Canberra Craft Beer Festival wrap up

     Held in the courtyard of the Mercure hotel, the Canberra Craft Beer Festival showcased 14 breweries, 13 from Australia and 1 from New Zealand. At the morning briefing it was announced that there had been 750 tickets presold and walk-ins could take that up to 1500 the day looked like it was going to be a success. With an interesting mix of vendors from the very small, such as Tilse's with their Apple Truck Cider from the Hunter Valley, through to the ultra big boys Matilda Bay with their new IGP (Itchy Green Pants) ale and Coopers with not only their 62 lager, but also promoting Sapporo ( Japan ) and Mythos ( Greece ). New Zealand was represented by Monteiths with a couple of ciders and a Summer Ale that had finished it's season and was no longer available.

  
     The day had a number of optional side events to go to, namely a Beer and Food matching (Schwartz Porter with a Porter Pie ), a Beer and Cheese matching (a range of James Squire beers and cheeses including a smoked cheddar and blue vein ) and a Cider and food matching (Sydney Cider and Scallops ).

 
      With the day moving steadily along we were glad to have booked a room overnight and that we could check in before the event started, this gave us somewhere to retreat to and collapse for awhile before continuing. It was interesting to note the difference in the vendors between those that brewed and those that were there merely to sell. We were called "Beer Wankers" by the women at the Coopers tent for asking detailed questions about their beers ( I found this quite unbelievable considering Coopers is the biggest supplier of the home brew market.). But with the people at Tilse's, Dalgetys, Stone and Wood, and Matilda Bay they were more than happy to talk not only about their beers, but also give us tips on how to better our homebrews.

    
     Dalgetys brewing has come up with a couple of very interesting sidebars to their brewery, they are running a brewery tour where by they pick you up from Canberra, take you through Kosciuszko brewing, the Snowy Mountains Brewery, the Wildbrumby Schnapps Distillery and finishing at Dagetys for a tour and lunch. They are also offering a brew your own beer package where you and your mates come down and help to brew the batch, Dalgetys will ferment it then you come back down to bottle and label it and take it all home. Sounds like a good one to do if you have a party coming up.

    
     For a Craft Beer event there was a lot of Ciders available- at least 8 or 9 out of the 45 or so beverages available, (advertised as over 80 ) and this just backs up what we are seeing happening in the market place. With the alco pop tax hitting the premixes, the big companies are now starting to move in on the cider market ( different tax system ) and in doing so are pushing the genuine small cider producer into smaller market share.

    
     Some down sides to the event, vendors could not sell their Beers or Ciders or even take orders for later delivery, this seriously limits their taking for the day especially when you add on the $500 stall fee and the fact they only got back 50c for each tasting ticket they redeemed (entry price was $30 each with 10 tasting tickets, extra tickets $1 each). Not much money there for the brewers, yes they get exposure, but at a hefty price. Schwartz Brewing, the promoters of this event did a good job, and got good numbers through the gate even though we saw absolutely no promotion of the event in Canberra itself, in the guidebooks to Canberra or even in the businesses from Canberra that put their names on the program.

 
      Lastly a little gossip from the Schwartz boys, it seems that 2 of their 1000L upstairs fermenting tanks at the Maquarie Hotel managed to fall over costing them 2 full batches, glad we didn't have to clean that up.

     All in all a great day.