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Last weekend, we once again had the opportunity to partner with Bridge Road Brewers to bring the High Country Hop Technical Symposium to life and to let off a little steam at the Festival over the weekend.

It was an excellent program with voices from inside and out of the industry. The presentations ranged from discussions on “Australia, the Land of the Duopoly?” and sustainability through to technical yeast, malt and hop presentations.

Over the coming weeks’ Bridge Road and the Crafty Pint will be releasing the recordings of many of the presentations for all the folks who couldn’t make it – to share in the lessons we learned.

The High Country Hop is of course a celebration of the hop harvest season – and one of the highlights is getting out from behind a laptop to participate in the Hop Products Australia (HPA) sensory session. It’s a great reminder for all of us that we are much more than ‘an alcohol product’ but rather, with water, malt, hops and yeast we are grounded in agricultural products and farming – with innovations in raw ingredients playing a significant role in the evolution of beer.

But perhaps the best thing about the High Country Hop is that it is two days to spend with our industry members, colleagues and friends. With around 100 attendees this year we had the chance to share with each other the current challenges and make plans for the future – all with the beautiful Bridge Road Brewery, and the festival at the Beechworth Historic Precinct Reserve as the backdrop.

Ben Kraus and his team at Bridge Road along with HPA deserve immense credit for making this one of the must-attend events in the Indie Beer calendar and we are already looking forward to 2026.