Avoca Hotel

Cheers to International Beer Day

August 2, 2019
By Alana House

Today is International Beer Day, a celebration of beer, taking place in pubs, breweries, and backyards all over the world.

Since 2007, International Beer Day has been celebrated on the first Friday in August.

Venues around Australia are offering everything from extended happy hours to free beers to celebrate.

And Australia’s brewers, barley growers and hop producers are recognising and celebrating 223 years of true blue Aussie brews.

Since Australia’s first (official) brewery opened in Sydney in 1796, making beer has developed a life and culture of its own. The internationally renowned quality of our beers starts with the world’s best ingredients sourced from Aussie barley and hop farms.

“Australia is blessed when it comes to beer,” Brewers Association of Australia CEO Brett Heffernan said.

“Our barley is revered worldwide, although representing only around 5% of the global barley crop we supply around one-third of global malting barley trade; our hop growers have developed new varieties and seen surging demand for their premium harvest, and our water quality and brewing standards are impeccable,”

“People are surprised to learn that 84% of the beer sold in Australia is made right here by Australians, and naturally brewed from locally-grown Australian produce. In all, that translates to 103,000 full-time Aussie jobs that hinge on local beer production and $16.5 billion to the economy.”

International Beer Day

Among the brewers celebrating International Beer Day are Carlton and United Breweries, which released a photo featuring just a few of its staff.

CUB noted: “Whether it’s brewing it, promoting it, selling it, or serving it, our CUB employees all play a role in bringing Australians together to enjoy the beers you all love. So cheers to each of you on this International Beer Day and may it involve enjoying a ‘cold one’!”

The pub with Australia’s best beer list

The Avoca Hotel won Australia’s Best Beer List at Australia’s Wine List of the Year Awards last month.

The Victorian pub carries a substantial range of local and regional craft beer together with many uncommon imported boutique beers from all over the world.

Launched in 1993 by Rob and Judy Hirst and Tucker Seabrook, Australia’s Wine List of the Year Awards were created to recognise and reward the hard work and talent of sommeliers as well as the enormous investment in time and resources by business owners to develop quality wine lists and cellars.

Chairman of Judges Peter Forrestal noted: “A key feature of the nation’s best beer lists is the presence of a wide number of beers on tap.

“The best beer lists tend to be curated by passionate individuals who will provide customers with information and tasting notes to help their choice of beverage.

“Thanks to the craft brewery revolution the range of different kinds of ales and lagers that is possible is vast.”

The Awards’ Consumer Media Partner Gourmet Traveller Wine noted that The Avoca’s beer list features “plenty of typically popular ales and lagers, as one would expect, but they have gone above and beyond to compile an extraordinary collection”.

“The Avoca has sourced their beers from every corner of the globe,” it said. “Feel like a Mexican pilsner or a Sardinian lager, a Japanese IPA or a Californian wheat beer, a Norwegian saison or a Belgian trappist tripel? Well, this is the place. There are light beers and strong ales and even gluten-free beers. And a wonderful assembly of fruit beers, sour beers and lambic beers.

“The highlight, especially for fans of the style, must be the stouts and porters. From renowned breweries from around the world, these are a treat.”

Forrestal added: “[Owner] Ian Urquart can’t resist extending and refining his beer list every year. There are now more than 160 beers of every imaginable style from around the world, including most corners of the US, Canada, Belgium, Germany, France, Japan, Jamaica, Norway, Ireland, England, NZ and all over Australia). It’s the breadth and depth of the beer list that sets it apart – as well as the sheer quality that it embraces.”

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