Ever calculated the percentage of pale ales in the GABS Hottest 100 Craft Beer Poll? We have.

95% of the Top 20 beers in the 2021 poll are pale ales – or hazy pales, tropical pales, India pales, etc. You get the drift…

And as a brewery whose #1 best-selling beer is not a pale ale, we find this statistic pretty interesting.

Craft lagers are on the rise in the Australian beer market – that’s a fact. And breweries who have long turned their noses up at brewing lagers are now scrambling to try and brew them quickly. But, here in Bright, we’re ahead of the curve…

We’ve been brewing our best-selling Alpine Lager (and, before that, our Bright Lager) for years now, and it very quickly became our #1 best-selling beer – both in our brewpub and more widely across Australia.

It’s brewed with pure Alpine water and locally-grown High Country hops. It’s as crisp as the winter sun rising over the mountains around Bright. And it’s a damn good beer.

Last year, with the help of beer lovers around Australia, Alpine had one of the fastest climbs up the Hottest 100 ladder, climbing from #150-something to #32 – making it the best lager in Victoria made by an independent brewery.

Now that’s a statistic we can get behind!

That fact, coupled with the larger resurgence, has seen Alpine Lager find its way into the hands of thousands more beer lovers around Australia in 2022.

So with lager well and truly on the way up, we’re hoping to see it give all these pale ales a run for their money in the GABS Hottest 100 Craft Beer Poll for 2022.

Competitions like this – which are won by popular vote – are really important to small businesses like ours. They can be an absolute game-changer. But changing the game when you’re a small, family-owned indie brewer can be a challenge.

Are you sick of seeing pale ales dominate the countdown? So are we! So let’s get together and do something about it.

There are so many amazing craft beers out there, and we know your Top 5 votes are precious. But a vote for Alpine Lager is more than just a vote for us – it’s a vote for small business, for adventure, and for the future (not to mention a vote to bump those pales ales out of all the top spots!).