2015 - 2025

10 years of hawkers

As we gear up to celebrate 10 wild years of Hawkers, it’s time to look back on the beers, cheers, and all the moments that got us here.

⁠⁠Over the coming weeks, we’ll revisit the highlights of each year, leading up to our big anniversary in February 2025. Buckle up! ⁠

2015 was the year Hawkers took flight. Hawkers Beer launched first with Pale Ale, with three more core brews; IPA, Saison and Pilsner following close behind. The reception was nothing short of overwhelming. Within months, demand skyrocketed, pushing us to expand equipment and brew capacity almost immediately. We even rolled out our first fleet of kegs - 2000 strong.

⁠⁠It didn’t stop there. Just one day after packing our first Pale Ale, it won People’s Choice at Geelong Beer Festival. By year’s end, we’d maxed out capacity, made it into over 100 bottle shops across Victoria, and brought home 12 medals from the Australian International Beer Awards and Craft Beer Awards combined.⁠⁠ And the recognition kept coming.

Amongst press features galore, Our IPA and Pale Ale made Crafty Pints 'Best New Beers of 2015', and The Age named Hawkers as one of the breweries to watch in 2016 - And we were just getting started.⁠⁠ It was a year fuelled by passion, hard work, and a supportive community that believed in us from day one.

In 2016, Hawkers levelled up in a big way! We expanded distribution into Queensland and South Australia and landed on shelves at every Dan Murphys across Australia. This was also the year we embraced the art of patience, kicking off our barrel program with 60 bourbon barrels straight from the USA and creating our first (of many to come) Bourbon Barrel Aged Imperial Stout.⁠⁠

The brewery got more upgrades, with 188 solar panels and a total of eight massive new 16,000 litre tanks to support our booming production (our sixth capacity upgrade in just 18 months!). ⁠⁠Add to the list; we took Hawkers to Hong Kong and Malaysia, hosted a cinema night in the brewery, and brought home the titles of Supreme Champion Brewer and Brewer of the Year Oceania at the International Beer Challenge in London.

2017 was a year of evolution for Hawkers, marked by new beers and big moves. We introduced the ROVER range in retro stubbies (anyone remember these?!) debuting with a Session Ale and Session IPA. Added to the Hawkers core range lineup was XPA and West Coast IPA, in our first ever tinnies! 2017 also saw our IIPA hit taps and fridges for the very first time.⁠

⁠This was also the year of big upgrades, embracing a reduced environmental footprint. We switched the Hawkers range from bottles to cans, and installed two new 27-tonne malt silos - saving 1,080 less empty bags of malt to throw away per fill, per silo.⁠

We didn’t stop there: Hawkers extended into Western Australia and Tasmania, and onto shelves in 600 Marks & Spencer stores in the UK. Meanwhile, Circus Oz brought the magic to our brewery as the flagship event for Good Beer Week.

By the end of 2018, we had scaled up to a whopping 3 million litres of beer per year, solidifying our place as one of Australia’s leading craft breweries. Speaking of leading, we were named Brewer of the Year Oceania at the International Beer Challenge in London - for the second time in just three years!⁠⁠

It was also the year we introduced some heavy hitters - we went all out with 11 releases in our vintage series, showcasing the best of what we could do with bold, big beers (a few of these gems are still available today!).⁠⁠On the ROVER front, 2018 saw the launch of the golden beacon we now know as Henty Street Ale. As well as the transition of ROVER into cans, bringing fresh vibes and easier portability to our beloved sessionable range.⁠⁠

From pinstripes to boxes, 2019 was a year of bold (and perhaps, questionable) creative changes. We gave ourselves a fresh new look with the 7-pointed star logo you know and love today. Along with it came our infamous pinstripe cans… which didn't exactly win over the design critics.

Good taste however, DID win at the AIBA awards with our West Coast IPA taking home the title of Best IPA!

We brought some serious creativity to GABS with our iconic Box Wars stand: a full cardboard replica of the Hawkers brewhouse which won us Crafty Pint's best in show.

On the brewing front, 2019 saw the debut of the now core-range classic: Into the Forest, I Go - a berry kettle sour that quickly became a fan favourite. We also did a collab with the hugely popular Michigan-based @newhollandbrew, and hosted our first @pbs_australia Brew Day - brewing the first of what became a longstanding series called Saint Hildegard, celebrating women in the brewing industry for International Women's Day.

2020 was an emotional rollercoaster of ups, downs, hard slogs, moments of terror, cautious optimism, and celebratory relief. As the world grappled with the effects of COVID-19, we navigated our way through lockdowns and always kept the bevs flowing.

Amidst the challenges, we brewed for causes close to our hearts. ‘Heroes Gold’, brewed in collaboration with @gold1043, helped raise funds for Victorian bushfire relief, whilst we donated 100% of proceeds from ‘Hopefully Beirut’ to support aid efforts in Lebanon following the devastating Beirut explosion.

We also introduced what would become a fan-favourite: Double West Coast IPA - first released as a limited edition and now a seasonal staple. To round out our core range lineup, we added three new beers: Hazy Pale, Hazy IPA, and Beneath The Trees, We Gather.

This year saw the end of our short-lived pinstripe cans as we unveiled the sleek designs you know and love today. The rebrand wasn’t the only milestone - Hawkers founder Mazen celebrated becoming an Australian citizen!

