KVEIK IPA – 6.4% ABV

We want to get the good beer chat flowing and your mouth salivating. In our latest blog series Good Beer Talk, our beer experts discuss tasting notes, history and what goes into our beer of the month. It’s not always what we have in the tanks or taps but beer styles handpicked by our brewers that we really love.

This month our beer of choice is a Kveik IPA…

For the first time we have brewed a beautiful fruit forward IPA in our Pilot Brewery with some very special yeast hailing from Norway. Kveik (say it like “kwike”) means “yeast” in certain Norwegian dialects and covers a broad range of yeast cultures collected and propagated on farms throughout Norway for centuries.

A couple of farmers and yeast fanatics continue the tradition of propagating these special cultures using yeast covered linens or wooden rings. We sourced our Kveik from our lab yeast supplier on this occasion and will continue to trial the yeast with a range of pilot brews in 2019 after the interesting and enjoyable properties encountered with our first trial brew. Kveik is said to be heat and alcohol tolerant, can be dried and reused, ferment quickly and give consistent flavour profiles such as lemon, lime and funk.

Our Kveik IPA pours super hazy with a moderate head and carbonation. With a well-rounded Maris Otter and wheat backbone and generously hopped with Amarillo and Citra, this golden fruit bounty is stunning and a must try if you’re passing through our Byron tasting room.

In our opinion, some work days are best spent singing Frank Sinatra with local senior citizens.

Giving back to our community is an important part of our work culture at Stone & Wood, and so we’re lucky enough to enjoy extra annual leave to dedicate to volunteering.

Our crew has the option to choose an organisation close to their heart or otherwise jump onto a team volunteer day – which a handful of us did recently Feros Care Wommin Bay, an aged care village by Kingscliff Beach and just 40 minutes up the road.

An open-plan village swept with sea breeze, Feros Care Wommin Bay is home to some 70 residents with varying care and support needs – and all with a story to share. Here, we hoped not only to help out during the residents’ daily activities, but also to lend an ear and share quality company.

After morning tea and cake – with our creative and community manager Jaz slinging coffees on the machine – we each paired up with a resident and, accompanied by Lisa, Kai and Cate from Feros, walked the 500 metres to Kingscliff Beach.

The winter sun filtered through the cloud cover as about 20 of us rested on the timber beach lookout, spotting whales offshore and marvelling the display of steel blue and turquoise blending through the water.

Here, we had the privilege of chatting one-on-one with our buddy residents, hearing childhood recounts and updates on their children. One resident, Bonnie, 98, recalled in amazing detail how she and her brother as kids would catch live worms around the Tweed River to catch saltwater fish.

We later shared a relaxed lunch before making our way to the large common room for the main event: karaoke.

Shortly after Tasting Room manager Jess and marketing coordinator Rory warmed the stage with a Greece ‘Summer Nights’ rendition, our audience grew to a full-house, with residents walking and wheeling in from all over the village.

There we spent the afternoon passing the mic among us – including to a handful of residents who sung Frank Sinatra’s ‘My Way’ and several other classic hits, with no shortage of gusto.

Our day at Feros Care Wommin Bay was nothing short of awesome; each of us left with their heart full and plans to return. What’s more, Lisa from Feros even sparked the idea of arranging a brewery tour for some of the citizens. Here or there, we look forward to catching up with these guys again!

...and the man behind this epic Pacific Ale tinnie sketch

Last week, whilst doing our daily flick through the gram for inspiring beery news and content, a notification popped up – It was a tag from Sydney based artist Dean Spinks. The post what we thought at the time was a close-up photograph of our Original Pacific Ale can, but after flicking through Dean’s Instagram account of hand-sketched portraits and photorealism art, we quickly realised it was a drawing. Dean had sketched every little detail of the floral design, the shadowing and coloured in the entire can with the signature Pacific Ale orange using a blend of light yellows and dark oranges. A piece of art that took concentration, time and precision.

We reached out to Dean to find out a little more about the man behind the can drawing and asked him about his love and passion for art and of course, beer.

Meet Dean Spinks…

Give us a bit of background about yourself.G’day! I’m a former graphic designer turned pen-artist from Cronulla. I’m big into photorealism, and draw most of my subjects larger than life. Drawing exclusively with pen, my artworks take an excruciatingly long time thanks to my crosshatching process, but that’s all part of the fun!

What inspired you to get into this style of design?Well, I think the love for photorealism just comes from the way my brain is wired up. I could never handle doing abstract type art because I never knew when a piece was finished. I can totally appreciate that kind of art, but personally when I’m making art, I’m only content when I feel like I couldn’t add any more detail.

