The Crafty Pint Podcast

What does it mean to be a sustainable business or to brew in a sustainable manner? Can beer really do good, or are such claims just there to make marketing departments feel better about themselves? And, if so, how can they have a positive impact on the world around them, from their local community to the drinkers who buy their beers? Such questions – and helping people find the right answers to th...

In Episode 015 of The Crafty Pint Podcast we head overseas for the first time. Our destination is a tiny brewery most people won't have heard of, where we're joined by a guest with whom many will be very familiar.   The tiny brewery is Shortjaw Brewing, located in Westport: a town on the sparsely populated west coast of New Zealand's South Island. The guest is the man who, along with his part...

The craft beer era has given rise to thousands of stories, but none like that of Moon Dog. Founders Karl van Buuren and brothers Josh and Jake Uljans announced themselves to an unsuspecting beer world in the manner of a custard pie to the face – well before custard pie beers were a thing – and have never stopped evolving and innovating. Neither have they lost focus on keeping two words – "deliciou...

There are few brewers anywhere in Australia with a pedigree to match that of Shawn Sherlock. For the past decade, he's been at the helm of FogHorn Brewery in Newcastle; prior to that he was at Murray's Brewing, helping the business grow from its roots in the Pub With No Beer in Taylors Arm (population: 133) to one of the country's envelope-pushing craft beer pioneers selling 1.5m litres per year a...

When choosing guests for The Crafty Pint Podcast, we favour people we know have good stories to tell (which, in fairness, doesn't discount many people working in beer) and a particular area of knowledge, expertise or insight to share with listeners and viewers.   In the case of Amanda Baker – Bakes to most – they were high on our priority list but leapt to the top when Will spotted something...

We're pretty sure we've never seen anything close to the number of Oktoberfests taking place at breweries and bars around Australia as we're witnessing in 2024. So, as they started to ramp up, we sat down with Nathan Munt, co-founder and head brewer at King River Brewing, and a man who loves celebrating classic German and Belgian beer styles all year round.   He launched the brewery with his...

Gillian Letham only stepped behind the bar of The Mill on Constance to help out her partner and his mate. Eleven years later, while that venue – one of those that helped build Brisbane’s beer scene – is long closed, she now oversees three venues around the city. They’re all found in Brisbane’s ‘burbs – The Oxford Tap House in Bulimba, The Woods in Mitchellton, Clover in Holland Park – leading our...

There’s a good chance you’ve heard or read the word terpenes being bandied about the beer world of late. If you haven’t, there’s a very good chance you will at some point. What we can confirm with certainty is that you have definitely had them in a beer – they’re aromatic compounds found in most plants and herbs, including hops. The reason they’ve become one of the hot terms of 2024 for brewers, s...

Derek Lacey is a former medical researcher who, while spending time as a stay-at-home dad, had a "Eureka!" moment that led to the creation of Melbourne-based Bluestone Yeast.   The business launched in 2018, providing local liquid yeasts for brewers, and has been growing ever since to the point that, at time of writing, Derek and his team are putting the finishing touches to a new, far larger...

FOUND. only launched in 2023 but the story behind one of WA's rising stars goes back far longer and takes in many of the state's best-known breweries and best-loved beers. We sat down with two of the brewery's key players, Steve Finney and Will Irving, at the former Golden West brewpub in Subiaco as they were midway through turning it into a home for FOUND. It's due to open to the public for summe...

Rocky Ridge gave the beer lovers of Melbourne a boost midway through 2024 with the news they had acquired Thunder Road Brewery in Brunswick in order to establish an East Coast outpost.  While availability of their beers in the eastern states has been relatively limited, in their home state of Western Australia the brewery took little time forging a fine reputation after launching in 2017; tod...

Few venues have made an impact on their city's beer scene quite like Brewski, the Brisbane venue opened by Antoinette Pollock and Matt Emmerson back in 2013.  It was one of the first to wholeheartedly embrace craft beer and, along with its notable peers and the teams behind each of them, helped create one of the most colourful, creative and welcoming beer communities in Australia. Fired by a...

Few people in Australia have put as much craft beer into as many venues as Tom Delmont. He was Mountain Goat's first ever sales rep – forcing his way into the role and leaving the world of entomology behind – before moving on from the Melbourne icons when they sold to Asahi, later founding IPA-centric brewing company Fixation with the founders of Stone & Wood.  He left Fixation a few week...

The 2024 Indies awards took place in Perth for the first time on August 2, and The Crafty Pint was there to enjoy the celebrations that took place a few hours after the WA Beer & Brewing Conference. The following morning, we sat down with new Independent Brewers Association chair Callum Reeves, also co-founder of KAIJU! Beer, for a wide-ranging chat about the awards, his new role, the challeng...

Lindsay has developed the sensory and quality program at a brewery that has a happy knack of winning major trophies. The tale of how she ended up in that position, after years spent travelling the world seeking out good beer wherever she went, is an excellent one. She's about to head back to her home country, the US, so we needed to get her on quickly. As with many of the ongoing series on the mai...

Chris and Gab Moore are the visionaries behind Sailors Grave Brewing, the East Gippsland brewery that's different in pretty much every way you can imagine: from the artwork designed by a British children's book illustrator and unusual ingredients to the amazing partnerships they've forged throughout their home region and further afield. We invited them on to tell us about the impending arrival of...

The Crafty Pint has been covering the Australian craft beer scene since 2010 and now we're launching The Crafty Pint Podcast. Hosted by the editorial team behind Australia's leading craft beer media publication, the show features curated discussion of industry news, as well as an ever-changing lineup of guests sharing perspectives from all corners of the craft beer world. Subscribe now and delve i...