The Sunshine Coast’s Blackflag Brewing reckons it might have a secret weapon up its sleeve to garner popular votes in a prestigious national beer competition.
The GABS (Greatest Australian Beer Spec-tap-ular) Hottest 100 Aussie Craft Beers of 2023 is the nation’s largest annual craft beer poll, now in its 16th year, with tens of thousands of drinkers around Australia voting for their five favourite beers of the year.
And as the region is the self-proclaimed ‘Craft Beer Capital of Australia’, our tasty brews are sure to figure strongly in the voting, which closes on Sunday, January 14.
Craft breweries are going all out to attract votes, including this pearler of a song from Your Mates at Warana.
View this post on Instagram
The competition puts everyone from long-established and widely distributed brews to micro-batch drops on an even footing because the punters decide.
Blackflag – with a 2100sqm brewery and taproom in the Coolum Industrial Park and another venue hidden down a back alley in Brisbane Road, Mooloolaba – has upped the ante by adding augmented reality to some of its cans.
That’s surely worth a few more votes from the punters.
Steve Barber, from Blackflag, said the ‘Australia-first’ innovation was added to the Rage Juicy Pale Ale cans in December.
It’s accessed by scanning the icon on the can like a QR code with your smartphone.
“You can scan the can on Rage and it will come up with videos and games and stuff like that,” Steve said.
“We only brought that out in the middle of last month and she’s pretty cool.”
Steve said the Rage Juicy Pale Ale was the brewing company’s biggest seller and more than likely flying the flag as the frontrunner for votes, but don’t underestimate the power of ‘dark horses’ Astro Punk XPA and Affinity Tropical Pale Ale.
“We’re giving it a good crack,” Steve said.
“We’re a pretty new brewery but I think we got 35th last year in Australia.
“I think there was about 2500 beers that were registered so we’re pretty chuffed with that.
“Everyone that loves Blackflag loves Blackflag and that’s kind of nice.
“We’ve got a lot of different beers and people like their own flavour. So they’ll pick and choose what they wish is best.
“This will be our third year (in GABS). We started Blackflag when COVID started. It was brutal.
“We finally got our beer out and then COVID shut us all down.
“It was a hard start but it’s been a good run so far. No complaints.”
Last year, more than 60,000 consumers registered to vote, with a 2140 different beers attracting votes.
Mountain Culture Beer Co’s Status Quo Pale Ale took out the top step on the podium as the GABS Hottest 100 Craft Beer Champion of 2022, followed closely by two previous champions: Balter Brewing’s XPA and BentSpoke Brewing Co Crankshaft IPA.
Betting agency Sportsbet has Mountain Culture as a $1.50 favourite to win this year. Sunshine Coast breweries listed include Your Mates $10, Heads of Noosa $31, Blackflag $34, 10 Toes $51, and Brouhaha $81.
In addition to the main Hottest 100 list, GABS also releases the Hottest Indie Beers, Hottest New Beers and Hottest Next Beers (101-200) of the year.
All voters this year will qualify for the draw to win a share of prizes valued at $10,000.
Countdown parties will take place around the country on January 27 when results will be broadcast live via the Hottest 100 podcast, hosted by renowned industry personality Matt Kirkegaard.
Moffat Beach Brewing Co’s Craig Williams said that while the competition had started as ‘a bit of fun’ for the organisers (the GABS Craft Beer and Cider Festivals attract more than 52,000 attendees across Melbourne, Sydney, Auckland and Brisbane annually), it had become “a huge deal in beer circles”.
“A strong placing in the list can absolutely open doors for breweries, creating significant awareness amongst consumers and retailers, and helping those businesses grow,” he said.
“For Moffat Beach Brewing, while we’ve won plenty of awards at the country’s major beer competitions, due to our relatively small size and distribution footprint, we’ve never managed to break into the GABS Hottest 100 list.
“With a lot of growth over the last two years, though, we’ve now reached a size where we felt that we were ready to throw our hat in the ring. As you can imagine, it becomes a bit like an election campaign, with breweries coming up with all sorts of creative ways to appeal for votes.
“We’ve run a few fun videos over the last few weeks, but probably the one that caught everyone’s eye was a little video we called ‘Sad Matt’, showing our head brewer and co-founder Matt Wilson – famous for his reluctance in front of the camera, not to mention his iconic moustache – in a really melancholic montage before showing our various trophies and then that one spot on the wall reserved for the place in the GABS Hottest 100.
View this post on Instagram
“At the end of the day, we work in beer and everything we do is about having fun and a laugh (mostly at ourselves), and I hope we were able to do that with this one.
“Our hope is that people get a kick out of it and vote for our flagship Passenger Pale Ale as one of their beers.”
See which of your favourite Sunshine Coast craft breweries are hosting countdown parties on their individual websites, and visit the GABS website to vote.
Scroll down to SUBSCRIBE for our FREE news feed, direct to your inbox daily.
