Pint of Origin is a unique festival showcasing the wide world of beer at venues across Melbourne for ten days every May. It's also a choose-your-own-adventure pub crawl with bonuses and prizes on offer for the avid beer explorer.
A collection of the city's best pubs, bars and, on occasion, brewpubs host beers and brewers from different parts of the world. Some represent Australian cities, states or territories, others act as the home for entire countries, and a couple showcase beers from even bigger regions.
Pint of Origin started out as part of Good Beer Week in 2012, conceived by The Crafty Pint as a way of allowing brewers from all over Australia to be part of the festival without having to do anything more than send a keg of beer. The simple concept struck a chord, becoming one of Good Beer Week's most popular features. Then, when Good Beer Week took a year off post-COVID in 2021, Pint of Origin went it alone.
New features have been added over the years, most notably the introduction of #PoO Passports, first in paper form, more recently digital. These allow attendees to collect stamps as they make their way around venues, unlocking bonus beers and gaining access to competitions as they go.
It returns to the Victorian capital for a 12th time from May 10 to 29, 2024, complete with our first ever Boilermaker Hub. Keep an eye on The Crafty Pint's Instagram and Facebook, as well as the online magazine's weekly newsletters, for updates.
And if you'd like some more insight into why it's struck a chord, check out this article on The People of Pint of Origin from 2023 and The (Pint of) Origin Story from 2019 that looked back to the festival's genesis.
