Seasonal & Limited Release Beers

When I’ve queried brewers as to why we don’t see more new varieties of beer on the market, they inevitably blame the marketers who don’t want to waste their tight budgets on questionable products. This stiff upper lip mentality is softening with the success of specialty and limited edition premium beers. It provides an opportunity to test the waters without committing to a large advertising campaign. Without doubt seasonal and special edition beers are a favoured method of sales by small batch micro breweries, but the bigger boys are catching on to the benefits of short sharp beer launches.

A classic example of testing the market has been the summer seasonals by the Malt Shovel Brewery in Sydney. A Belgian styled white ale was launched in February 2000 called Summer Wheat. An orange and coriander flavoured wheat beer that had an amusing label and six-pack carton design which featured a duck flying overhead with an orange up it’s bum. Ten months later they changed the packaging under a Mad Brewers White Ale logo which featured an Australian white pointer shark. The Belgian whites achieved a fairly respectable sales levels, but not enough to halt another change, and two years later in November 2002 Malt Shovel announced their summer special James Squire Colonial Wheat, a German weizen styled wheat ale featuring banana and clover characters. As is the case of limited edition ales, another change occurred two years later, James Squire Summer Ale, this time an English styled ale. First brewed at the Portland Hotel in Melbourne, Golden Ale is 30% wheat with a good dollop of Amarillo hops late in the boil providing a stone fruit aroma and restrained bitter finish. Sales figures this year have been impressive but whether the Summer Ale will be around in 2005/2006 who knows. During the chilly season why not give their Australian Strong Ale a go. According to Chuck Hahn “ Last year we thought the brew was a bit to dark so we’ve gone back to the original recipe to include some carapils and dark crystal malts plus some fantastic Tasmanian Hallertau hops. The result is a smooth well balanced ale and at 6.8% A/V has no ethanol finish, almost to smooth.”

The Matilda Bay Brewing Company is another brew shop to catch the seasonal bug in a bottle. This winter look forward to a special Brewers Reserve six pack including three bottles of Alpha Pale Ale and Dogbolter Dark Lager. Alpha Pale Ale, along with Beez Neez honeyed wheat beer, has remained a part of the family since it’s origins at Sanctuary Cove, Queensland. This American styled pale ale is all about big cascade hopped flavour. Well balanced with a big citrus hop aroma, full malt character with a big bitter finish. “The Dog” has been an Aussie dark beer icon since it’s creation over in Freemantle in 1987 during the defence of the America's Cup when Matilda Bay was brewed at the Sail & Anchor Pub Brewery. Dogbolter is certainly a winter warmer with heaps of German Munich dark lager malt and Hersbrucker hops. Adding a subtle floral hop aroma. Look forward to their experimental ESB Sticklers English styled bitter in a bottle later in the year,
This year also marks 21 years in the business and a birthday bash will be something special according to Head Brewer Brad Rodgers.

Speaking of commemorative brews, Carlton & United Beverages has gotten into the swing of things by celebrating the introduction of Victoria Bitter 150 years ago when Thomas Aitken founded the Victoria Brewery in East Melbourne. VB Original Ale is reminiscent of the taste and look of beers from around the turn of the 19th Century. The brew itself was inspired by the Victoria Brewery’s 1894 award-winning Bitter Ale, while the old-style bottle shape and label design closely resembles the VBs of yesteryear. “No other beer can boast the heritage of VB and we wanted to celebrate our rich history,” said Matt Keen CUB’s GM of Regular Beer. “In doing so we’ve delved into our archives and studied early beer making methods and ingredients. The result is Victoria Bitter Original Ale – it’s as close as you’ll get to the beer your great-grandfather enjoyed, but it’s been produced to meet the expectations people have of a great beer today. “We used malt instead of sugar because brewing sugars were really hard to come by in the late 1800s,” said John Cozens, CUB Master Brewer. “We added a touch of roasted barley to give it a toasty flavour as well as its rich amber colour which, when poured, is topped with a compact creamy head. Its lingering bitterness, a result of traditional kettle hopping methods, is balanced with a subtle fruitiness. VB Original Ale will appeal to those with a hankering for heritage and who savour a good brew,” Cozens added.

The Tasmanian breweries have also found seasonal and special release beers beneficial in demonstrating their diversity and craftsmanship. I made reference before about changes to Cascade’s range of beers including the loss of this year Winter Warmer from their Four Seasons seasonal beer range. Well, they still aren’t prepared to tell all about the new beers, but at least they’ve provided another round of First Harvest Ale, now in its fourth edition. We asked Master Brewer Max Burslem what we could expect from this year’s brew. “The purity of taste has been improved with the 2005 release. This year’s First Harvest Ale shows greater balance due to the hops being sourced from a single location. The hops for the 2005 brew were harvested from Bushy Park, located in the Derwent Valley in Tasmania, and travelled only two hours to the brewery, making this year’s brew one of the most freshly-made beers in Cascade’s history. In 2004, hops were sourced from locations four hours from the Cascade Brewery in Hobart. A rich burnished orange/amber colour, the beer has lemon/citrus aromas with a well-balanced hop character and mouth feel. Cascade First Harvest Ale uses Willamette and Cascade hops, brewed in small kettles while still ‘wet’, green and rich in flavour. Pale malt, Cascade’s signature yeast cultures and the purest water in Australia complete the recipe.

J.Boag & Son produced a limited edition 1881 Pale Ale in May of 2002. Its success led to the release of a Honey Porter in June of 2003. The new bottling system installed last year prevented another go; but another Honey Porter has crossed the shores in June 2005. Boag’s Honey Porter is brewed with uniquely Tasmanian ingredients, most notably Leatherwood honey and Van Diemen hops. One and a half tonnes of Leatherwood honey is used in the brewing of Boag’s Honey Porter, all of which is sourced from the Stephens family apiary in north west Tasmania. With such an in demand product, the question arises, “Why isn’t it available all the time?” Master Brewer, Tim Penton, explains “We would love to make Boag’s Honey Porter on a permanent basis, but we are restricted by the supply of the crucial ingredient, Leatherwood honey. The honey supply varies each year depending on the weather conditions and this means that there are times when we just can’t get enough to make the beer”.