I started drawing with pens because all my previous pencil and graphite work would smudge and lack the clarity I wanted, so I would never finish it. Sure, pens are permanent so there’s no room for error, but the detail I can get with a 0.03mm marker is second to none. So when I worked out I could crosshatch thousands of tiny lines to make a drawing, my style really took a direction from there.

How long have you been doing it?I’ve been at it about 4 years now. After being stuck behind a computer in an office for 10 or so years, I started drawing just to have a creative outlet that wasn’t computer based, and wasn’t dictated by design briefs. I really got a lot out of it and can’t believe how far I’ve come in a few years – funny what happens when you practice, right?!

What is your most memorable piece?There’s a piece I did last year for the Dobell Prize for Drawing. It’s kind of a blend of two faces. I really like that direction because it blends portraiture and photorealism, but it’s not just a straight up portrait. It’s just a really interesting result, I could stare at it for hours. I’m really proud of that piece and want to explore this direction more in the future.

The Pacific Ale can drawing is epic! How long did it take? Any challenges?I’m so stoked with how that one turned out! I’ve only just started introducing colour to my work, but I’ve been getting so much good feedback from that one, I think it’s a winner! It took me around 30 hours, which is relatively quick compared to some of my other pieces. Actually, yeah, blending the colours was pretty challenging. I didn’t have the right coloured markers, only really light yellow and dark orange, so I had to blend them by crosshatching them to create a mid-orange colour. Oh and how could I forget all those floral details, that took some careful work!

Looks like you have a love for good beer too, any styles in particular you love?Yeah I love to sink a good pale ale! I reckon the craft beer industry as a whole in Australia is in a really cool place. Lots of great breweries are doing really good things, they all have their own personalities and are making great beers. There’s a lot of support from the breweries for artists and musicians, that’s what gave me the idea to draw some tinnies.

Any other passions on the side?Yeah I absolutely love surfing and get out there most days. I’ve also been kickboxing most of my life which probably isn’t your average artist’s hobby, but it’s just so much fun.

What’s your next challenge?I’ve actually got an exciting project I’m working on at the moment for one of Australia’s biggest portraiture prizes. I just did a sitting with a Hip Hop legend and I’m in the process of starting a massive piece featuring him. More to come on that one!

Finish this sentence. I love drinking a cold beer whilst…Bullshitting to my mates about the waves I just got. Haha, pretty cliche but there’s no better time for a beer than when you’re surfed out!

Check out Dean’s work below or jump over to his website and Instagram.

Our Pilot Batch beers are experimental brews created by our team of brewers, with occasional help from collaborators within our community, all at our Pilot Brewery in Byron Bay. These small-batch brews are special, limited and once gone, may never return…

 Josh Waters, one of our resident brewers at the Byron Bay Brewery has just released this extremely tasty Red IPA (6% alc/vol) in our Byron Tasting Room. We caught up with Joshy to find out what went into this beer and his thoughts about this style of beer.

Why did you brew this beer?

I brewed this beer as the focus of my recipe development this year is to work with local native ingredients. I have the opportunity to design a beer of my choice every 3 months and I’m trying to use the opportunity to keep it local.

What do you like about red IPA’s?

I love Red IPA’s for strong malt presence being well balanced with the huge amount of hops.

I wanted to make sure it was a bright red IPA, as a lot of red IPA’s are more brown than red. I wanted the beer to end up as close to the fruits natural colour as possible.

How does rosella add to this beer?

The Rosella was used for its colour and to add a unique fruitiness without being overpowering. I used Rosella flakes in the whirlpool and fermenter, as well as 3kg of fruit harvested from my backyard, which I made a syrup from and added post ferment.

I get to brew a lot of different beer styles and idea’s as part of my role and anything out of the ordinary is really fun. It is great to try out some crazy idea’s as well as more traditional styles.

What upcoming pilot batch beer are you excited about?

I’m really looking forward to drinking the strawberries and cream Berliner we are brewing soon.

Last week the entire Stone & Wood and Fermentum family came together in our new spiritual home in Byron Bay for Team Day, an all-day team event where we catch-up with each other and align on our activity, goals and mission.

It’s also a great opportunity for our crew from different departments to connect and learn about each other’s roles – for customer service team to hear what’s happening in engineering, for the road crew to touch base with our people in finance, and so on.

Every year, as part of Team Day, we congratulate our newest employee shareholders – and this year, we had a whopping 27 coming on as partners.

Committed to independence and sustainability, we run our employee share scheme as part of our Brewlife program. As thanks to our team for their contribution to our growth and culture, we invite them to purchase shares in the company in the year following their first 12 months in the business.

