I really started to miss malty beers after a long QLD summer. Hazies and kettle sours are cool and all but I do enjoy the darker maltier creamier beers on cool winter nights. And anecdotally it seems to have been the strongest winter for beers in Australia that I can recall. There’s been a heap of great releases, some new trends I’ve enjoyed and a lot of breweries embracing wintertime with special events and beers to match the season. Nitro beer boom I’ve long been a big fan of nitro beers. When Mornington Peninsula annouced the first Australian brewed nitro beer in cans, I wondered aloud whet ..read more

The second GABS of 2019 is set to get underway later this week in Melbourne, featuring 170+ festival beers and ciders plus hundreds more at the stands. Around a 100 festival beers were already featured at the Brisbane event and I’m going to share the highlights from that event which gives those headed to the Melbourne, Sydney and Auckland events plenty to look forward to. Festival beers I was happy that my festival preview was pretty on the money regarding which beers to look out for and I was able to try most of the beers that ranked highly with drinkers. Currumbin Valley’s Grape Bubblegum So ..read more

Some count how many sleeps until Christmas, I count how many sleeps until GABS, and I’m excited to say that there’s only 12 sleeps left now until Australia’s biggest beer festival hits Brisbane for the very first time. Every year GABS gets a little bigger and this year they’re expecting close to 50,000 attendees in total across Melbourne, Sydney, Auckland and Brisbane, with 6-7k marked for Brisbane’s debut across two sessions at the Convention & Exhibition Centre in South Bank. It was the right time for GABS to make the move north according to GABS co-founder Steve Jeffares, There is so mu ..read more

It was only a few short years back that you couldn’t find good beer for love nor money in an airport, sports stadium or shopping centre. These vital places of congregation for those who travel, follow sport or shop, were stubborn holdouts amidst a wave of craft beer sweeping across Australia. I was most amazed when travelling to the United States by the access in such venues to good beer in sports stadiums (there’s now even a Mikkeller brewery in a baseball stadium!), local brewery bars in airports and the availability of good beer seemingly just about everywhere. Australia still has a ways to ..read more

Some count how many sleeps until Christmas, I count how many sleeps until GABS, and I’m excited to say that there’s only 12 sleeps left now until Australia’s biggest beer festival hits Brisbane for the very first time. Every year GABS gets a little bigger and this year they’re expecting close to 50,000 attendees in total across Melbourne, Sydney, Auckland and Brisbane, with 6-7k marked for Brisbane’s debut across two sessions at the Convention & Exhibition Centre in South Bank. It was the right time for GABS to make the move north according to GABS co-founder Steve Jeffares, There is so mu ..read more

It was only a few short years back that you couldn’t find good beer for love nor money in an airport, sports stadium or shopping centre. These vital places of congregation for those who travel, follow sport or shop, were stubborn holdouts amidst a wave of craft beer sweeping across Australia. I was most amazed when travelling to the United States by the access in such venues to good beer in sports stadiums (there’s now even a Mikkeller brewery in a baseball stadium!), local brewery bars in airports and the availability of good beer seemingly just about everywhere. Australia still has a ways to ..read more