Feral Brewing has been able to fine tune its Sly Fox Summer Ale, thanks to a Dan Murphy’s member promotion the brewer hopes will improve its traction in the eastern states.

The My Dan Murphy’s offer throughout March of a four-pack of Sly Fox for $10 is the first such promotion the retailer has done with an independent craft brewery.

Feral owner Brendan Varis told Australian Brews News that the brewer had to ramp up production of the beer considerably in order to create the required inventory, a process that has had other benefits.

“Rather than brewing it fortnightly, we’re now brewing it daily, rather than Hop Hog being the only beer we brew every day,” he said earlier this month.

“When you’re doing a couple of brews a day over two weeks, it really lets you dial in on little changes in the mash tun, changes in the blend of the hops and the contact time of the hops with the beer, pitching rates, oxygen rates – the whole thing.

“When you can compare the same beer that’s packaged a day apart and there’s no freshness question… it’s given us a chance to really dial in and get this beer where all of us as a brewing team are really happy with it.”

Varis said dry hopping tweaks had seen the brewing team settle on an optimal mix of Galaxy, Mosaic and Amarillo.

“Funnily enough, of those hops that we’ve settled on, none of them are in Hop Hog,” he said.

Work to do over east
Varis said Sly Fox was the most appropriate beer to take to the eastern statesaudience of Dan Murphy’s members.

“We’ve got good belief in it as an uncompromising, entry level beer. it’s genuinely got some good strong hop aroma,” he said.

“Hop Hog’s actually doing reasonably over there already. If we’re being introduced to someone for the first time, if you give them Hop Hog you’re getting introduced with a handshake that’s going to shake your arm and be quite full-on, as opposed to a more pleasant introduction and handshake.”

Varis said Western Australia remains Feral Brewing’s stronghold and this promotion is one initiative to boost sales in the eastern states.

“There seems to be this myth that we’ve got some amazing traction for our beers on the east coast,” he said.

“If you could see the quantities, they’re actually quite miniscule outside of WA.”