It’s been a blazing summer in every sense of the word, with vast regions throughout the country impacted by the size and scope of the ferocious bushfires that have devastated so many Australians over the past few months.
Like many other Aussie individuals, businesses and industries, the craft beer fraternity are rallying together to contribute much needed funds for those doing it tough as they go about rebuilding their homes and communities from the tragic aftermath of these unprecedented and destructive bushfires.
Here at Black Hops we’re getting behind the Resilience Beer project, a bushfire relief initiative where breweries in Australia (and even internationally) show solidarity by brewing a special fundraising brew called Resilience XPA. All money raised from the beer will go to a number of designated bushfire relief charities.
The Resilience Beer project was first launched by US brewery Sierra Nevada in late 2018 in response to the devastating bushfires in California, with over 1,400 brewers getting onboard to raise millions of dollars. We were eager to get behind it when an Aussie version of Resilience Beer was recently announced.
The Australian Resilience Beer is a 5% XPA, with a group of Aussie brewers working together to develop the recipe, a pleasantly hoppy Extra Pale Ale with a broad ranging appeal. The way it works, is that each brewery who chooses to be involved, brews their own batch of the beer, based on the agreed upon Resilience recipe. You can view the recipe here.
To co-ordinate effective supply and distribution with all the breweries taking part, the beer will be available nationally from the week of 24 February onwards.
So on Thursday, 16 January, the brew-crew spent the day brewing up a 600L batch of Resilience Pale Ale on the Pilot System at BHII. We’ll be passing on a bunch of Resilience karma kegs to selected venues, as well as serving it on tap at the First Birthday celebration of our Biggera Water Brewery (BHII) on Saturday 29 February. All of the money made will be donated to the NSW Rural Fire Service.
It’s not just breweries involved in this project. A whole group of people from our industry including suppliers, media outlets, the IBA, breweries, retailers and venues have been working behind the scenes to kick this off.
At the time of writing, 100+ breweries have signed up including overseas brewers Garage Project and Sierra Nevada. If you are a brewery looking to support the Bushfire relief efforts, we highly encourage you check out the Resilience Beer website and sign up to take part.
If you are a venue, who wants to run a Karma Keg event with the beer, please contact your local craft brewer and ask if they are brewing the beer.
It’s great to see the craft beer community doing their bit to help out. Cheers to all the customers getting behind the various events, and we’ll keep you updated on the plans for the beer closer to the week of 24 Feb.