The World’s Best Beer Trip (EVER!) Your chance to win a trip to six of the world’s best craft breweries

Two of Australia’s leading craft breweries, 4 Pines Brewing Company and Feral Brewing Company, have teamed up with some of the world’s best craft breweries to offer one lucky beer lover the trip of a lifetime. From Taiwan to Tasmania, Angola to Armenia, beer enthusiasts from across the globe have the opportunity to spend a couple of weeks hanging out at some of the coolest breweries known to mankind.

The fortunate one will be flown craft beer class (economy) on a round-the-world ticket, stopping off at each of participating breweries for a few days of brewing, bottling, pulling beers and doing whatever else these breweries do to help keeping their operations ticking over. And if that’s not their scene, they’re welcome to simply hang out, down some kick-arse beers, eat some great food and have a damn good time.

The legendary list of craft breweries touting this as “perhaps the most fun, ever, in the history of beer” includes:

–       4 Pines Brewing Company (Sydney, Australia)

–       Feral Brewing Company (Perth, Australia)

–       Good George Brewing (Hamilton, New Zealand),

–       Meantime Brewing (London, England),

–       The Brew (Shanghai, China) and;

–       Victory Brewing (Philadelphia, U.S.A.).

Entries are via the participating brewery’s social media channels with more details on entering the World’s Best Beer Trip website. Entrants must submit a photo of something interesting and explain in no more than 50 words: WHY SHOULD I WIN THE WORLD’S BEST BEER TRIP? None of that soppy, sentimental carry on will get you over the line – humour and creativity is a much better bet.

Each brewery will then choose a finalist and all six of these will be showcased on the World’s Best Beer Trip website where they’ll vie for the most votes to win the grand prize of flights, accommodation and dinner at each of the brewers’ hospitality operations. It’s a once in a life-time opportunity for the winner to immerse themselves in the brewing culture and cuisine of some of the best brew-pubs from around the world.

Jaron Mitchell, GM and Co-founder of 4 Pines Brewing Company said he’d be very surprised if the entire world-wide web doesn’t come to a grinding halt with the overload of traffic from entrants.

“First we think Facebook will shut down. This will cause social panic. In a knock on effect with people looking for other mediums to communicate, Twitter, Linked-In and eventually mobile phone networks will also become overloaded. Soon after, more secure banking and then government and military networks will be corrupted. Skynet will become self-aware at 6:18PM Pacific Standard Time.”

Steve Finney, Marketing and Sales Manager of Feral Brewing Company says;

“It is truly unbelievable to think that an Arnold-like being will be sent back in time to the year 2013 to help save the human race from such beer promotions as ‘win a cap’ or ‘drink four flavourless dry beers to win a boom box esky’ . Deep down I think we all knew that the next social network blockbuster sequel was going to somehow involve a worldwide network of craft breweries, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and a God-like being that will be sent around the world to record, drink and eat to save humanity from boring, flavourless and bland beer. But it is true and Judgement day is coming.”

Australian entrants need to submit their entries via the following social media channels by 8th October 2013, 11am Eastern Standard Time.

Tourism Australia to Invite the World to Feast on our Food and Wine Experiences

Tourism Australia’s plans to ramp up the promotion of Australia’s food and wine experiences in its international marketing were unveiled at the country’s largest ever global wine forum – Savour Australia 2013.

The details of Tourism Australia’s new focus on food and wine as part of its global campaign – There’s nothing like Australia – was shared with more than 800 wine industry and media delegates from across the globe at the inaugural Wine Australia forum.

Tourism Australia Managing Director Andrew McEvoy said the development of the new approach to marketing Australia’s culinary experiences to prospective visitors was based on strong consumer insight.

“There is a growing appetite (literally) globally for food and wine as part of the travel experience and Australia has all the right ingredients to capitalise on this opportunity – with the finest array of produce served in the most stunning locations in the world,” Mr McEvoy said.

“Research across 15 of Australia’s key tourism markets shows that great food, wine, and local cuisine is now a major factor in holiday decision making (at 38%), ranking third ahead of world class beauty and natural environments (37%).

“However, our challenge is that for people who have never visited Australia, only 26 per cent associate the destination with a good food and wine offering. For those who have visited though, Australia is ranked second for its food and wine experiences (60%) after culinary giant France and ahead of Italy (third). We are ranked as the number one destination for food and wine for people who have visited from China, USA, France, India, Indonesia, Malaysia the UK and South Korea.

“Clearly, we need to narrow the perception gap between those who have visited Australia and those who have not. This is a great marketing and communications challenge.

“To do this we are evolving our global campaign with the idea that Australia could be the world’s greatest restaurant – Restaurant Australia – serving up the most unique food and wine experiences in remarkable locations every day,” Mr McEvoy said.

Working with its marketing partner Wine Australia, the tourism industry and leading food and wine identities, Tourism Australia will now incorporate the food and wine experience much more strongly in its global campaigns.

Commenting on the launch of Tourism Australia’s new food and wine strategy, Wine Australia’s General Manager, Market Development, James Gosper said the strategy would move the promotion of wine into the lifestyle space and create a compelling reason to experience Australia.

“Tourism Australia’s food and wine strategy will help forge a strong identity in the marketplace about Australia’s incredibly diverse, unique and top quality wine and food experiences,” Mr Gosper said.

“This is an exciting new era in the promotion of our food and wine and will ensure our offering becomes more relevant to the decision making process for travel to and within Australia.

“This new food and wine focus will help the wine industry extend its consumer reach on a scale we’ve not been able to achieve before,” Mr Gosper said.

Mr McEvoy said the Restaurant Australia concept would be built into the next phase of Tourism Australia’s global campaign – There’s nothing like Australia – to expand global perceptions of Australia’s tourism offering.

“There’s nothing like Australia has already been a huge success around the world, appearing in 25 countries and translated in to 17 different languages, by highlighting our warm and welcoming people and spectacular natural beauty,” Mr McEvoy said.

“Now we will be looking to ignite the tastebuds of travellers world-wide with a marketing push that captures the fresh thinking, open air, and the flavours that define our food and wine offering and can set Australia apart from the rest of the world as a tourist destination.

“Whether it’s devouring fresh shucked oysters in Tassie, quaffing wine at a cellar door in SA, exploring Melbourne’s multicultural cuisines or sipping coffee in a laneway, feasting on sun-kissed fruit and seafood on a Queensland island, tasting Marron for the first time at a vineyard in WA, sampling bush tucker in outback NT, fine dining in Sydney or following one of the many food trails or festivals in Australia – we want international visitors to know they will be spoilt for choice in Australia,” Mr McEvoy said.

Tourism Australia’s food and wine strategy builds on the tourism marketing agency’s partnership with Wine Australia, announced in late 2012, which sees the two organisations working together to raise awareness of Australia’s wine and food offering to attract more international visitors to Australia.

Earlier this year Tourism Australia also announced a partnership with Ultimate Wineries of Australia, a consortium of high-end, award winning wineries offering unique wine experiences including barrel, private and structured tastings, food-wine matching, wine education and gastronomy in spectacular locations within renowned wine regions.