The start of summer is always a great time for beer festivals, after attending the Australian Hotel Beer Festival and the Bitter and Twisted festival we had another 2 on the agenda…. the inaugural Coogee Bay Hotel Beer Festival and the 2^nd annual Warners at the Bay Beer Festival. They were both on the same weekend so made for a brilliant degustation Saturday and Sunday!

The Coogee Bay Hotel Beer Festival had a range of internationaland domestic brews including Matilda Bay’s top notch Alpha and Fat Yak, and Bitch Brewing’s Bitch Beer, a 6% premium lager brewed out of Melbourne. The event was nicely complimented by a walking German Oompah band which kept the crowd entertained on a spectacularly warm November day.

That Saturday evening after the Coogee Bay Beer Festival we headed up to Newcastle for the Warners at the Bay Beer Festival. On our way up we got word that it had been sold out!!But with a bit of luck we managed to get some tickets the Sunday morning from the bottle shop – woohoo! There were over 500 beer enthusiasts who found their way to the indoor festival with more than 20 different breweries and distributors providing some fine golden, and not so golden, liquid from Australia, USA, Europe and NZ.

Some stand outs included the Rogue range imported from America by Innspire, New Zealand beer Mac’s (which are starting to make their mark after having been hugely successful with our mates across the Tasman) and the locally made range of beers from Mudgee Brewing.

5 Days til Christmas!

The last few weeks have been manic at Beer Cartel HQ with lots of packing up and dispatching Christmas orders. All parcels that were purchased prior to the 16^th Dec have been sent and should arrive prior to Christmas. If you want to send us a pic of the happy recipient with their beer gift we’d love to see them. 

We wish you all a happy and safe Christmas and New Year break.

Cheers,

Geoff and Rich