CUB: Uniquely Australian - new beer style heroes Aussie-grown wheat
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Aussie drinkers are getting a brand-new style of beer that they can call their own.
Aussie Wheat Ale is a modern take on the traditional wheat beer, tailored specifically to Australian tastes using wheat grown by local farmers.
It is the brainchild of leading Australian brewers and beer experts who came together to come up with the ultimate Aussie beer, asking themselves: what do Australians love in a beer?
It was a no-brainer that the ultimate Aussie beer needs to showcase top-quality Aussie ingredients. It should also be light and bright, with a fresh and zesty aroma, while staying approachable and refreshing.
The result was Aussie Wheat Ale: a contemporary twist on the traditional wheat beer, using techniques to create a flavour profile that will appeal to modern beer lovers.
Most Australian beer uses barley as the dominant ingredient. Substituting a proportion of barley with premium wheat malt grown right here under the Aussie sun gives this new beer a soft fluffy head with subtle aroma, delicate malt sweet taste and bright haze that glows like sunlight in the glass.
Some of Australia’s most well-known breweries Matilda Bay, Mountain Goat, Pirate Life, 4 Pines and Green Beacon Brewing Co have all come up with their own unique take on the new style.
One of the brewers who helped to create Aussie Wheat Ale is Matilda Bay’s Phil Sexton, who is widely considered the father of Australian craft beer. Back in 1984, Phil started the craft beer movement in Australia with the now iconic Redback – a wheat beer made mostly in the
traditional German hefeweizen style.
He describes Matilda Bay’s Aussie Wheat Ale as somewhere between “a pacific ale style and a Redback”.
“There’s a little bit of baggage with traditional wheat beers. Some people think of wheat beer as heavy tasting and that doesn’t necessarily fit our Australian lifestyle and climate,” he said.
“Aussie Wheat Ale is unlike anything that you might’ve tried in the past. We’ve paired some of the country’s best brewing wheat with a new and exciting hop, Australian Eclipse, to give us a very fresh and vibrant beer that takes the wheat beer category in a very new direction.”
Mountain Goat Head Brewer Alana Rees said her brewery has been championing Aussie craft beer since 1997 and has a long history of putting its own spin on the classics.
“This beer is for a whole new generation of drinkers, made with locally-grown wheat and hops. It’s the cleanest, most sessionable beer we have ever created with a nice mouthfeel and a soft citrus note,” she said.
Phil worked in Western Australia’s central wheat belt in his younger years, so he’s passionate about showcasing this hero ingredient: Aussie wheat.
“We make really high-quality wheat in Australia and that’s why I’m so excited about Aussie Wheat Ale,” he said.
“It’s a craft beer style that Australians can call their own, knowing that they’ll be supporting our farmers while enjoying a refreshing and modern Aussie beer.”
Aussie Wheat Ales by Matilda Bay, Mountain Goat and Pirate Life are available now at nation-wide from Dan Murphy’s and BWS stores.
4 Pines will be available nationally from August.
Green Beacon Brewing Co’s Mollyhawk Aussie Wheat Ale is available in NSW and QLD from Dan Murphy’s and BWS stores.
