Australia's best 20 beers of the year
What a time to be alive. While Victoria may have more breweries, a place in Sydney has a concentration that surely makes it the craft brewing capital of the world.
What a time to be alive. While Victoria may have more breweries, a place in Sydney has a concentration that surely makes it the craft brewing capital of the world.
The special edition of The Weekend Australian Magazine featuring James Halliday's Top 100 Wines is out Saturday, November 19. See the best beers, according to Peter Lalor, here.
On the Wednesday after the federal election, the phone rang at Willie The Boatman’s brewery. It was one of the regulars wanting to know if they were open. The owner said yes, and explained that there was only him, his partner and another couple in the place, so there was plenty of room.
Soon after, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese wandered in, pulled up a stool in the vast factory space and ordered the beer that is named after him — a beer that’s made The Weekend Australian Magazine’s Top 20 beer list for the second year in a row.
A few weeks later, Marrickville’s most famous resident since Jeff Fenech was seen in the area again, this time downing a few Hawkes lagers at the Bob Hawke Beer and Leisure Centre, which boasts the extremely popular Lucky Prawn Chinese Restaurant on its ironically retro premises.
For some reason, the Left appears to have cornered this part of the craft beer market. Perhaps the Right needs to engineer a beer-led recovery to get it back in control. A Dutton Double IPA could be just the trick the Coalition needs.
Savvy’s State of Craft Beer in Australia 2022 claims there has been a 17.7% growth in craft beer revenues over the past two years and that the segment accounts for a 14.1% share of total beer revenue.
Victoria has the most craft breweries in Australia with 158, NSW has 127, Queensland 88, Western Australia 75, South Australia 49, Tasmania 24, the Northern Territory 5 and the ACT 4.
While Victoria may have more breweries, Sydney’s inner west has a concentration that surely makes it the craft brewing capital of the world. Sauce, Batch Brewing, Philter Brewing, Mixtape Brewing, Hawke’s Brewing, Willie the Boatman, Grifter Brewing, Young Henrys and Wildflower number among the area’s brewers and the neighbourhood heaves on weekends with visitors sampling the wares on pub crawls that wind across the suburb.
There are some signs that within the craft industry, tastes are changing. American pale ale, with its bouquet of citrus hops, was the style the craft beer industry embraced as it set out its point of difference to the mundane lagers that had dominated beer sales in this country since refrigeration became available.
It took some time and a concerted effort to break down the prejudices inspired by the big brewers, but as drinkers turned from those products, the big brewers (and the hotels) realised they had to offer customers a wider choice.
So the big breweries started up craft arms that produced the pale ales everyone demanded. Now the craft breweries, in return, are producing lagers in order to broaden their appeal.
Some are tiresome knockoffs of mainstream beers, but most dabble in various European traditions. This is a tougher and more expensive style of beer to brew because it demands storage, and the style’s subtleties make no grand statement. But they do suggest an evolving palate among drinkers.
What a time to be alive.
Badlands Brewery's English Pale Ale
Driving out to the Elvis festival at Parkes earlier this year I pulled in at Orange to visit the makers of my favourite pilsner and drove away with a new favourite pale ale. Golden, malty and with that damp hedgerow English hop thing that’s understated and alluring, it’s more Sun sessions than Vegas Elvis and that’s alright mama, that's alright with me.
English Pale Ale
4.6%
$85 a case (330ml)
badlandsbrewery.com.au
Bright Brewery's Razor Witbier
Most of us got a taste for Belgian wheats via those theme pubs where they serve the spiced white Hoegaarden ale — a style that emanates from the Flemish village of that name and one that was resurrected by the local postie. The brewery, like Guinness’s, should be a sacred site for beer lovers. I went there once, but was underwhelmed. Should’ve just driven to Bright where they’ve got a great set up and beaut beer. This award-winner hits all the right notes.
Witbier
5% alc
$5.40, (355ml)
brightbrewery.com.au
Hawkers' Stout
Peter Kogoy, the dearly departed sports journo, would regularly filter a beer through the best moustache this side of a 70s porn flick and remind you that he was “old school”. Well, champion, when it comes to stouts the old-school ones are the best: straight up and straight down, none of this double-barrel aged bourbon hoo haa, sensibly alcoholic but not stupidly so and nothing to smooth the edges for the kiddies. Basically they are just stout. Among the craft stouts this wears its tradition with pride.
