As we step into 2025, first we wanted to a take a look back at the year that has just passed. It’s hard to believe we have just had our only just celebrated our 6th birthday and have hit some milestones in the past 12 months that we never dreamed possible. The number of venues serving our gluten free beer on tap in Australia has almost DOUBLED in 2024, there are more stadiums beginning to meet the demand for great gluten free beer, and the awards have continued to flow. Here’s some of our highlights…
January - Festivals, laughs and collaborations
Summer on the Mornington Peninsula means beaches, BBQs and great beer. The region may be known for its wines, food and pristine coastline, but we are also in the heart of the brewing capital of Australia, with more breweries per capita here than any other region (sorry Sunshine Coast and Sydney’s inner West, but it’s true!). We kicked off the year with the Mornington Craft Beer Festival, meeting locals and enjoying a few mid-summer brews. Meanwhile, back at the taproom, Dave Thornton and a host of other comedians kept us entertained while raising funds for local charity - Mental Health Safety Net.
We also hosted the team from Carwyn Cellars for a collaboration beer brew day for the second iteration of Hazy IPA… more on that here [link to Hazy blog]
February - Local Beer Day 2024
The team at the Crafty Pint have long advocated for independent beer, and this year introduced Local Beer Day, to encourage breweries and other venues to team up and create unique beer focused events right around the country. We are fortunate to have some of the best venues in the state right on our doorstep, so we teamed up with another craft beer destination on the Mornington Peninsula, Red Gum BBQ, for an epic night of beer and American style BBQ pairing. Along with TWØBAYS beers, the chefs created a full gluten free menu featuring beer as an ingredient - a No Doubt Stout Salt reduction and Pale Ale Beer Battered Onion Rings were highlights on the menu.
March - Freeing the taps for Coeliac Awareness Week
Possibly the highlight of the gluten free beer calendar, we once again freed the taps around the country for Coeliac Awareness Week. With 65 beer taps freed from gluten for the week, drinkers enjoy could enjoy a range of beers, including keg only brews to explore a whole world of beer. 15 different beer styles poured across the week, including our first speciality release of 2024 – Hazy IPA brewed in collaboration with Carwyn Cellars
April - On top of the World!
Richard and Kristian travelled to the States to get a fresh perspective of the gluten free beer world. They selflessly toured one brewery after another, sampling beers, talking to brewers, meeting with the best maltsters of gluten free grains in the world, and sampling more beers. It was a hard slog (apparently), but somehow they managed to cope with the heavy workload. The end of the tour landed them in Las Vegas at the awards ceremony for the World Beer Cup – the biggest and most prestigious beer awards on the planet. What once seemed like an impossible dream became a reality, with TWØBAYS Session Ale taking out top spot in the gluten free beer category, being named the best gluten free beer in the world!
May - Australia's Friendliest Beer launches
Australia’s national day of Mateship, May 8 (Maaaate), is a day to reconnect with mates, check in with a friend who might be doing it tough, or just to grab a beer together and say “cheers” to the good times. We chose this date to launch the first core range extension to the GFB range – Aussie Ale, because mates don’t let mates go without a beer. We understand that not everyone feels like having a craft style beer all the time, sometimes you just want an easy drinking thirst quencher that just tastes good… but you still want a choice, so we welcomed Aussie Ale to the line up to do exactly that.
Coming off the dizzying highs of the World Beer Cup, we rolled straight into the Australian International Beer Awards (AIBAs), Australia’s biggest beer awards. Picking up gold medals for IPA and the new beer in town – GFB Aussie Ale, as well as four more bronze medals, the Two Bays brewers continued to showcase the quality and consistency they are brewing.
May also saw the return of GABS festival, this year kicking off in Sydney. This gives the brew team a chance to let loose their most creative ideas. This year’s brew came together through a chance meeting with our taproom neighbours on the Dromana industrial estate – Southern Sea Greens. Founded by Cam Hines (founding brewer at Mountain Goat Brewery), Southern Sea Greens are on a mission to remove invasive, introduced wakame kelp from Victorian oceans, and re-cultivate with native species. Together we brewed “Wakame Up Before You Gose”, a slightly salty, slightly sour, kelp gose.
June - Brown Ale is Off the Hook
In June, we got our funk on (not the yeasty kind), and released Off The Hook Brown Ale. A dark and malty brown ale, perfect for winter drinking.
July - Coeliac Awareness for 1 in 70
What has now become an annual Coeliac Awareness campaign, our 1 in 70 giveaway was the feature of the month. We give back hundreds of dollars to 1 in 70 lucky recipients who have ordered from our website in July.
August - Kanpai!
We kicked off the month at the Australian Independent Beer Awards (the Indies) where Session Ale scored a threepeat with its 3rd consecutive gold medal at the awards. Unfortunately, there will be no Indies awards in 2025 so its gold medal run has to end there. Overall, we racked up another seven medals at the awards taking our tally to 67 medals, one champion beer trophy and a World Beer Cup, all in under 6 years!
Next came our 2nd core range release of the year. New Japanese Rice Lager launched with a bang, rolling out into Dan Murphy’s and BWS stores across Victoria, and quickly becoming a hot favourite with online shoppers in other states too. Low carb, light taste, and super refreshing, it’s a real thirst crusher.
Some of the first interstate customers to get their hands on cans were at the Sydney Gluten Free Expo. It was great to be back on the road and meeting customers. We still get blown away by the reaction we get when we see people trying a beer for the first time in years.
Back at TWØBAYS HQ, we welcomed some new members to the team, with Tando taking over the role of Taproom Manager after our longest serving team member, Kyle, who worked the very first bar shift when we opened in December 2018, finished his studies and took on a new career. We also welcomed Simon to the marketing team who has been a great addition to the office.
September - GF Oktoberfest
As mid-September rolled around, thoughts of footy finals were in our minds, but even more so – Oktoberfest! We were caught a little off guard with the release of Marzen, expecting this speciality beer to last us through to summer. It turned out gluten free beer lovers had REALLY been missing Oktoberfest and the batch sold out in just a couple of weeks. For locals, there’s one last chance to taste this sensational beer – at the taproom this January.
October - Sydney Good Beer Week 2024
The Melbourne GF Expo gave us another chance to meet the local gluten free community and sample more beers.
Across the NSW boarder, Sydney Good Beer Week got underway. Collaborating with Yullis Brewing in Sydney, we created a one off Californian IPA, 6.7% of pure bliss. Hosting a gluten free night with food and beer pairings, initial reports were this was the fastest selling Sydney Beer Week event, showing just how keen our gluten free community is to get out to eat good food and drink great beers on tap when they are available.
November - Pulp Fusion Returns
For one last summer, we have welcomed back Pulp Fusion Passionfruit Sour, Australia’s original gluten free sour. Perfect for quenching a thirst on a hot day, this fruited Berliner Weisse has become a summer favourite with beer lovers no matter if they are avoiding gluten or not.
We are fortunate to have some incredible charities in our local community and take pride in supporting Mental Health Safety Net. Following from our comedy night in January we sponsor their annual Golf event, held at the beautiful Mornington Golf Course. This year the event raised over $32k for their cause, which enables them to continue to work with schools, businesses, sports clubs and community groups, educating our community about suicide prevention and how to start a conversation with someone who may be struggling.
December - 6th Birthday celebrations
As we round out another year, our 6th Birthday seems to have come around very quickly. We end the year with almost twice as many venues serving Two Bays beers on tap than just one year ago, and cans available all around Australia, even on Ngurupai/Narupai (Horn Island) in the Torres Straight!
Thanks to all our customers who have rediscovered a love for beer for another incredible year, and cheers to 2024!
