility. Already the canning line there is up and running. Patrick Baggoley caught up with co-founder Richard Watkins at the launch of the first two canned beers.
In the final lull before brewers start frantically trying to produce enough beer for the summer and venues start preparing for Christmas festivities, November has seen fit to serve us up a merry melange of excellent events...
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.
The Fremantle BeerFest returns in a few days at the start of the 2016 WA Beer Week. So what better time to run a Crafty Crawl on the place where the modern Australian craft beer world was spawned. Graham Frizzell took a tour of his old stomping ground.
Following our saison blind tasting last month, food and beer expert Paul Kasten has put together a few dishes perfectly matched to saisons for you to try at home, including two featuring the top two beers from that blind tasting: Boatrocker Saison du Bateau and Saison Dupont.
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The rise of craft beer has spawned all manner of related businesses. Among them are small malting operations dedicated to providing malt for microbreweries. They include Not For Horses. Bert Spinks caught up with the man behind the Launceston business.
Sydney may still be proving a tricky market for craft beer to truly penetrate but its Inner West is packed with delights. It's home to myriad breweries (with more coming); here's how to crawl your way around there.
With tap takeovers and funky beers galore bookended by homebrewing and beer for a very good cause, the latest round-up of events ought to leave you feeling entirely fulfilled with the state of beer in Australia...
Pint of Origin has been one of the most popular features of Melbourne's Good Beer Week for the past five years. And now it's coming to Sydney Craft Beer Week. Here's the lowdown on venues, buses, prizes and more.
Morrison Brewery turns five this week. It's a family affair based in Launceston that launched with a focus on Old World styles but has since expanded its scope. Here's head brewer Paul in a birthday Brew & A.
With inspiration drawn heavily from pop culture, striking artwork and plenty of prowess in the brewhouse, we find out more about Western Sydney's new gypsies, Bounty Hunter Brewing...
It's a style that's much loved at Crafty Towers and a favourite of many brewers, as well as one that's broad and complex. So, 40 months on from last time, we assembled another blind tasting panel to assess a lineup of saisons.
This month sees Mountain Goat turn 19, which means its first beer, Hightail, is also turning 19. A year on from the brewery's purchase by Asahi, we spoke to its brewer, Dave Bonighton, about the beer then and now.
Like a big fruit smoothie, the upcoming month of events contains an enormous mash of flavours; wild stuff out west; dining with the head brewer from the world's oldest brewery; a sweaty birthday beer dinner in Melbourne, and a whole heap more...
Costa Nikias is the face of La Sirène, Melbourne's "urban farmhouse" brewery. But, through 2016, a brewer previously at Beavertown has become central to all things La Sirene. He's Ben Turley and is the focus of this Brew & A.
A few lesser known names appeared among the trophy winners at this year's Craft Beer Awards. No one was more surprised at Hope Estate's Champion Brewery win than its brewer, Matt, who spoke to Will Ziebell about his beers and plans for cans.
There are few times of the year when a beer lover can't find a festival or beer week in some part of the country. To make it easy, we've gathered together the major events and beer weeks in one handy guide.
Oooooom-pah! It's Oktoberfest, in case you didn't know, and there are plenty of places around the country at which you can celebrate it. And if that's not your scene, theres even more in store for you...
Pint of Origin is a longstanding highlight of Good Beer Week and is starting to appear at other beer weeks too. Ahead of GBW 2017 registrations opening, we're inviting Melbourne venues to apply to become a PoO venue next year.
A tiny number of Australian brewers have played with mead and braggots, but there's now a small yet growing number of people specialising in these ancient beverages. Marie Claire Jarratt spoke to some of them in her debut article for the site.
Australian microbreweries collected both Supreme Champion trophies at last night's International Beer Challenge in London. Melbourne's Hawkers took out the brewery title with SA's Prancing Pony winning best beer.
Hello Spring, hello festival season! In today's roundup of the new events added to the calendar in the past fortnight, it's clear that beer festival season is upon us.
With many observers of the local beer world awaiting news of the next significant brewery buy out since Asahi took control of Mountain Goat, WA's Gage Roads is going the other way and buying back shares from Woolworths.
Do you like your beer on the move, aged in barrels, stuck in a can, sunk by the stein, dressed in drag or shuffled along a bingo board? Well then, you're in luck as there's an event for you in the coming days and weeks.
We've got a whopper of an update for you from inside The Crafty Cabal, featuring winners, VIP passes, a special sign up incentive, more events and a pile of new deals and offers at venues and breweries.
In the final part of his Tiki Tour around the breweries of New Zealand's central North Island, Nick Oscilowski takes in the wine regions of the east coast before ending up in the middle...
From IPA Day to birthdays, moving festivals to Oktoberfest celebrations, degustations paired with beer through to dark beer and sea shanties, August really does have it all – including the launch of the very first Crafty Cabale.
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.
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.
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.
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.
If there's one brewery above all others that won't be struggling to keep its beers chilled this winter it's Blizzard. "Australia's highest brewery" opened in the Victorian alps in March, brewing next to a Dinner Plain ski lift.
It's all change at Barossa Valley Brewing as one of the longest-established of SA's microbreweries expands and repackages its beers in cans. It's also in the process of establishing its Tanunda base as a mid-size contract facility, as Matt King discovered.
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.
Until recently, Canberra had little in the way of beer to call its own. Today, with Capital Brewing having followed both BentSpoke and Pact Beer, it has five brewing companies operating there. Will Ziebell caught up with the newest.
While there's much talk of craft beer booming across Australia, what of the Top End? As Bert Spinks discovers, the microbrewing industry there has just doubled in size. OK, so that still means there's just two, but they're beery and boisterous.
A plethora of Aussie beer never before seen in SA is making its way to Adelaide as Pint of Origin takes its first steps outside Good Beer Week. The ever popular multi-venue showcase of Aussie beer appears across the city from July 2 to 10.
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.
With the Good Beer Week recovery well underway (albeit with GABS hitting Sydney for the second time this weekend), it's time to start planning the next few months of cool weather, beer tinged deliciousness...
Water makes up more than 90 percent of the beer you drink. It is also in increasingly scarce supply in Australia. For our latest Big Issue article, Graham Frizzell speaks to three people looking to reduce their breweries' water consumption here and in California.
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.
Time for part two of our preview of the biggest Pint of Origin yet. Good Beer Week 2016 will see 12 Melbourne and two Victorian pubs join the fun, while we've got the first hosted PoO buses and the return of the comp with Now Tapped.
The ever popular Pint of Origin returns to Good Beer Week for a fifth time in 2016 bigger than ever. As well as a dozen Melbourne venues, there are two regional showcases in Geelong and Bendigo and a PoO Bus, hosted by The Crafty Pint.
The Crafty Events inbox has taken a hammering in the past week or so, meaning the calendar for April and beyond is now fully loaded with a veritable feast of events across the country.
From home brewing in Wollongong to barrel aged sours in Toronto, David Everitt is living out quite the dream. In the second of our Aussie Export articles, he tells us how it came to pass and offers insights into the Canadian beer scene.