Stout
5.4% alc
$5.50 (375ml)
hawkers.beer
Coopers Brewery's Original Pale Ale
Walked into a hipster beer joint which didn’t sell any Coopers. Vented my spleen and was pleased to hear the young bloke say “I have a house full of craft beer but there are days when only a Coopers Pale will do”. I know those days, there’s a good 300 of them in every calendar year. A beer that’s not like going face down in a bouquet of flowers and one that, when a pub gets it right, makes the soul sing.
4.5% alc
$6, (375ml)
coopers.com.au
Wildflower's wild ale
Wildflower’s beers have a bit of David Bowie’s gender-bending 70s thing. They’re out there and difficult to categorise; they could be accused of being pretentious, but there is a control and a genius to them that is unmistakable. Old mate never does anything by halves and this one is “Wild fermented with natural formed Warre hive post-brood wild comb”. Whatever. Just a sublime beer, Gene Jeanie in a bottle.
7% alc
$28, (750ml)
wildflowerbeer.com
Batch Red’s Robust Brown Ale
Tastes like a porter at first draught, but it says brown ale so brown ale it be. Batch live on a strip around the corner from the Bob Hawke Beer and Leisure Centre (with Lucky Prawn restaurant) and up the road from hilter, not far from Willie’s, Wildflower, Sauce and Grifter. You gotta know your stuff to hold your own in this ’hood. Good English notes in this one, good malts, good brewery.
Brown Ale
6% alc
$8.10, (375ml)
batchbrewingco.com.au
Dangerous Ales' Uncle Damo’s Oaths
Down the road at Milton, where everything is a bit fancier and there’s a beaut pub is where chef Damien Martin (ex-Gordon Ramsay, Quay, Morzine, France) has set up a little brewery and then upgraded. This easy drinking new age stout suggests he is as good over a brew kettle as a stove. Mild and easy drinking.
Stout
4.7% alc
$5.50, (355ml)
dangerousales.com
Bracket Brewing's 6am
Give me Faron Young at four in the morning, then a Bracket Brewing double stout with its single-origin coffee addition at 6am and I’m ready to strike a blow for King and country (music). That said, it’s probably advisable not to take the branding of this mellow, brooding, and marvellous drop from a father-and-son outfit somewhere in Sydney too literally. Best consumed before bed.
9.5%
$17, (440ml)
bracketbrewing.com.au
Slow Lane Brew's Classic Dark Haze
Haul away. This little husband-and-wife brewery, tucked into a Botany cul de sac near the Sydney airport, is hard to find but worth the effort. Traditional, slow fermented beers made in an impossibly small set up, they’re can conditioning and creating a vast portfolio of sensational beers. The CDH is a variation on the spicy and sweetish Dunkelweizens (dark wheats) popular in Germany’s south has all the right vanilla, banana, nutmeg and clove notes.
5.6% alc
$6, (375ml)
slowlanebrewing.com.au
Gage Roads' Cheeky Pash
Sours, what are you going to do? There are no rules any more. You can put what you want in a beer these days, but if a beer is going to make you abandon your prejudices it might be this shameless little drop. The Cheeky Pash is flavoursome, refreshing and reminiscent of the naughty fruit punches one imagined they served at 70s key parties. Gage is another mob from Freo doing great things (and it’s the beer they serve at Perth’s Optus stadium).
4% alc
$6.99, (500ml)
gageroads.com.au
One Drop's We Jammin
Two people recommended this, but in the fair dinkum department, what self-respecting beer drinker is going to drink something that’s billed and tastes like a Smoothie Sour? Bless me father for I went there and I came away feeling like a man of the cloth with a dirty little secret. Who knew they were having such fun on the other side? This “double fruited” beer is good but feels like a sin.
6.2% alc
$15, (440ml)
onedropbrewingco.com.au
BentSpoke Brewing Co's Cluster 8
At the aforementioned Hawke brewery, they named their bitter after Paul Keating. Nice gag. At BentSpoke they serve a hand-pumped Braddon Bitter in the English tradition. It’s worth a trip to the ACT just for that, if you can’t get there knock yourself out with this hop headbanger of the Imperial IPA style. It is strong, not quite as bitter as a deposed PM, but drinkable and should not be consumed before question time.
