Aussie ale: out of the shadows

There's more to Australian beer than Foster's. The country, in common with Britain and the US, is undergoing a beer revolution. Small craft breweries are bringing much-needed choice to parched throats, and home-grown drinkers and visitors can enjoy far more than the "amber nectar".

Aussies look at you askance if you mention Foster's. In a week-long visit that took in Adelaide and Melbourne, I didn't see a single tap for Foster's. The main beer brands are Victoria Bitter (VB) and Carlton Draught, both from the Foster's group. This has reverted to its old name of Carlton & United Breweries: nobody, not even Crocodile Dundee, wants to talk about Foster's.

The other main player in the Australian market is Lion Nathan, owner of Tooheys, XXXX and, in New Zealand where Lion originated, Steinlager. CUB and Lion Nathan account for a frightening 95% of the Australian market. Coopers of Adelaide, the family-owned brewery that remained true to ale while all around ice floes of lager multiplied, accounts for a further 3%: more on Coopers next week.

That doesn't leave much space for the minnows. But their numbers are growing. At the annual International Beer Awards in Melbourne last month, the craft brewers walked away with many of the top prizes. The overall champion was the Feral Brewery in Western Australia: only around one million people live in WA yet Feral is just one of many new breweries in this vast region.

As well as the beer awards — made at a glittering affair with a four-course dinner — Beer Expo at the Melbourne Showgrounds provided a new shop window for small brewers. It was hosted by Beer and Brewer, an impressive consumer magazine dedicated to all things beery in Australia and New Zealand. I had the pleasure of hosting a series of talks and tastings and was able to sample the beers of the craft fraternity.

They are fascinated by beer styles and offer a wide range of ales to drinkers used only to near-frozen lager: both VB and Castlemaine XXXX are branded as bitters and may have started life that way, but are now lagers. Craft brewers, on the other hand, offer IPAs, pale ales, golden ales, amber ales, porters, stouts and Belgian-style beers in profusion. Prize-winning Feral, for example, produces White, a cloudy and lemon-flavoured Belgian-style wheat beer. Little Creatures in Fremantle brews Pale Ale, Bright Ale —even a Roger's Beer. G'day, mates.

The Redoak Brewery in Sydney, run by David and Janet Hollyoak, is highly innovative. As well as a fine IPA, weighing in at 6.5%, it produces two Belgian-inspired beers: a framboise — raspberry flavoured — ale and a blackberry wheat. There's little cask beer in Australia as temperature and lack of cellar skills form a barrier to the style, but one brewpub, the Wig & Pen in the capital, Canberra, does offer Bulldog Best Bitter and Creamy Stout on handpump.

The leading light in the craft brewing movement is the James Squire Malt Shovel chain of brewpubs. James Squire is honoured as Australia's first brewer. He was a convict transported down under from England — a victim of "extraordinary rendition" — and continued a life of crime before turning his hands to beer-making. The first Malt Shovel brewery was built in Camperdown, New South Wales, by Chuck Hahn.

Chuck is an American who brewed around the globe before settling in Australia. He produced a successful premier lager, but when his banks withdrew funding he went into partnership with Lion Nathan. His brewery became the Malt Shovel and as well as the Camperdown site there are now brewpubs branded James Squire in Melbourne and Sydney. A new one in Perth is about to come on stream. The aim is to have a brew-pub in every major city in the country.

The plant in the Melbourne pub seemed familiar. It turned out to be from a redundant Firkin in London. The beer range is large: Golden Ale, Amber Ale, IPA and Porter, with what Chuck calls "off the wall" occasional beers such as raspberry wheat. The main brewery also makes an impressive Pilsner: the plant produces 2.5 million hectolitres a year and will grow to three million.

When Beer Expo finished, I made a lightning tour of Melbourne and the surrounding area with David Lipman, the energetic publisher of Beer and Brewer. We visited the Three Ravens Brewery in Thornbury run by Marcus Cox and Matt Inchley. They supply one local pub with cask beer, but the bulk of production is bottle-conditioned. The range includes Blonde, Bronze, White, Dark — using smoked malt from Bamberg in Germany — and Black.

Red Hill Brewery is in spectacular wine country and Karen and David Golding at first met stiff resistance when they planned their plant. But now the wine makers come round to sample the beers. With a name like Golding they had to grow hops and their tiny garden offers Willamette, Hallertau and Tettnang varieties as well as Goldings. The beers are served on draught in a rustic restaurant in the grounds but most is bottle conditioned. The beautifully crafted beers include Pale Ale, Scotch Ale and a mighty Belgian Blonde, weighing in at 6.5% abv.

Not all the breweries produced beers with such restrained names as pale and golden. I came across one beer called Effen. It's marketed with the slogan: "It's Effen good beer".

Welcome to Australia.