The Crafty Pint

In the words of the Southern Army Officer from one of my favourite M*A*S*H episodes;
“Well strap mah face to the side of a hawg and roll me in the mud, where ARE mah mannaers?!?”

In all the post Home Show excitement, the second meeting of the recently formed Australian Beer Writers Guild (NTBTTS)* and running a family, I completely forget to give a very large shout-out to a mate and his labour of love website, The Crafty Pint.

Conceived, designed, created and driven by freelance journo and beer lover, James Smith, The Crafty Pint is something of a one-stop site for all your Craft Beer needs. It provides plenty of easy to read information on the beers, the breweries who brew them and the good beer people who sell them to you, all in a really tight, quick-loading format.

At this stage The Crafty Pint covers just Victorian craft brewers and their beers and focuses on in-house brewers rather than contract brewers or other beer on-sellers but hopes to expand over the coming months to promote craft beers around the country.

Regularly updated, the site gives readers a heads-up on new beer releases and beer events around town. With links to the breweries it’s an easy job to find out more from the source and maps and locators make it easy to plan a night out, a pub visit or a trip away and satisfy all your beery needs.

There are plenty of other feature pages keeping you well informed about all things craft beer – even a very entertaining section which features a Beer Blogger of the Month (well worth checking out the first offering!) – making The Crafty Pint a great source of information as well as entertainment for the craft beer lover.

Cheers
Prof Pilsner

*Not To Be Taken Too Seriously

The Courthouse packs out – again

I had planned to post a quick reminder of the next Beer Dinner I’ll be hosting at The Courthouse Restaurant this Friday night featuring some really nice food matches and some beers that slip from the Winter Warmers into the fresher hoppy quenchers of Spring ...

But it has booked-out again.

The next is due for the second week of November but I think it might end up slotting into the last week or two of October so that we can give it a bit more lead-in.

As for this Friday, think of the forty of us as we settle in to some seriously nice food and, among other fine brews, Schofferhoffer Kristalweizen, Brew Boys Maiden Ale and Bridge Road Brewers Megachile Pluto Braggot.

Cheers
Prof Pilsner

Beer Blokes at The Melbourne Home Show

The last week of August saw the Beer Blokes join beery forces with The Courthouse Restaurant in Berwick to take the word on Good Beer to the masses at The Herald Sun Home Show and Garden Expo.

For those unable to attend, we presented a Beer & Food Experience in three parts. Showcasing three of Matilda Bay’s finest brews, we began with a nice crisp Munich style lager, Big Helga, and a brief introduction to Craft Beer. Tim (Chef & Owner of The Courthouse) then showed the crowd how to use beer as an ingredient in a pie which was then matched with a Fat Yak Pale Ale. We finished with the seemingly incompatible Dogbolter Dark Lager paired with a little chocolate mud cake. The fact that not a single crumb or drop was left behind makes me guess that the matches were a hit!




We were thrilled with the response to both our show on The Wine & Dine Stage and to the crowds we had visit us at our stand. Attendance at The Home Show was expected to be around 40,000 and it felt as though, between us, Tim and I served nearly all of them samples of Matilda Bay beers, along with some selected offerings from some of Victoria’s finest Craft Breweries. And when I say ‘we’ of course I mean ‘we’ plus our very dedicated support staff of Jess, Carol and Sam who helped us out – particularly after each stage show when a mass of ‘Beer Hunters’ headed over for some more of what they saw on stage!



We are all now totally exhausted but absolutely thrilled that so many people were keen to find out more about our burgeoning Craft Beer scene and were so willing to try some beers that were, until now, a mystery to them. We are busily preparing orders for shipping and selecting some special Craft Beers from around Australia for our visitors to enjoy. Needless to say there are more than a few Dads who will get a very nice surprise on Sunday September 5th!

A special thanks to Tom and the crew from Mountain Goat for your help – there are now heaps of little kids with Goat stickers on their bikes! To Ben from Bridge Road Brewers and all the others who helped us with posters and stuff to make the stand look ‘homely’ an extra big thank you. And the biggest thank you of all to Scott and the crew at Matilda Bay for the loan of the bar which made the stand look welcoming and gave the punters something solid to lean on while they learned all about good beer!

Cheers,
Prof Pilsner