DJ McCready of Mountain Culture Brewing Co. and Richard Watkins of Bentspoke Brewing Co. are far from rivals. Photo: Supplied.
Two of Australia’s most accomplished craft breweries, Canberra’s Bentspoke Brewery Co. and Katoomba’s Mountain Culture Beer Co., have joined forces to brew a Black IPA cheekily called On The Terps that is set to warm you through winter.
The collaboration was spearheaded by brewery co-founders Richard Watkins at Bentspoke and Mountain Culture’s DJ McCready who both take a hands-on approach to brewing.
“As brewers, we always have different ways of doing things. It’s all about working together to figure out the style of beer we will make and work through a solid recipe and combine the Mountain Culture way of doing things with the Bentspoke way,” Richard says.
The partnership may come as a surprise to those who have watched the two breweries duke it out for top spot on the GABs Hottest 100 craft beers over the past five years. Bentspoke’s Crankshaft IPA has won two of those years, Mountain Culture’s Status Quo Pale Ale victorious in three.
Does this make them rivals? According to Richard, absolutely not.
“DJ and I have known each other for 11 years or so. And even before he started Mountain Culture, we always talked about doing a beer together.”
The team at Mountain Culture Beer Co. celebrated GABS wins in 2022, 2023 and 2024. Photo: Mountain Culture Beer Co.
The duo came together with a love of hops but took a measured approach when it came to crafting the flavours for the dark beer, a style of beer Richard admits can be polarising.
“When it comes to collaborations, the goal is to make a beer that will have widespread appeal that a lot of people are going to enjoy drinking,” he says.
“We made sure the bitterness was in check. We didn’t want a big, heavy bitterness that was going to cause people to not enjoy it or not have a second one.”
Richard says the collaboration involves getting the balance of flavour between the malt and the hops right, crucial with a dark beer. If you aren’t careful, they can be too strong.
“There is no point loading a beer up with hops and not having it work in harmony together,” he says.
The Bentspoke Crankshaft took out top spot in the GABS Hottest 100 for 2020 and 2021. Photo: Bentspoke.
I often think getting to name a beer would be half the fun of creating a new one.
The duo came up with a clever wordplay that speaks not only to Aussie slang within our drinking culture, but to the use of an ingredient in the beer you may not be familiar with – terpenes.
The aromatic compounds that give plants their smell, known terpenes types number more than 30,000. Where one may make a lemony smell, another may provide a lavender scent.
Richard and DJ have added terpenes – already found in hops – to intensify the beer’s flavours, making it hit your nose and tastebuds in just the right way.
Taking the drinker on an aromatic journey, the one-off beer promises the scent of pine forests after rain, citrus peels and a herbaceous quality only terpenes can deliver.
The crafty duo had so much fun collaborating on their terpenes brew, they’re planning a follow-up that sounds like it will bring a lighter touch for summer.
“We are brewing this beer [On The Terps] at the Bentspoke facility in Canberra and it will be around until the end of winter. We will do a return collaboration that will be brewed at the Mountain Culture facility in the new year,” Richard says.
Grab your hit of On The Terps at Bentspoke Braddon brewpub or online on the Bentspoke website.
