The Royal Queensland Beer Awards invited top Aussie brewers to compete for national recognition once again in 2024. Supported by a team of brewers, beer writers and industry figures, the competition has become a trusted guide for Aussie beer drinkers.
Hop Products Australia (HPA) were particularly proud to award Slipstream Brewing the HPA trophy for Champion Small/Medium Brewery. Their Brewer Daniel Thomsen was also awarded the trophy for Emerging Queensland Brewer. After a well earned week off, we got in touch with Head Brewer Gavin Croft to congratulate the team and ask a few questions about brewing balanced beers.
Q: Congrats on your recent success at the 2024 Royal Queensland Beer Awards. As the proud sponsor of your trophy for Champion Small/Medium Brewery, tell us the secret to your story.
A: No secrets here. Just a lot of hard work and attention to the little things. It helps that the venue and sales teams are kicking goals and customers are obviously enjoying the beers. We’re turning over the batches quite frequently, so that our beer in the marketplace is always fresh. We conduct a lot of in house sensory analysis and take the feedback from previous competitions seriously, so that we can focus in on areas for improvement.
Q: Daniel Thomsen was also awarded the trophy for Emerging Queensland Brewer. Describe the energy he brings to your business.
A: Dan is a quality focused brewer, who asks all the right questions and leads initiatives for process improvements. He is also very passionate about beer and likes to keep it fun with innovative ideas. He once brewed a 12% ABV Affogato Stout with cold brew coffee and vanilla beans, that had a finishing gravity of 14oP. It was a ridiculous and delicious beer that was very hard to brew but executed to such a high level. And although he doesn’t typically go for a 12% dessert stout knock off, he has shown that you are only limited by your imagination.
Q: The judges noted there was a big improvement in the standard of beers entered this year. What do you think is driving this renewed focus on beer quality?
A: Every year beer drinkers are getting a little more savvy with a better understanding of what good beer is, and across the board brewers are delivering. Brewers are a social bunch and we are happy to give feedback to our mates/competitors in the industry, which along with competition feedback, conferences, etc, guides brewers to adapt where necessary to up their game. In an uncertain marketplace high quality beer is becoming more necessary – when consumers generally have less disposable income, it becomes vitally important that every beer they buy is great.
Q: Hops obviously hold a special place in your heart, but Slipstream is renowned for crafting balanced beers. What’s your favourite hop/malt or hop/yeast combo?
A: We use an Australian grown and malted Pale malt as the base for almost all of our beers. It has a pretty light flavour profile which is perfect for layering specialty malts, specialty yeasts, and/or hops depending on the desired outcome. For most of our beers we are using fairly neutral yeast strains also, as our preference is for the hops to do the talking. Not to say the malts and yeast are unimportant but the balance probably comes more from a significant consideration for finished gravity, finished pH, alcohol content, bitterness (calculated IBUs and dry hop bitterness) and healthy fermentation.
Q: And which of our Aussie hops currently holds the top spot in your heart?
A: My personal favourite is Vic Secret, but we also use quite a lot of Galaxy, Eclipse, and Topaz.
Q: The vision for Slipstream was actually inspired by the American beer scene. Which brewery or beer had the biggest influence on the brewery back home in Australia.
A: It’s difficult to single out just one, but beers like Sierra Nevada Pale, Ballast Point Sculpin, Green Flash IPA and breweries like Deschutes and Stone Brewing all inspired our brewery and hop forward beers. This year we head to CBC in Las Vegas to see what has changed since those early days.
