Vintage Cellars goes local to find the best of Australian craft beer

Judging has now been completed around Australia for the 2023 Vintage Cellars’ Best of Beer contest.

It is the first time judging was held in markets around Australia - Melbourne, Sydney, Queensland and Perth – rather than at a one size fits all judging session in Melbourne, as it has been for the last three years.

Nick Murphy, Category Buying Manager - Craft Beer at Coles Group, says the decision reflects Coles increasing commitment to support local producers.

“This is an opportunity for us to create on the ground events in each market, bring the brewers together, to build our relationships with the craft brewers and key relationships with suppliers. We want to be known as the local drinks specialists. We know that having a greater focus on local producers, resonates exceptionally well with our customers," he said.

Sydney judging at Grifter Brewing Co

Drinks Trade visited the tasting at the excellent Grifter Brewing Co in Marrickville which – by the way -  has an excellent seltzer on tap that is dry and refreshing and on my mind way more than it should be.

Grifter Brewing co-founder, Matt King, hosted the event. His beers have been ranged in Vintage Cellars for the past 18 months, starting in five stores, then ten and today, in every store in New South Wales.

He said: “Being ranged by Coles Liquor has an enormous impact on small businesses. It is exposure for the brand and the flow on effects for a small business are that we can employ more people, we can increase capacity and we can do more. It supports wider scale manufacturing within Australia and when our products are out there in the mass market, it ultimately brings more people in here to Grifter.”

In Sydney the pool of judges included local brewers from Young Henrys, Mountain Culture and Bentspoke Brewing, experienced independent judges and beer writers who sampled beers according to ten different categories: No alc (0.5% & below), Lager, Summer & Pacific, Sour, Ginger Beers, XPA, Pale Ale, IPA, Dark & then the VC Best of Beer for 'innovative, interesting and whacky beers’.

From Wednesday, 1 February, Vintage Cellars stores will spend the month celebrating the beauty of craft beer and competition winners will be be announced then with Vintage Cellars ranging category winners from each state as well as the national winner for the Best of Beer, defined by “some wild and wonderful innovations, think big flavours and crazy combinations,” says Murphy.

Judging

Richard Watkins from award winning and beloved Canberra brewery, Bentspoke Brewing, was the longest serving judge at the Grifter session with 23 years of beer judging experience under his belt. He says that judging enables him to continue to learn what is happening in the market, what’s new, whose doing what well and so on.

He said, “Judging gives you the experience to taste a wide array of amazing products, to get to know the different breweries that are around and what they are up to.”

The insights that brewers like Watkins bring to Vintage Cellars is that they help to determine consumer appetites.

“We ask ourselves, ‘Which beers will you buy again?'. Our insights can help to stock their shelves,” Watkins said.

“The quality is improving each year and it is getting harder to compete. So, it is the beers that use different flavours that are the ones that are standing out. And it’s great to have beers that push boundaries and challenge consumers to try new things.”

Innovation

There are three things that Australians are really good at when it comes to beer. Firstly, we really love it. Secondly, we like to support our local breweries and thirdly, we are open to trying new things. As consumers, Australians are well known as being early adopters and lovers of innovation. And one of the beauties of a craft brewery is that it is a place where new things can happen. They are small enough to innovate, experiment and run small batch seasonal brews. This fits nicely and neatly into Vintage Cellars' strategy to support local craft brewers.

Pack format

But we do consume craft beers and limited edition releases differently. Pack format - and design - is crucial in craft and Vintage Cellars is the national market leader in sales of limited release tall can beers.

You might buy a carton of Peroni but only want to sample that Lemon Whip Atomic Beer that won the People's Choice at GABS this year or be hanging to taste that Gage Roads' Cheeky Pash, so you buy that in a 500mL can. Or, you wouldn’t mind trying some of that award winning BentSpoke's Crankshaft IPA or understanding what all the fuss is about Mountain Culture such that it has opened up a new brewery and brew pub on the Emu Plains, quadrupling its capacity, having only launched three years ago? So, you'll buy those tall cans in a four pack.

Vintage Cellars said it received over 750 submissions from local breweries from around the country which were then shortlisted down to 400 products in all, ie: 80 beer products per judging market.

Good luck to all the crafty brewers and we look forward to supporting the winners in February next year.