IPA
8.8%
$32 (375ml 4 pack)
bentspokebrewing.com.au
CoConspirators Brewing Co's Hype
Still drinking American pale ales? Come on, haven’t you read; skinny jeans are out, it isn’t hip to be a hipster, facial hair is so passe. But, good on you if you are still hanging on. Fads come and go, quality is forever and this hazy variety, pumped and pimped full of fruity hops, is a fine beer that people will still be drinking when people have flared jeans flapping around feet.
5% alc
$5.50, (355ml)
coconspirators.com.au
Mountain Culture & Deeds Brewing's Southern Fried
Even the medium heat (I was pre-warned) chicken at Bolton’s Spicy Chicken and Fish, Nashville, took a fistful of Icelandic beers to extinguish and still burned a hole in my gut on last visit. Pity I didn’t have this brilliant malty IPA designed for just such circumstances on hand. A co-lab by two brewers who originally hail from the South, it’s big, bold and comes up the colour of a good fried chicken.
IPA
7.7% alc, $16, (500ml)
mountainculture.com.au
Sailor’s Grave Brewing's Down She Goes
Their Dark Emu Lager is great and has the best can label ever, but unfortunately could trigger some readers, which is fine because Down She Gose is my favourite salty/sour gose styled beer anyway. Sailor’s Grave is a Great Orbost brewery which uses a lot of native ingredients from the area. The gose has seaweed and salt from the sea, the Dark Emu uses seeds from native grasses. The beer is brilliant.
Gose ale
4.5% alc
$6, 355ml
sailorsgravebrewing.com
Ekim Brewing Co's Bloodshot Red IPA
Back in the day, Ekim Mike (see what he did there?) used to bottle by hand then get out the Sharpie to fill the gaps in his generic labels. The thing is, back then he had this malting trick that always made his beers stood out. Wasn’t expecting much from another red IPA but he’s done it again. There’s spaces in this big beer that invite introspection. Love it.
Red IPA
6.5% alc
$7 (375ml)
ekimbrewing.com.au
Heaps Normal's Quiet XPA
Mark E. Smith was lead singer of the legendary Manchester band The Fall. The deceased ‘singer’ is celebrated, sucking a ciggie, in a mural at the Prestwich chippie and remembered in every pub thereabouts. Did a local pub crawl, with the abstemious Gideon Haigh, in Mark’s honour in 2019 and Gid matched my every pint with a UK non-alcoholic beer. When I got home I tried the Heaps Normal XPA and was pleased to see Aussie craft NAs are actually very good. Mark would have hated them. This is the OG of NAs.
Extra Pale Ale
Less than .5% alc, $4.50, (355ml)
heapsnormal.com
Sobah Beverages' Wattleseed Gold GF Ale
My wife, the love of my life, is intolerant. Sad at first to be barred from beers and bread, she has found comfort in the brilliance of bakers like Sydney Noni and the odd brewer such as Sobah who focus their energies on those who have had to set their glutens free. A dry toasted seed flavour from the bush tucker brewers makes this beer special for coeliacs and their fellow travellers.
Gluten free ale
Less than .5% alc
$6.50, (330ml)
sobah.com.au
Beer Fontaine's Draught
In recent decades every big brewer and every good pub realised that you had to serve craft beers to keep your customers happy. Now these infiltrators are realising you have to have a lager/pilsner/lawnmower beer on your menu to keep the punters happy. And, while some are pointless recreations of the Australian classics, some are very good examples of the subtle European lager. This draught is essentially a kolsch, it’s lagered for four weeks and very good.
Kolsch
4.8% alc
$8.99 (440ml)
beerfontaine.com.au
Willie the Boatman's The Albo
A declaration of interest: this is a beer made in my local brewery and named after one of my Marrickville neighbours, but I love the beer and I’m going to ignore accusations of proximity bias. Corn ales were brewed in America by farm workers during prohibition and apparently the first beer brewed by white ‘Australians’. Back in 1796, the entrepreneur John Boston brewed a beer with maize and used Cape gooseberry leaves as a bittering agent because hops would not grow.
Pale Ale
5.5% alc
$6, (375ml)
willietheboatman.com
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