The Best (And Weirdest) Beers From Craft Breweries In Australia
From beer made from Tim Tams to ones made with navel lint.
The Food Truck Classics range is available at all major supermarkets now.
As the fridge of any good bottle shop will indicate these days, craft beer is having a renaissance moment in Australia.
Gone are the days where you’d find a couple of stock-standard brews behind the bar, too. Today, the taps are frothing with delicious, unique and tastebud-tantalisingly hoppy varietals. From beer made from Tim Tams to ones made with navel lint, we’ve rounded up some of the best and weirdest brews in the nation to wrap your tastebuds around – it’s enough to get even the least beer-conscious quaffer on board the craft beer train.
Bloody Mary IPA – Aether Brewing, Brisbane
Crafted from passion, dreams, and the pursuit of the best brew possible, Brisbane’s Aether crew have been a regular radar-hogger in recent years, thanks to their variety of delicious New England IPAs and Peanut Butter Stouts. Their drink-in taproom is the stuff of legend, especially with a goblet of their newly devised Bloody Mary IPA in your mits.
As a sort of antipodean cousin of the Mexican michelada, Aether’s fusion of evening quaffer and next-morning de-tangler is a rich red choice, buzzing with hoppy botanicals and notes of celery, cucumber and chilli kick. For the tomato-lovers amongst us: truly delish.
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Chargrilled Roo in the Kangabrew – Rare Bird Brewing, Melbourne
Melbourne’s boutique brewhouse, Rare Bird craft nourishing brews with a bent towards environment and place. The brains trust of a process engineer, a mechatronics engineer and environmental scientist, the Hurstbridge trio has outdone themselves with Chargrilled Roo in the Kangabrew: a Hefeweizen style frothy with spicy Australian native PepperBerry to boot (in lieu of unicorn tears).
The Tim Tam Slam – Big Shed Brewing Concern, Adelaide
Forget inhaling a cup of Earl Grey through your cherished bickkie – do it with beer instead. Yep,this is the beloved Tim Tam Slam in beer form. Brewed especially for last year’s Great Australasian Beer Spectacular, with tasting notes described by Glam Adelaide as “sweet chocolate, caramel and biscuit milk stout with cocoa and fresh roasted coffee,” this 6 percent ABV Sweet stout always gives a little extra kick when sucked through the nation’s favourite biscuit.
Belly Button Fluff Beer – 7 Cent, Melbourne
For those late to the game, this one actually drew headlines a few years back, but this strange and wonderful potion from Melbourne’s 7 Cent lives on as a seasonal eyebrow-raiser (and still takes the cake for one of the weirdest in recent memory). Who knew that a Belgian-style Witbier could benefit so handsomely from yeast strains cultivated from its founders’ navels? (And were they grey or blue-grey, we wonder?)
If belly button lint ain’t your zest, be sure to peruse 7 Cent’s swathe of other strange and wonderful choices: from the Angry Freeballing Frenchman (a 100% Peat Malt Saison) and the Wet Willie (a 7% ABV Wet Hopped Harvest Ale) to the ‘Beer Is So Over’ Hipster Superfood Beer. We tip our hat to these wunderkinds of savvy-semantic brew.
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Unphởgettable Blonde – Morrison Brewing, Launceston
Morrison Brewing truly put the pho in unphởgettable – no seriously, they really have. This hearty malt from Tassie’s finest craft mash-slingers is the perfect complement to any Vietnamese or South East Asian dish, and works super well as a stand-alone session sipper. Bright and fresh with hints of basil, coriander, anise, spice and a little fish sauce for good measure, you’ll never phởget this one.
Grilled Pineapple Smoked Bacon NEIPA – Eden Brewery, NSW
At a hearty 6% ABV, this New England Indian Pale has been likened to the love child of a Bavarian smoked Schlenkerla and a tropical pizza. Smoky, with a juicy pineapple finish, Eden brewery has created itself a serious head-turner with this one, turning the age-old debate about whether ham and pineapple can co-exist in Italian cuisine to whether or not it can be added to beer. One for the brave, adventurous and downright troppo.
Vegemight Gose – Sweet Amber Brewing Co., Adelaide
It was only a matter of time until Australia’s favourite breakfast yeast extract was fused with its favourite drink. Think bitter, tangy, salty in equal measure, with a distinctly yeasty nose. It’s vege, it’s mighty, it’s well balanced and tart – everything you could want in a novelty Australian craft tipple.
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Lizard’s Picnic Tyrant Ant Sour – Shifty Lizard Brewing Co, SA
The South Australians have been punching well above their weight on the weird list here, but we couldn’t not mention this creation from Wilunga’s Shifty Lizard Brewing Co. The Lizard’s Picnic Tyrant Ant Sour is peppered with a cabal of edible Tyrant ants in the brew mash, a rare flavour enhancer that contributes to a delightfully floral sour, with a tart lemon finish.
Special Mention: Boozy Broth – Zero Mode, Melbourne
We’re slightly off-point here as this really isn’t a beer at all, but it sure as hell looks like one. For $23 a pop, this Asahi glass jug is poured to the brim with chicken ginseng broth and house-made ramen noodles, topped with egg white imitation foam ‘beer head’. Confusingly delicious, it’s the work of the innovative crew at Pan-Asian restaurant Zero Mode, in Melbourne’s Box Hill.
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You know the drill. Next time you’re getting groceries, chuck one (or all three) of Doritos’ new Food Truck Classics flavours into your basket and show your tastebuds some lovin’.
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(Lead image: Giovanna Gomes / Unsplash)