Three days and over 400 beers - here's what the brewers think you should be drinking.

With 82 brewers involved, pouring over 400 different beers, the Adelaide Beer and BBQ Festival booze lineup is monstrous.

There’s going to be a lot to swill throughout the three days, so to properly prep for our tour through the tap hall, CityMag decided it would be a good idea to call some brewers for tips, lest we lose all our funds before a pour of Sparkke’s dirty chai latte stout, or a sour from Left Barrel.

Read on and take notes, friends.

Agi Gagic
Sparkke Change Beverage Company

What seasonal/limited edition or special brews will you have available at the Beer and BBQ Festival?
We’re brewing a specialty beer exclusively for Beer & BBQ, a ‘dirty chai latte’ stout. It’s a collab between us and our best buds, Floozy Coffee. We like to think of Floozy as our ‘sister’ company… Floozy are a female owned and operated coffee roasting biz in Newcastle, NSW. A portion of their sales revenue goes to The Rough Period, an organisation who provide women sleeping rough in Sydney with safe and clean sanitary items. I’m freaking ecstatic about brewing a beer with them.

Which beers are you excited about seeing from other brewers at the festival?
Hmmmmm. I was pretty keen on Moon Dog’s and Green Beacon’s offerings last year so pumped to see what’s on their menus this year. I’ve been LOVING Left Barrel lately, so I’m excited to drink a coupla their brews too.

Really though, I’m excited to see and taste all the weird and wonderful specialties that will be pouring. Beer and BBQ gives brewers the opportunity to let their nerdy freak flags fly. I love it.

Which is the beer in that festival-goers should not go past, and why?
Definitely check out some of the cool international beers featuring this year, BrewDog and Tiny Rebel in particular.

What is the best beer you’ve had this year?
My buddy in Colorado sent me some beers recently, one of which was a can of Sour Rosé by Crooked Stave. Holy smokes. That was wild. Another fav I had was Return of The Sassy by Three Weavers, an infallible and exceptional Rye IPA.

Owen Lyons
Mismatch Brewing

What seasonal/limited edition or special brews will you have available at the Beer and BBQ Festival?
Specifically for the Beer and BBQ Festival we collaborated with BrewDog on a native Australian Pilsner. Our use of lemon myrtle, native thyme, anise myrtle, strawberry gum and green ants is a refreshing twist on a clean and crisp classic.

Which beers are you excited about seeing from other brewers at the festival?
I’m always interested by the range of interstate beers that are not so readily available. I will definitely be stopping past Green Beacon, Modus Operandi and Fixation at some point.

Which is the beer in your lineup that festival-goers should not go past, and why?
Our seasonal releases of Chocolate Stout and Evil Archies Red IPA should be as fresh as ever. Both are more than capable of complementing the amazing BBQ on offer.

What is the best beer you’ve had this year?
It’s the pint of Mismatch Lager I have off tap very soon at the Exeter.

Maris Biezate
Robe Town Brewery

What seasonal/limited edition or special brews will you have available at the Beer and BBQ Festival?
We plan to run six taps and rotate about 12 different beers throughout the weekend, many of which are very limited rarities and several newly released beers.

New releases include: our new session ale Bonnie Owl (3.8%a/v); 1869 – Lord’s Dangerous Red, a double amber (7.5%) first time in keg; and The Moon Hop extra pale ale (6.1%) new in keg to Adelaide.

Limited releases include:

– The Stowaway: a French-style Saison, 6.5%, collab brew, RTB + homebrewer Ben Rowley from Adelaide (winner of the 2017 Robe Homebrew Comp), with Ben’s winning Saison recipe. This will be a sneak preview of the Robe Beer Fest 2018 festival beer.
– Magic Mulberry: a seasonal fruit beer made with wild mulberries picked on the Coorong, tart and sweet, 5.5%.
– Equinox: tart, strong porter, 7.5%. This is the March 2017 equinox batch, a lovely, partly sour porter.
– Solstice: our Baltic porter, 8%, aged for three years in keg, dark and rich.
– Beached Ale: a one-off release, lemony, zingy pale ale.
– The Beast: a dark and strong special ale fermented with saison yeast, aged on oak, 10.8%, only one keg to be tapped at the Adelaide fest.
– Aged Shipwreck Stout: 12 months+ aged, a mild stout, 6.5%
-The Drop: one keg left of the South Coast Surf Ale made with Ocean Water, wild bees wax and subtle additions of fruity hops, special release made for the 50th anniversary Robe Easter Classic Surf Comp 2018.

We will also be serving our Shearer’s Joy historic Australian farmhouse ale, and a limited amount of stubbies of our brand new Monk’s Habit dark strong Belgian ale, 9%.

Not all of these beers will be available during all of the sessions, as much of it is fairly limited, but we will have at least two or three specialties available at every session.

Which beers are you excited about seeing from other brewers at the festival?
Looking forward to a number of special release beers, especially the collab cola beer made by Watsacowie and Woolshed.

Which is the beer in your lineup that festival-goers should not go past, and why?
We have too many very special beers on the list! But once a couple of these have been sampled, the Bonnie Owl session ale would probably be a wise choice to prevent heavy intoxication!

What is the best beer you’ve had this year?
We are constantly tasting all kinds of great beers, but to be honest, I think that every new beer we make becomes my new favourite beer! Currently it is the Monk’s Habit.

Brad Bown
Left Barrel Brewing

What seasonal/limited edition or special brews will you have available at the Beer and BBQ Festival?
We’ll have a few new beers including a collaboration saison, barrel aged sours and a new farmhouse IPA on tap!

Which beers are you excited about seeing from other brewers at the festival?
It’s always interesting to see new breweries and their takes on existing styles.

Which is the beer in your lineup that festival-goers should not go past, and why?
We will have our Balhannah Bitter on tap, a great example of a true English Bitter, 3.8% abv and rarely seen outside the brewery itself. Think fruity yeast aromas and quaffable by the pint!

What is the best beer you’ve had this year?
Libation Army’s Fluffy Jeff (IPA) was right up there. But there’s so many great local beers being produced at the moment, it’s hard to pick just one!