The Australian Beer Festival

The Australian Beer Festival took place this past Saturday and Sunday at the Australian Heritage Hotel. From a participant's point of view it was a huge success! The stands were set up along both streets and exhibitors came from all over Australia. My personal favourites were Five Islands Brewing Company, Hunter Brewing, Redoak and Matilda Bay's Alpha Pale.

FIBC's Mick and Tim were up from the Gong with three tasty brews. Their pilsener is available in bottles, but not here in Sydney yet. There's talk of bottling their wheat. I sure hope they do: it's a beautiful German style hefe. I can't think of any Aussie wheat that's as good and available in bottles.

Hunter has a really nice pale ale to join their kolsch as a tasty beer made in wine country. We had the opportunity to speak with Jeremy, a brewer from Matilda Bay, and learned that they really encourage them to experiment with new styles of beer. It sure paid off with their pale ale... and their coffee-flavoured crema is worth a go. Redoak offered three from their selection as well as blackberry hefeweizen sorbet. Dana and I have popped over there for desert - it's fantastic.


Even more enjoyable than the beer was the company! Several BAs made their way to the event. It's always great to meet fellow beer lovers.



And a shout out to Dave Gumm of Dave's Homebrew.


View all the photos here.