Besides helping to create a nest egg for our team and their families, the employee share scheme is about sharing the success with everyone and generating a sense of pride and ownership in the place we come to work.

Today, over 70 per cent of our team are shareholders – we’re proud to welcome the next lot of partners to the team. Congratulations, guys!

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Do you have tickets to our Festival of The Stone yet? Check out our banging lineup of headliners and local artists. Plug your earphones in and get hyped with our Spotify playlist on Melbourne-based songwriter Alex Lahey Alex played an epic gig at last year’s Splendour in the Grass following her triple j Unearthed success.

Funky neo-jazz electronica, artist and producer Alice Ivy who has performed at our favourite festivals around the country, including Splendour in the Grass and Falls Festival.

Local favourite soul queen Lisa Hunt – who’s worked with the likes of Ray Charles, Eric Clapton, Tina Arena and Macy Gray…

Alongside the line up of live music, the festival is about bringing our community together and enjoying delicious food and to help celebrate the release of our limited seasonal Stone Beer – a wood-fired stout brewed with hot stones in homage to our brewing ancestors.

Got Spotify? Hit play, head over to Spotify and enjoy the Festival of The Stone 2019 playlist and get your tickets now, this event will sell out! Learn more about the festival here.

Also on the line-up is the 28-man ‘Russian’ choir from Mullumbimby, Dustyesky, who came together as a group with a love of vodka and Russian folk music, and later became a national Russian news story. Meanwhile, besides a few live DJs, there’ll be rock n’ roll for the young ones with the head-banging Bunny Racket.

It’s time to let your mind warp – Sticky Nectar has landed in our online store and in select outlets around the country, available for drinking and purchase.

With psychedelic hints from the ‘70s, our Sticky Nectar hazy mango IPA transports your back to a languid summer day with its sun-golden hue, heady tropical aromas from Galaxy, Citra and Amarillo hops, vanilla and lactose sweetness, and truckloads of mango puree – which together make easy work balancing the beer’s 45 IBU bitterness.

Available in packs of two 500ml cans at good bottle shops and our online store ($16.50 + shipping), and tapped at select venues, check where to taste or purchase Sticky Nectar with our Beer Finder or buy now here.

Like all Counter Culture releases, Sticky Nectar is super limited and will make way for the following release in roughly eight weeks’ time. So, sit back, drop out and dissolve – this might be your only chance.

To get across our Counter Culture releases, sign up to the newsletter and follow the range at @counterculturebeer.

Our Pilot Batch beers are experimental brews created by our team of brewers, with occasional help from collaborators within our community, all at our Pilot Brewery in Byron Bay.

These small batch brews are special, limited and, once gone, may never return. The Pilot Batch brewery is a space for our brewers to get creative – an opportunity to trial weird and wonderful things, turning the brewery into an experimental playground to get a little fruity.

Every three months, one of our brewers takes up the helm in our Byron brewery, running the day-to-day operations. During this time, they have the chance to brew their favourite beers and run the Pilot Batch program.

Meet Josh Waters, one of our resident brewers at the Byron Bay brewery who leads our other brewers through the Pilot Batch program.

Give us a bit of background about yourself.

I live in Ocean Shores with my wife and daughter after moving from Sydney’s Northern Beaches 12 years ago. I’ve been working with Stone & Wood for five years now, and have been brewing for four of those. After 20 years of working as a chef, I was keen for a change and was lucky enough to get a start at Stone & Wood.

What are your favourite styles of beer and why?

My favourite beer styles would be anything with big flavours. I love fresh, well-balanced IPAs, as well as the flavours and aromas of saisons. I also always look forward to the time we start brewing our annual Stone Beer, and am really into red beers at the moment.

What will you be brewing during your time here in Byron?

As I’m permanently based at the Byron brewery, I’m lucky enough to be brewing different and exciting beers all the time. I enjoy lots of opportunities to brew and learn about many beer styles – traditional and experimental. Beers that challenge our way of thinking are always a great thing.

Any beers you’re really excited about brewing and why?

I’m always excited to see what ideas are being discussed and then brewing them. Brewing beers under the Counter Culture banner will be fantastic, and also doing some more volume of our Pilot Beers. Being able to spread those beers further so that more people can try them will be great.

What do you like about the using the Pilot Batch brewery to experiment?

I love the manual aspect of the pilot kit, and doing everything from ordering materials to brewing and conditioning the beer, to then finally watching visitors in the Tasting Room enjoy the end result – it’s very rewarding.

It’s great collaborating with the team on new ideas and then working with our head brewer, Caolan, in turning those ideas into great beers.

Check out the video of Joshy on a recent trip to Tasmania for the Galaxy Hop Harvest: