The next Saturday brew day at Woodend will be on the 10th of January. We’ll start the brew around 11 am and wrap up at 7 pm or so. Free tours at 2 and 4 pm.
Have a beery Christmas and happy New Beer - see you in 2009!
Olinda Cellars is a gem of a bottle shop tucked in among the mountain ash forests of the Dandenong Ranges. Ross knows his beer (and wine) and has selected a great range of local and imported brews for those lucky enough to live nearby, or pass through town on the Tourist Road.
Our Christmas Ale is now on the shelves there, and is the perfect accompaniment for a misty evening in the hills. Slainte!
Our Pilsner is already on tap in the long bar, and will be joined by the Temptress upstairs in Chloe’s Bar come February 2009 when Young & Jackson will feature our humble brewery as part of its Craft Beer Showcase.
We wil be holding forth with Meet the Brewer nights every Tuesday evening, culminating in a fabulous beer and food matching dinner on the last Tuesday of the month. Stay tuned here for more details or at the Y&J website!
Support the bars who support us! We try to list all our stockists on the main page, but would like to give a special shout-out to those special people who give us a tap!
- The Hobsons Stores: Pilsner on tap consistently! Great bar in Sandringham.
- Recorded Music Salon: Finding it is half the fun. Upstairs at Collins Street near Spring. Pilsner on tap and they’ve also been carrying the Temptress in bottles lately.
- Young & Jacksons: Hard to miss! Pilsner on tap downstairs in the long bar.
- The Argo, South Yarra: Pilsner or Mt Macedon on tap
- Lulo, Hawthorn: A great supporter for yonks. Pilsner on tap
- Rosstown Hotel, Carnegie: A recent addition. Much love to them for branching out from the ordinary! Mt Macedon on tap
- The Royston Hotel, Richmond: ESB on the hand pump! And Hopinator on tap for a limited time…
- Terminus Hotel, Clifton Hill: Had the dunkel on over the winter, now Pilsner on tap. Great selection of beers (as you’d expect from the people who brought you the Royston)
- Sippers, Carlton: Mt Macedon on tap
There are plenty of great bottled venues, too. Check our stockists page to find a Holgate beer near you.
Cap it!
Australia’s small breweries are being strangled by excise tax. On top of all the usual taxes any small business pays, microbrewers have to fork out 25% of their sales income straight to the ATO in the form of excise. How is an industry expected to survive under such a crippling tax regime?
The excise tax burden, coupled with the rising cost of raw materials, has already forced three Victorian microbreweries to close this year. If you enjoy the diversity of beers that have entered the Australian market in the past few years and don’t want to see more breweries close, then please visit http://www.fairgocraftbeer.com.au/ for information on how you can help keep your local microbreweries alive.
UPDATE: Sorry, I was a little early with this post. The website is up and running now. The main thing we need your help with is in SIGNING THE PETITION. These will be posted at breweries and craft beer friendly venues around Australia. If your local doesn’t have one yet, please feel free to print one out and ask them to post it.
Our First Saturday Brew Day is coming up this weekend. Free brewery tours at 2 and 4 (subject to brew schedule), or just come and watch the brew monkey through the window. Please do not feed the brew monkey.
See you in Woodend!
Ian will be pouring a range of Holgate beers at these upcoming tasting events:
16 January: Finest Drop Cellars, Elsternwick, 5pm-8pm
23 January: Parkhill Cellars, North Melbourne, 5pm-8pm
26 January: Young & Jackson’s, Melbourne (as part of their beer festival), 3-7 pm
Stop by and say hi, taste some beer, and take some home with you!
For those of you living out here in the Wild West, our Extreme Beers are now available at Grain & Grape 5/280 Whitehall Street, Yarraville. And if you time your visit well enough, you can sample the results of one of their home brewing demonstrations…
“The cool thing about [visiting Australia] was, you go to a lot of other countries and the beer line up is very pedestrian. It’s whatever you’re gonna find in that country and there isn’t any real attempt to brew something other than what they brew there locally. In Australia they have no preconception of that… There’s not this thousand year old brewing industry in Australia.At the Holgate brewery, for example, there was a Belgian dubbel, there was an Imperial IPA [the Hopinator], there was an ESB, there was an American Pale Ale, there was this chocolate porter which I thought was just spectacular. They have this wide range of beers from about every country and they had a Vienna lager, Big Reg, which won the Best Beer in Australia or something [just in Victoria, but thanks!].What’s great about the Australian beer scene is that they’re not beholden to anything traditional. They’re going out and doing whatever they find interesting as brewers. And that’s what really makes an exciting place to go for beer, not a place that’s just following. The great traditions are just fine but once you had it, it’s not that exciting. If you go to a place where they’re trying all sorts of new things and they’re experimenting with stuff they learned around the world. It’s very similar to what the best craft brewers are doing in the US. Either they’re trying to make their own styles, or they’re trying to shake up things and do something different. And they’ve got no hesitation to brew something that they would brew in some other country.I would say that that Chocolate Porter was the best beer I had when I was over there.”
Our 2008 Christmas Ale is available in bottles at these exquisite locations:
- Mrs. Parma’s: 25 Little Bourke Street (near Spring St), CBD
- Cloudwine Cellars: South Melbourne and Camberwell
- Purvis Cellars: Surrey Hills
Or delivered straight to your door! Contact beer@holgatebrewhouse.com for details.