This post on Desert Island Beers is a real coup as it features none other than Kirrily Waldhorn, Australia’s very own Beer Diva and ‘first lady of beer’; a beer presenter, educator, consultant, writer and judge.

As founder of  Beer Diva, Sydney-sider Kirrily travels Australia hosting beer tastings for private and corporate groups; workshops on beer styles and flavours, beer and food matching and beer history; training for bar and restaurant staff and training for chefs matching beer and food.

Her transformation into the Beer Diva started when she was working for brewing company Lion Nathan in the marketing department. She became involved in a project with Lion Nathan brewing boss Bill Taylor, a man who apparently loves a beer and a good feed and is skilled at making sure the two complement each other. That collaboration changed her world. (more…)

This weeks Desert Island castaway is David Bonighton, brewer & co. owner, Mountain Goat Beer Pty Ltd, Richmond, Victoria, Australia.

David says like a lot of epiphanies, it happened when he least expected it; he was studying economics in the USA when he tried his first craft beer, and it set him down a road he’s still on. On his way home to Australia in 1991, his beer horizons were stretched further in the UK, so that when he got back he was utterly disappointed about the lack of local craft beer; so started brewing his own.

Thus Mountain Goat started out in David’s backyard in the early 90′s and David was cranking out homebrews almost every weekend when a postcard turned up from Cam (Hines),(co-owner) backpacking through Canada at the time. (more…)

Meet Roger Pink, owner, brewer, engineer and builder of Pink Elephant Brewery, lately of Blenheim, New Zealand. Roger is one of the pioneers of the Microbrewery Industry in NZ having first started the brewery in 1990.

This was in Brightwater in a rustic  brewhouse in a shed attached to his home. Author Richard Brimer later described this as “probably New Zealand’s smallest and most specialised brewery”. (The Microbreweries of New Zealand, Random House, 1995). This was a decade after emigrating from England. Looking for an unusual but memorable brand name, Roger combined his surname with the trademark elephant of the once-famous Fremlins brewery in his home town of Maidstone, Kent. (more…)

On Desert Island Beers we had been running a series on NZ and Oz brewers, bloggers etc. but before Christmas gave the series a festive break. We have a few Antipodean castaways still to publish before we start our next series of castaways, that from the booming London craft beer scene. So welcome this week to Dr. Ralph Bungard from New Zealand.

Ralph is the owner and brewer of  Three Boys Brewery, a growing craft beer company based in Christchurch and also the current President of the Brewer’s Guild of New Zealand. Ralph started out studying wine and horticultural science at university with the hope of getting into wine making and viticulture. Instead he ended up a scientist and university lecturer of plant chemistry and physiology. (more…)

Back in September ’12 we started a ‘ Kiwi & Oz’ series on Desert Island Beers saying these were exciting times for New Zealand and Australian brewers, with both countries experiencing major growth in “craft” beer sales and the number of “craft” breweries. With this major growth as background we will have featured nearly twenty of our Kiwi & Australian brewing and blogging cousins when the series finishes in the next few weeks.

There is however a similar story closer to home as one of the great things about being a beer drinker in London at the moment is the vibrancy of its beer and brewing scene. We have therefore planned our next series of castaways on Old London Town. (more…)

As soon as he could legally drink beer Dean Pugh joined Wetherspoons and has showed no signs of his passion for malt and hops diminishing since; especially for hops.

Dean undertook Wetherspoons management training course after leaving university and in 2007 joined York Brewery, helping them open their first pub outside the old city walls, Mr Foley’s Cask Ale House in Leeds.

Dean grew ‘Foley’s’ from scratch, managing it from the new kid on the block to Leeds Pub of the Year in 2009 (as voted for by the local branch of CAMRA). Set in a grade-II listed building opposite the iconic Leeds Town Hall, the pub has become a magnate for geeks of all kinds, whether that’s football (telly screens and comfy sofas), beer aficionados (bottles and cask ales aplenty) or weekend art critics (the bar is a stone throw from Leeds Art Gallery and the Henry Moore Institute). (more…)

This weeks Desert Island Beers is a massive coup as it features none other than Sir (well if a UK citizen he would be) Mitch Steele, brew-master at the world-famous Stone Brewing Co. of Escondido, California which was named “The All-Time Top Brewery on Planet Earth” by BeerAdvocate magazine in 2008…AND 2009! “The most popular and highest rated brewery – ever!” (I just wish I could get their beers more often over here!)

I was saving this post for the New Year and an upcoming series of Desert Island Beers on U.S. Brewers, but whilst researching this article I learnt that today, 31st December is Mitch’s 50th birthday! So what better birthday present than to be castaway on a Desert Island with your favourite beers. Happy Birthday Mitch!

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This weeks Desert Island castaway is Matteo Bonfanti, Head Brewer at Ticino Brewing Co. Stabio, Switzerland. Matteo (Aged 30) was born and grew up in Italy and went to the University of Milan, the faculty of Agriculture, where he took a degree in Food Science and Technology. The University is less than 2 kilometers from the infamous Birrificio Lambrate, and so it happened that every now and then he found himself at Lambrate drinking great beers between one lesson and another.

During his years at university he met a friend who had just started brewing beers at home, he showed Matteo how to brew, where to buy ingredients and equipment and he became a homebrewer too. After buying all the equipment Matteo says he started brewing at his grandfather’s house, with his grandparents as assistants. (more…)

Meet Sir Colin of Stronge, Head Brewer/Production Manager at Black Isle Brewery, Munlochy, Ross-shire, Scotland. Colin who grew up in Monaghan, Ireland  joined The Black Isle Brewery in 2011 having previously served nine years at Marble Brewery in Manchester and a couple of years with the Liverpool Brewing Company.

Colin moved to England in 1998 from Ireland to study Architecture at Liverpool John Moore’s University but didn’t enjoy the course and left. He took a job at The Brewery pub in Liverpool and when the brewer of the attached brewery quit, he was asked to take the job on. Colin says he knew nothing about brewing at the time and mostly drank shit lager but was keen to find a career and to learn a new skill. After only a week in the brew house he knew that’s where he wanted to be: he reckons to have worked hard (if the beer wasn’t fantastic) but the company decided to sell up and Colin moved to Manchester. (more…)

On Desert Island Beers we have  been running a  series on NZ and Oz brewers, bloggers etc. for the past twelve weeks or so but it’s time to give the theme a festive  break – just for a few weeks; until the New Year – as we still have another nine or ten NZ and Oz brewers lined up waiting to be castaway.

During this interval we will however still publish a number of castaways on Desert Island Beers but sadly not Santa Claus as we tracked him down last year when he featured on Desert Island Beers. So look out over the next few weeks for Colin Stronge from Scotland, Matteo Bonfanti from Switzerland and a very special castaway.

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