Top Australian

Am heading back to Australia shortly for Xmas 2019, mainly focussed on ciders and gluten free beers these days, but noticed that the top 10 beers for Australia hasn’t changed much for quite awhile (the last beer tthat went into the top 10 I actively seeked out was Moon Dog Jumping The Shark when was there in 2017) … is that because there isn’t anything better these days or due to lack of numbers in the ratings…if there is anything new and really really good that you think I really need to rate… let me know!

Wildflower is something you want to check out if you haven’t had their beers.

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Yes, I visited Wildflower last time I was in Sydney in 2018 (that part of inner city Sydney is where I grew up and I managed a brewery crawl around there last time). Enjoyed the visit & their beers, thought Black Font was the best in that area but is only open intermittently and am hoping they might be open a day when I’m back so can visit again, numbers of raters is very low for these so don’t seem to register in top lists

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Mainly a lack of numbers I think. Plenty of good beer although too many mediocre hazy hoppy beers and stuff made out to taste like cakes.
Dollar Bill Learning to Breathe could pass as a pretty good Gueuze.
Dainton have many beers. Some of them are a bit novelty centred for me but they’re good. Their Third Birthday beer (a strong version of their Red Eye Rye) is good and their Blood Orange New England Rye IPA is reliably good.

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Good picks there. Had Dollar Bill Cider Ways (Hopped Cider) on last visit, which was a nice one, so great to hear their wild beers are also setting a high standard. (also brought back a bottle of Wildflower Gold wild ale which was really good and has made it into the Australian top 50 list, and Black Fonts Anniversary Ale a wild ale with raspberries was very good).

Haven’t managed to try any from Dainton yet, so will keep a look out - although I’ll avoid the sweet flavoured ones - seems abit of a gimmicky trend here also for cake/pastry flavoured beers and lots of flavoured hazy milkshake IPAs.

Also going to keep an eye out for BentSpoke, brought back a can of their Crankshaft IPA on last visit which I liked, they are doing gluten reduced beers and their Cluster 8 sounds a fairly well balanced IIPA.

Yeah Bentspoke are pretty impressive - there are not many putting out a regular packaged double IPA that’s worth drinking. I like the stronger/lighter/brasher cousin of Crankshaft, Sprocket.

I haven’t previously heard of BlackFont - interesting to see that none of the top six raters (counting you as a visitor) seem to be Australian, down to Theydon_Bois on one.

I’ve put in an order with Bucket Boys in Marrickville Sydney, and got the Dollar Bill Learning to Breath, so will add a rating for that in due course

Black Font is a tiny outfit, literally the back of their house in Marrickville, and now only opens rarely … so really have to seek it out. They do have bottles available to buy, so with not many active ratebeer raters in Sydney can see why its mainly overseas based people who’ve rated them (I rated a flight of 4 on my visit plus bought bottle which I brought back to UK and was shared between 3 raters)

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