SA leads the way with craft beers, spirits
SOUTH Australia’s drinks culture is at the cutting edge, as craft beer and spirits reinvigorate hotels, restaurants and the communities around them.
SOUTH Australia’s drinks culture is at the cutting edge, as craft beer and spirits reinvigorate hotels, restaurants and the communities around them.
Our two on-board experts, Mike Gribble and Alister Robertson, both agree there’s a huge buzz about the SA artisan craft beer and spirits industries that feature heavily in Thursday’s release of the new Great SA Drinks Guide.
“South Australia is leading the way across the board in all those sectors,” spirit and cocktail specialist Alister Robertson says.
“It’s easy now to recommend many regions and places for visitors to go to explore what SA is doing — it’s not just the Barossa or McLaren Vale, the Adelaide Hills or Clare Valley.
“You can head to the Riverland and find rose vodka, hybrid whisky, brandy and rum, not to mention plenty of wine — it’s just one of so many places,” Mr Robertson says.
“There are some pretty hip-cool brands and also high end and traditional products — it’s a good combination from and for different generations,” he says.
The same goes in the brewing world, according to expert beer and cider reviewer Mike Gribble.
Beer has a long history here and again is forging a new sense of community around our craft brewing scene, he says.
“Now everyone loves local beer. We want to taste new brews and try the next thing as soon as it comes out,” he says.
“The new brewers are bringing life back into hotels, and people also are searching venues or the small city and country breweries to find out what’s new and local.
“It’s become a social accessory now to be drinking great craft beers and to be seen at the cutting edge on social media and among friends to be trying the latest drinks.”
Both Mike’s 20 latest SA beers and ciders and Alister’s 10 spirits and liquors feature with scores of top wines in the new Great SA Drinks Guide, out Thursday.
The subscriber-only digital guide will lead the way in helping you choose what drinks will go best with your favourite foods, what beers suit your next barbecue and which bars are making the best cocktails from our all-SA list.
HOW TO USE THE GUIDE
The intuitive guide can be used in a number of ways. You can simply browse through the full collection, which is presented randomly each time your return to the guide. It works on whatever device you choose — mobile, tablet or desktop.
You can choose just wine, or just beer and ciders, or just spirits. You can choose to see all drinks just from a region, or drill right down to, say, the best grenache from McLaren Vale. You can also set a price bracket.
You can also add the drinks you want to come back to at another time to your favourites list. This list can also be filtered how ever you choose — so for example if you had 50 drinks in your favourites list, you can easily filter it to show just your favourite wines from the Barossa.
This is a subscriber-only product and is part of our subscriber rewards program — so if you already subscribe to advertiser.com.au, thank you and this is a reward for your loyalty. If not, you’ll need to take out a digital subscription in order to access. You can check out your subscription options here.