This week on Brews News Week Matt flies solo but discusses the news of the week with the people making news.

First up, he chats with Anton Szpitalak from Tribe Brewing about Tribe’s  announcement this week that it has signed an agreement to brew Pabst Blue Ribbon.

Anton and his family formed Brewpack in 2012 when they acquired the assets of collapsed contractor Australian Independent Brewers. Later the business added its proprietary brand Stockade and this year changed its name to Tribe when it took on investment from Melbourne-based private equity firm Advent Partners to fund its current expansion plans.

And Pabst Blue Ribbon is a venerable old beer brand that has been resurrected as an ironic alternative to the US’s mainstream staples. The brand is owned by a Eugene Kashper and private equity investor TSG Consumer Partners, which also happens to own 23% of Scottish brewery BrewDog.

The Pabst brand, which is currently contract brewed by MillerCoors in the US, won Large Brewing Company of the Year at the 2016 Great American Beer Festival and took gold for best American-style lager.

It’s an interesting move for Tribe and this is a robust chat with Anton.

Then we look at alcohol free beer as this week CUB announced it had launched Carlton Zero, an a beer with functionally no alcohol.

While Australia is arguably the king of mid-strength beer, and zero alcohol beers are a growing trend in Europe, the US and Canada, Matt is not convinced that there is the market for them in Australia.  

We discuss the issue with CUB beverage innovation brewer Scott Vincent who worked on the development of the beer to learn about how a non alcohol beer is made while retaining flavour, and then we chat with Tim Ovadia, CUB’s Director Of Classic Brands & Local Premium about why they think there’s a market for it at all.

This show is a little different from normal, but this is also why we love the conversation you can have over a podcast rather than the printed news story.

Enjoy the brews news of the week.