It’s hard at times not to feel a similar sense of happy disbelief about the explosive growth of Australian craft beer, particularly the springing up of new breweries across NSW.

For the growing numbers of Australians prepared to sip beyond the dominance of VB, Carlton, Tooheys, etc, these are heady days. The number of independent breweries across Australia has increased more than tenfold from around 30 a decade ago.

From Port Macquarie down to Canberra, and sweeping out west to the Central Tablelands, more and more NSW brewers have had the confidence to build commercial breweries and offer myriad styles and flavours — from mainstream pale ales to concoctions that taste as eclectic as they sound. Grapefruit and cucumber IPA, anyone?

“More and more people are realising beer can have flavour,” says Mike Clarke, who opened Sauce Brewing in Marrickville last August with a large tasting room and beer garden. “People are prepared to try new things and appreciate the breadth of styles.

“Imagine only ever drinking the same couple of wines. Now we’re getting a hugely diverse range of customers, from the hardcore beer nerds to people on their way home from the football.”

Clusters of brewing expertise have sprung up: Sydney’s inner west now hosts almost a dozen physical breweries within a 5km radius, but the northern beaches, the Hunter Valley and areas around Orange have become centres of craftiness, too.

Partly as a result, beer tourism has become a big thing. Sydney’s Inner West Council is working on ways to make its area as synonymous with craft beer as the Hunter Valley is with wine, and lure visitors to sample the products.

To some degree, there remains a distrust of craft beer among drinkers, accentuated by the excitement of some microbrewers to make beers such as imperial IPAs and lip-puckering sours that show off their prowess rather than entice customers away from their regular VB or Carlton.

Beer from small breweries still accounts for less than 5 per cent of sales nationally.

What a lot of people don’t realise is that most of beer drunk in this country is owned, ultimately, by two foreign companies: the Japanese giant Kirin owns Lion, which makes beers such as Tooheys, Castlemaine and Boags, while the American behemoth AB InBev’s CUB subsidiary produces Carlton and Cascade beers, among others.

All of that is made in huge volumes in computerised mega-breweries. By contrast, the independent Aussie brewing scene, according to 2016 economic analysis, employs almost three-quarters of people involved in brewing in Australia, nearly 2500 people, paying some $90 million annually in wages. So, that craft beer you might enjoy this weekend isn’t just fresh and delicious — it has the potential to have a positive economic impact.

UNTAPPED POTENTIAL

“Take our example,” says Pat McInerney of Willie the Boatman, a brewery in St Peters southwest of the CBD. “We’re one of the smaller operations but we’ve turned an old empty warehouse into a thriving business that employs six people directly and provides work for many more, including the food trucks, the distributors, the suppliers and so on.

“There’s still a lot of untapped potential, especially with the tourism dollar opportunities. You look at areas like the Hunter Valley that people go to for wine; if we can translate that to particular inner-city areas, or to regional groups of breweries, that can be really significant.”

The Daily Telegraph yesterday revealed that Treasurer Scott Morrison will lower tax on craft beer in this week’s Budget, which could turbocharge the industry.

For years vineyards have been able to claim tax rebates of up to $350,000 a year, whereas brewers can only claim well under 10 per cent of that.

Morrison is expected to increase the maximum rebate for brewers to $100,000 and rectify an anomaly that means 30-litre kegs of draught beer sold to pubs are taxed 40 per cent more than 50-litre kegs. Not only are there greater health and safety issues moving 50-litre kegs, but pub owners are much more likely to stock smaller kegs of craft beer to limit economic risk.

Mike Jorgensen, owner of Ekim Brewing in Mt Ku-ring-gai, north of Sydney, says his business would be transformed by even doubling the tax rebate available to brewers.

“We’re a small, local business with no debt, proud of what we do — if we were treated the same as the small wine producers, we’d be able to grow sustainably,” he says.

The overwhelming sense is that craft beer isn’t a trend anymore, let alone a fad. Across NSW, breweries have become part of the local community, collaborating with other businesses. For example, the first beer Marrickville’s Batch Brewing made was a stout for a steak pie made by a local baker.

Whether it’s a pale ale or a sour, a wheat beer or hop-laden IPA, pour yourself a craft beer this weekend and toast what has become a quiet but remarkable success story.