|
 What's happening in your world of beer
LITTLE GREEN BAG
All the greens you'll ever need to keep you - and the planet - fit and strong.
In enviro-friendly beer news, Sydney's St Peters brewery is sending punters home with the world's first green traveller bags, which hold three stubbies of Green Star, the unfiltered bottled version of its keg legend St Peters Blonde.
The feat is all the more impressive with head brewer Matt Donellan being so busy; aside from 80-hour days brewing his own beers, Donellan also brews Braidwood ESB, Pumphouse Dark and Thunderbolt for the Pumphouse Hotel, plus a range of liquid worts for Eastern Suburbs Brewmakers, works a weekly shift on the bottling line at Malt Shovel Brewing down the road in Camperdown... and drives taxis on the side.
CARBON DATED
SYDNEY'S Agincourt Hotel has become Australia's first greenhouse friendly, carbon-neutral pub.
Set across the road from the old CUB brewery, ye olde Agincourt offers green beer to help offset greenhouse emissions. It does this by investing 2.5c from each beer sold into energy efficiency initiatives, such as renewable energy installations and tree plantations.
Surveys show 86 per cent of Aussies believe not enough is being done about global warming and climate change. So when Matthew Jones, licensee of the Agincourt, calculated the hotel's environmental impact in terms of total carbon dioxide greenhouse emissions at 562,683 kilograms per year, he was shocked.
Vowing to reduce the pub's enviro-footprint, Jones set about qualifying for certification from the Carbon Reduction Institute of Australia and, on 1 February, 2007, was awarded status as a NoCO2 Organisation. See www.agincourthotel.com.au for more.
WAGGING BLUETONGUES
HOT gossip in the brewing world these past months is that Bluetongue Brewery was a bee's dick from being sold to Heineken.
This would've been strange, not to mention a tad ironic (and unpatriotic), considering the admirable but controversial stand major stockholder John Singleton took in December, calling on Aussie drinkers to boycott brands partly-owned by Japanese companies (Lion Nathan is 46 per cent owned by Japanese brewer Kirin).
The rumour mill had the Heinie faction in consortium with New Zealand's Dominion Brewing, with a view to brewing Kiwi flagship DB here in Australia at the Bluetongue Brewery site. With the mooted sale came talk of a new, much larger, brewery to be built in Newcastle, servicing growing demand and also to brew Heineken and Monteith's in the future.
Demand for Bluetongue is sky-high since Singo's mob bought the controlling share in 2006 (some bottleshops have it at $21 a sixer, on par with Little Creatures Pale Ale). Similarly, its sponsorship of the Newcastle Knights is seeing a whopping 150 kegs of draught sold at every home game!
Singo's savvy gamble connecting Paris Hilton to Bondi Blonde has also paid off, keeping a regionally based brewery busy and on the radar of large internationals hungry to control a new Aussie brewing icon.
BOOZLE
LOOKING for your favourite booze at the cheap and local? Try boozle.com , which has a database of liquor stores all over Australia.
 TWO WILLIES FOR DAD
AN UPDATED edition of Willie Simpson's The Beer Bible (Fairfax Publications; $29.95) is out now, boasting an expanded brewery listing and reviews of more than 70 local beers. Home Brew ($24.95; Penguin) hits the soon, too.
GRAIN vs GRAPE
THE worm has turned. After years with their noses in the air, wineries are jumping aboard the boutique beer boom.
With a 25 per cent fall in grape production in 2006-'07, grape apes are swallowing their pride and brewing beer for the cellar doors.
AC Nielsen figures showed premium beer remains the fastest growing segment of the booze market. In 2006 it contributed $81.2 million to overall beer sales.
In reaction, De Bortoli Wines, Otway Estate and Woodsmoke Estate/Jarrah Jacks have all been perfecting their brews.
Darren De Bortoli, who bought a brewery in 1998 but held off brewing due to the high demand for wine, said he'd have a beer on the market "within weeks".
Otway owner Janine Rose said it was cheaper and quicker to make a perfect beer than a perfect wine.
"[With beer] you've got to follow market trends," she said. "With wine, you have to wait five years to find out if there's a strong market for it."
 BEER AS CRYSTAL FOR BOAGS
IN AN Aussie first, J. Boag & Son's flagship, James Boag's Premium, has been awarded a Crystal Pestige award at the 2007 Monde Selection, in Brussels, the world's most renowned beer awards.
The Monde Selection is an international competition recognising the quality of the ingredients as well as brewing processes and techniques, awarding gold medals only to those that meet the highest standards. The Crystal Pestige award is for brands that have won 10 consecutive gold medals.
James Boag's Premium Light, Boag's Draught, Boag's Draught Light and Boag's Strongarm also received gold medals, with St. George receiving silver, while Premium Light won the International High Quality Trophy after receiving three consecutive gold medals.
FOSTER'S CUT-BACK
IT'S official: Foster's will cease beer production at its North Fremantle brewery by the end of September.
Pleading a need to improve cost and capital efficiency, operational flexibility, health and safety and environmental performance, Fosters Products will now be brewed only at Abbotsford (Vic), Yatala (Qld) and Cascade (Tas). The closure of North Fremantle, responsible for one-third of beer volumes in WA, follows the recent closure of the Kent Street site in NSW.
Foster's head office and marketing support will remain housed within the 1930s art-deco building overlooking Fremantle beach. David Grant, director of global beer production, also promised the continuance "of the proud tradition of craft beer innovation and creativity" under chief brewer Brad Rodgers.
MPs DAMP ON WET
MICROBREWERS must lobby MPs prior to the federal election if the WET beer excise tax refund is to go ahead, says lobbyist Armon Hicks.
In late 2006, the Australian Association of Microbrewers asked the government to amend the Excise Regulation in the '07 Budget to equalise small wine producers and microbrewers.
The Association lobbied ministers in Canberra; delegations of microbrewers also met shadow ministers and MPs.
The proposal asked that the provisions be modernised to permit brewers to obtain an excise refund up to $500,000 per year and that the definition of microbrewer, capping production at 30,000 litres, be removed.
Mr Hicks believes the key to success is making MPs understand what an influential constituency microbrewers form. If you'd like a copy of A Fair Go for All to lobby your local Federal MP contact your State Association.
Discuss this article on the forums. (0 posts)
|
