The Crafty Pint Podcast

About The Crafty Pint Podcast

The Crafty Pint is the home of craft beer in Australia. The online magazine and resource has been crafting beer's best stories since 2010 and, in July 2024, launched The Crafty Pint Podcast. Hosted by the editorial team behind Australia's leading craft beer media publication, the show features curated discussion of industry news, as well as an ever-changing lineup of guests sharing perspectives from all corners of the craft beer world. Subscribe now and delve into the fascinating stories shaping beer.

Publisher

The Crafty Pint

Category

arts · leisure · news · society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

19 Jul 2024

Latest episode

7 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

133 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   7 Oct 2026

   Mazen Hajjar | Independence | Beer Travel | Birthdays

   "When I first moved to Australia, I felt Australian beer was so far behind... I think we're at least on par with the US right now." When we switched The Crafty Pint Podcast to a dedicated weekly news show (plus fortnightly extended interviews [https://craftypint.com/news/4237/episode-118-be-brave-the-art-of-beer-and-food-pairing]), we promised we might invite on the occasional guest. Doing that has taken precisely one week – and what a special guest we have for you. Mazen Hajjar will be known to many in the beer industry as the face and voice of Hawkers Beer. Following the Melbourne brewery's merger with White Bay early last year to form the Social Drinks Group [https://craftypint.com/news/3678/hawkers-and-white-bay-merge-to-form-social-drinks-group], Mazen moved to Dubai for love, and to be closer to his family, and stepped back from day-to-day operations. In March, however, he returned to the role of CEO [https://craftypint.com/news/4009/judd-michel-to-depart-social-drinks-group-mazen-hajjar-to-serve-as-interim-ceo], since when he's been overseeing the business from Dubai. On one of his regular trips to Melbourne, we enticed him to join James Smith and Will Ziebell in The Crafty Pint studio to chat about life in Dubai, Hawkers, White Bay, independence, and his – and many others' – perennial bugbears: excise tax and tap contracts. The trio also talk about beer travel, inspired by Briony Liebich's Crafty Crawl around McLaren Vale and the Fleurieu [https://craftypint.com/news/4235/crafty-crawls-mclaren-vale-and-the-fleurieu] and Jono Outred's update of Wild Hop Brewing [https://craftypint.com/brewery/wild-hop-brewing-co]'s page on The Crafty Pint. Victoria is also amidst a rush of milestone birthdays, with Tallboy & Moose and Watts River celebrating ten years on the same weekend and Stomping Ground throwing a major street party [https://craftypint.com/event/14217/stompo-street-fest-2026] (for which you could win tickets [https://craftycabal.com/giveaways-and-merch]) to mark their decade next month. We'll be back with another special edition of the weekly show next week. We're recording it as soon as the winners have been announced at The Beer Championships awards night, for which ticket sales close this Friday. For now, if you've any feedback on the new format, or anything else you'd like to share with us, get in touch [podcast@craftypint.com]! Start of segments: * 0:26 – Ryefield Hops 2027 Harvest Pre-Sale * 1:22 – Mazen, Social Drinks Group, Fighting For Independence & Helles * 17:14 – Stompo Street Fest * 18:04 – Beer Travel, Milestone Birthdays & Rezza To find out more about featuring on The Crafty Pint Podcast or otherwise partnering with The Crafty Pint, contact craig@craftypint.com.

2. 

   5 Oct 2026

   Be Brave: The Art of Beer & Food Pairing

   "The freedom in beer pairing is much, much bigger than with wine." Rob and Bronwyn Kabboord have been responsible for some of the most enjoyable – and often spectacular – beer and food pairings I've experienced. And I'm pretty sure there will be plenty of others out there who can say the same. During their time running Merricote in Westgarth, they combined Rob's incredible dishes and a legendary cheese trolley with Bron's award-winning wine list and an adventurous, expansive approach to beer rarely found in restaurants, whether here or overseas. With Rob opening Rühe, a 24-seat bistro in Kyneton, with sommelier Daniel Saligari in August, and Bron now eight years into her time alongside Annie Smithers at Trentham's iconic du Fermier, we invited them into the studio for a warm and wide-ranging chat. The conversation spans the breadth of drinks and food pairing, beer's position in the hospitality and fine dining worlds, their careers and beer epiphanies, pioneering beer dinners, beetroot hotdogs in the gardens of New York's legendary Stone Barns, vintage Orvals at the world's best beer restaurant in Belgium, chocolate cigars and Cantillon. For anyone keen learn more about pairing drinks and food, there's also plenty to be gleaned when we surprise them with a couple of beers and let their creative juices flow. If you missed the previous episode, we've tweaked the format of our podcasts. From now on, Thursdays will be Weekly News shows, still featuring the occasional guest, and every other Tuesday we'll publish long-form interviews, panel discussions and other more timeless shows.

3. 

   30 Sept 2026

   New Beginnings, Italian Adventures & Trans-Pacific Collabs

   It's all change at The Crafty Pint Podcast. Well, if not all change, then certainly a fair bit of it in terms of format, scheduling and frequency. From this week's episode onwards, you can look forward to 50 percent more shows as we instigate an evolution that's been on the cards for some time: splitting the opening "Week On Crafty" segments into one show, and the giving the long-form interviews and panel discussions their own space. Thursdays will now be a Weekly News show focusing on the ups, downs, ins and outs of the beer world, while every other Tuesday – starting on October 6 – we'll run extended features. Will and James explain the rationale in the opening half of this week's show, but it's a format we've trialled with sibling podcast, The Full Measure, and found makes a lot of sense. As for the "news" part of this week's show – after we've heard about Will's honeymoon in Italy, of course – we reflect on King River's rebirth [https://craftypint.com/news/4223/king-river-lives-on-for-now-new-venue-and-brand-in-pipeline] and upcoming plans, Young Henrys' move [https://craftypint.com/news/4229/young-henrys-to-move-into-mountain-goat-s-former-newtown-brewpub] into Mountain Goat's former Newtown brewpub, the launch of a new brewery in the Northern Beaches, some trans-Pacific collabs [https://craftypint.com/news/4227/blackmans-bring-their-west-coast-road-trip-home], and a follow-up of sorts [https://thepoint.com.au/opinions/260926-hops-and-robbers-why-australian-beer-needs-tax-reform] to last week's election pledge in Victoria. Make sure to look out for / mark your diaries so you don't miss Tuesday's chat with the delightful Rob and Bron Kabboord, and we'll be back with the next Weekly News – possibly with a guest host – on Thursday. Start of segments: * 0:24 – Ryefield Hops [https://www.ryefieldhops.com/]' 2027 Presale * 1:21 – Weekly News Part 1 * 12:13 – The Full Measure [https://thefullmeasure.com.au/] * 12:48 – Weekly News Part 2 To find out more about featuring on The Crafty Pint Podcast or otherwise partnering with The Crafty Pint, contact craig@craftypint.com.

Who has been a guest on The Crafty Pint Podcast

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Pete Meddings
• Phil Meddings
• Dale Meddings
• Evin Craney
• Willie Simpson

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

7,618

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Spotify

5.0 / 5

25 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 60 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

91

Social presence

0

YouTube

74

Engagement

0

Contact The Crafty Pint Podcast

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

Questions about The Crafty Pint Podcast