text: Seven Sheds Summer Saison
  Seven years into brewing at their home and hop farm in Northwest Tassie, Seven Sheds has created its first saison. And, once again, it's a beer in which Willie Simpson and his brewing team has made full use of local ingredients. Among the fruits of their surrounds to be featured in the beer are locally-grown lemongrass and lemon zest, spelt and oats from Kindred Organics, as well as locally malted barley, plus Aussie Ella and Kiwi Motueka hops and, for good measure, a dose of raw ginger. It was debuted… Read more
  Seven Sheds (bottles)
  The story behind the arrival on bottleshop shelves of a new mixed, large bottle six-pack from Stone & Wood for summer starts with the Cloud Catcher. The beer originally released to mark the opening of a second brewery at Murrwillumbah – a delightful fruit salad explosion – proved so popular that the brewers were inundated with requests to bring it back. We can well understand this as when we were lucky enough to be given a pre-release sample at the brewery earlier this year we got about as… Read more
  Black Dog Estate Hopped Saison
  He has quite the little enterprise going up in Glenrowan does James Booth. Not only is he running the family's long-established wine business, Taminick Cellars, and brewing beers as Black Dog on his flash Italian brewery but he's growing ingredients for some of his beers too. For his occasional release, the Estate Hopped Saison, he adds homegrown Aussie Cascade and some local Topaz to the mix, giving this traditional beer style a New World twist. They're not added to the same level as in, say, near… Read more
  Black Dog Aussie Terrier IPA
  In between making all of the wine at Taminick Cellars, James Booth has spent the past few years creating beers under the Black Dog banner. Having launched on a 70-litre home brew setup, he's now the proud owner of a shiny, Italian made 18 hectolitre brewery and has established a loyal band of followers who believe the quality of his beers deserve a bigger following. One suspects that beers like this Aussie Terrier, one of the finest of his brews we've tasted to date, should help. There's already… Read more
  Bottles coming end of November at:
  La Sirène Belle
  As the brewery has grown, head brewer Costa Nikias has dedicated time to developing a handful of beers of a more easy-drinking nature than those with which La Sirène made its name. Among them are the draught-only Belle, described as a "French table ale". The beer uses the brewery's in-house yeast alongside pale malts to create a beer they say offers "subtle fruit characters [that] initially lead into a medium body with rich yeast characters to conclude with a beautifully crisp dry… Read more
  French Table Ale
  Prickly Moses Prickly Mo
  Just as most of the mo's of Movember are now consigned to memories / photos / regret, we're pretty sure that the limited run of kegs of this fundraising beer that went to bars around Sydney will be gone by now. But if you'd still like to contribute to the Movember fundraising venture set up by online retailer BeerBud in conjunction with Prickly Moses we believe there are still bottles around. Profits from sales of Prickly Mo, a red IPA, are going to a men's health charity. In return for the good… Read more
  The quality of beers he was releasing pretty much from the start of his time at Bright suggested young brewer Jon Seltin was one to watch. But it was on a visit to the brewery a couple of summers ago and a chance bumping into Jon (who was supposed to be on holiday but clearly couldn't keep away) that the attention to detail, creativity and ambition became apparent. Among the toys and experiments he unveiled was a barrel filled with a "stock ale", a type of beer originating in 18th century… Read more
  Making the most of the relative freedom before the summer onslaught demands both their breweries knock out nothing but Pacific Ale, the Stone & Wood team continues what's been, by their standards, a deluge of limited release beers. This one is something of a twist on their lager and sounds a little like past Kellerbier releases, albeit rather larger. The beer chosen to mark the arrival of Spring takes its inspiration from Germany – and its hops from there too. Coinciding with the Northern Hemisphere… Read more