We just had a huge weekend in Brisbane at the Good Food & Wine Show. It was fantastic to be able to introduce our beers to so many people, and to get such great feedback. We met lots of good people too, so thanks for dropping in and saying hi.

A few lucky people even got to try the Stone Beer too!

There’s been a fair bit of interest in our Stone Beer, and we are happy to report that bottle conditioning is all done and we are ready to label and pack the batch next week. So you should be able to find it at good bottle shops in a couple of weeks or you can pre-order by dropping us an email.

Here’s a couple of videos that give you a bit of an idea about how we made our Stone Beer.

In the these times of globalisation and mass marketing it’s great to see that there are pub operators out there willing to support the small local breweries. These pubs or bars are keen to put a range of beers on tap that highlight the real diversity of beer and showcase some of the great local brews that are being produced by the many craft breweries around the country. We have our beer on tap in a number of these great pubs and bars, such as the Grand Central, the Pig & Whistle and the QA in Brisbane, the Pink Poodle on the Gold Coast, The Local Taphouse in Sydney and The Royston in Melbourne just to name a few. There are many more, and you can check out the where to get it page to find them … Here’s cheers to these great watering holes …!

Last weekend we put Pale Lager into kegs and hooked them up at The Rails and The Northern in Byron. All those people who have been drinking bottles of Pale Lager can now get it fresh off the tap whilst you are in town. This weekend Pale Lager also debuts on tap at The Local Taphouse in St Kilda as part of their annual SpecTapular celebrations. The Darlinghurst Taphouse will also feature it when they crank up their event next weekend. So our lager is on the loose … watch out for it at a bar near you … Prost!

What a huge week it has been for us! A couple of new arrivals at Stone & Wood and a night of celebration as we launch our first batch of Stone Beer. A lot of people have been hanging out to get the low down on why we called the brewery Stone & Wood; well the wait is over.

Firing up our Stone Beer

After a few years of thinking about it we recently put all the theory and trials aside and brewed our first batch of Stone Beer. As a tribute to the brewers of the Middle Ages we brewed it by adding wood fired stones to the kettle to rouse the boil and intensify the malt characters of the brew.

Long before the wizardry of steam was invented, brewers used stone and wood to brew their daily beer. They built a fire to heat large stones until they were hot enough to be added to their wooden vats to create a boiling brew. Apart from the obvious heating effects, the brewing stones also caramelised the brew to create subtle but rich toffee like flavours.

We have a perfectly good boiler, but it is those intense malt flavours from caramelising the wort that we have gone to great lengths to create. To add further complexity we then added the sticky cooled stones to the fermenter to let the yeast have a real treat feeding on the “wort candy” during fermentation.

Stone & Wood Stone Beer has a deep red hue and a rich caramel malt character balanced with firm hop bitterness.

Stand by for a video of the Stone Beer brew day on our website soon …

Welcome Scotty

It was another big moment for us this week as we welcomed Scott Hargrave as a new member to the Stone & Wood team. After many years of award winning home brewing in Canberra, Scott fled to warmer climes to be the brewer at the Sunshine Coast Brewery where he picked up a number of gongs at this year’s Australian International Beer Awards.

We have been lucky enough to lure him south to Byron Bay to work with us, and he’s already become part of the family as we spent the week bottle conditioning, hand labeling and also racking a short run of Stone Beer in preparation for our brews & bar chords night.

Mick, Michael & the Box

In what was an unforgettable night at the brewery, we held our first brews & bar chords night to celebrate the launch of the Stone Beer. Providing the well crafted tunes to perfectly balance our brews was Mick Thomas supported by Michael Barclay and his Box. Having the brewery full of family, friends and some avid Mick fans was pretty special. Mick is a home brewer and beer lover and the night was his first chance to play a gig in a brewery.

It all just made for a cracking night …

The warmth of the sun is starting to kick in here in Byron Bay and there is a real buzz building in the local villages. The stirrings of Spring are a sign that the hard work of brewing beer for the growing thirst of the locals and visitors is just around the corner. But when the tanks are full and the brews are bubbling away doing their thing, there’s time to slip down the road and soak up the relaxed vibe in the town or at the beach. Meanwhile those brews just seem to be chilling out and working away at their own pace … brewing in Byron time …

Cheers

After a few busy weeks of installing two new fermentation tanks and filling them with bubbling brew, Brad is off to the land of the long white cloud. Why?  you ask.  He is putting on his beer judge wig to cast his eye over the entries in BrewNZ (the Kiwi’s top beer comp). Meanwhile Stone & Wood Pale Lager continues to roll out across the country in great bars and bottle shops. See the where to get it page for where you can get some lager goodness …

Cheers

If you are reading this and have visited our site before you would have noticed that we now have a shiny new home on the web.  If it’s your first time here then sadly you missed out on our pre-Aug 09 web home.  A huge thanks to the crew at Bush Marketing who have been working tirelessly behind the scenes to put together our new site.  The pics have turned out great too, given the three heads they had to work with.

Cheers

We have been super busy in the brewery over the last few weeks bottling lots of Pale Lager. Our bottle filler, Amy (that’s a whole other story), has been in the groove pumping out cartons of lager goodness. You can now find Pale Lager in good bottle shops and bars in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and as far away as Perth.

We will update the where to get it page over the next few days, but keep an eye out for the green bottles … Cheers