To top it all off, we installed a new 320hL tank, capable of holding 32,000 litres of fermenting wort. To put it in perspective, that’s enough for 85,000 tinnies - or, for the ambitious, a slab every week for 68 years!

After surviving the chaos of COVID-19 and the endless lockdowns, 2021 was our year to bounce back and make up for lost time – and we came out swinging. We threw caution to the wind and decided to release a *subjectively* ridiculous amount of limited release beers.

Set free into the world was a massive 23 limited releases, not including an additional 12 vintage releases - our most expansive vintage catalogue to date. Amongst the illustrious list, was our first Bourbon Barrel-Aged White Stout, which broke the internet (the craft beer corner of it, at least) and would go on to become a standout of our annual vintage releases. 

On top of this, we added some unexpected feathers to our brewers hat - creating ‘Feedback Loop’, a Bourbon Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout Whiskey with @alchemydistillers, and ‘Ginny Nelson’, a gin infused with Nelson Sauvin hops, in partnership with @bintani.anz.

2022 was a positively jam-packed year for Hawkers, a year to remember and one we haven’t shut up about since. We’re talking, of course, about that time we bagged Champion Large Australian Brewery AND Champion Victorian Brewery at the @melbourne.royal AIBAs. Remember that? Huge. 

But that didn’t mean we just sat back and rested on our laurels. We did a bunch of other cool stuff, too (as per usual). Said ‘cool stuff’ includes a tour across the USA, dropping into the CBC (Craft Brewers Conference) and a tonne of breweries - strictly for ‘research purposes’ of course. We also ventured to New Orleans to smash out a tidy lil in-person collab with the gang at @skeetahawkbrewing.

Our graphic designer reminisces from the CBC trip, “I took them out for Jucy Lucys (burgers with the cheese inside the patty 🤯—a Minneapolis invention) and Maz, despite cautionary warnings from the server,  bit into his burger with a little too much zeal and sprayed molten cheese lava all over Tony. Man, that shit was funny”

On top of all this…

• We went absolutely nuts again on new beers with 27 limited releases and 8 vintage beers
• Hosted the @craftypint beer club for a Crafty Cabal Barrel-Aged Beer Masterclass where we cracked open some of our best barrel-aged brews and nerded out about the process
• Released ‘Mutually Assured Progression’ Hop Gin 
• Introduced ROVER Merri Creek Middy

Still not done… 

Our brewhouse got a couple more upgrades, including a new can filler, a snazzy labeller, and a reworked end-of-line setup. And we wrapped up the year with a swanky new website! Phew 😅

2023 was the year of the dark beer… bloody heaps of ‘em. We released a legitimately stupid amount of Vintages (20 to be exact) including a trio of brews matured in illustrious Willett Family Estate rye and bourbon barrels.

We also went all out with a veritable cornucopia of limited releases, churning out 31 one-of-a-kind brews (on top of the 20 vintages) - if you think this sounds insane, you’d be correct.. We even turned 40,000 Lotus biscuits into the dessert-beer-dream endearingly known as “You’re Breakin’ My Biscuits.” 

Also on the menu was the debut of our wildly popular Four Seasons series—using the same lineup of specific ingredients (same malts, same hops), endlessly creative ratios, and killer label art from @sadskellys. In addition to that, we donned our lab coats for the birth of our Experimental Series’, kicking off with Sheer Terroir, Fashionably Punctual, and Trio of Dips. And in the spirit of teamwork, we partnered up for collabs with @onedropbrewingco, @cloudwaterbrew, and @blackmansbrewery.

2023 was also the year that Rover NIL landed on the scene! A full-flavoured XPA that proves non-alc doesn’t mean non-flavour. 

To top it off, we scored a Top 10 ranking in the @gabsfestival Can Design Awards and had our first year in residence at the Melbourne Royal Show.

As we wrap up our 10-year recap, it’s been a wild trip down memory lane - revisiting the milestones, the experiments and the moments we’d almost forgotten about (and some that should remain buried #pinstripes). 

2024 saw us dip our toe into sparkling-fresh territory, exploring a new avenue with ‘Tangent’ Hard Sparkling and dabbling in ginger beer. Meanwhile, our Westy climbed to its highest-ever rank in the GABS Hottest 100 at #37 (the top rank for a west coast IPA!) Still on the awards front, our Bourbon Barrel Aged Barleywine earned the coveted Consistency of Excellence from the AIBAs after four consecutive years of gold medals, and the first-ever Untappd Community Awards landed us on top in the respective categories for our Bourbon Barrel Aged Barleywine, Caramilk White Stout, and 2023 Imperial Smoked Stout.

We threw a huge Oktoberfest brewery blowout, a mere warm-up for a certain upcoming 10th bday party… We dropped some collabs with international beer maestros @cloudwaterbrew and @thebrewingproject.th and took over venues far and wide for our epic IPA Day ‘Boss Fight’.

2024 was a year of grit, but also growth. As market challenges tested many… we persevered. And, by the close of the year, we are grateful to have emerged stronger, more resilient, and ready to take on what’s next. 

With 10 years of memories behind us and countless more to come, we’re diving head-first into 2025, ready to celebrate a decade with the incredible community that got us here. Cheers to what’s ahead!