#276 Carlton & United Breweries – Victoria Bitter

Name: Victoria Bitter
Brewery: Carlton & United Breweries (Melbourne, VIC)
Style: Pale Lager
ABV: 4.6%
Source: Flight NZ123

This was the worst, the absolute fucking worst beer-drinking experience of all time.

I was on the plane, squished in by the window with two people between me and the aisle, and I needed to pee.

Now, I know peeing on a plane is not a huge deal – most people would have just  gone at the first sign of nature’s call – but I have this weird phobia of bothering strangers. I didn’t want to make the people next to me stand up and get out of their seats, so I just sat there like a chump waiting for it to get worse.

And then eventually, when it was really time to go, I saw the dinner cart approaching. This forced me into a new dilemma: get up, make a nuisance of myself and risk missing my food (or at least the beef option), or stay imprisoned in my seat until dinner was over.

Like an idiot I chose the latter option. And to make things worse, I had to order a beer  because this was my only chance to get one in before midnight.

Every sip, which I took with a kind of angry determination, was pure torture. The beer tasted like watery piss (the piss I wasn’t having), and turned me into a tense, squirming wreck. Eventually when the alarm bells grew too loud to ignore, I realized I was going to have to take action.

“Excuse me” I said to the two people next to me, who were busy tucking into their stroganoff and wine.

“I know this is awfully bad timing, but I think I’d better use the loo.”

#275 Feral – Watermelon Warhead

Name: Watermelon Warhead
Brewery: Feral Brewing Co. (Swan Valley, WA)
Style: Berliner Weisse
ABV: 2.9%
Source:  GABS

If you haven’t read the post before this one, please kindly go and do so that you’re not all lost and confused.

….

OK, now that you’re up to speed I can continue on the GABS commentary. As I was saying, One of my  favorite beers of the weekend (second only to Gunnamatta) was the last thing I would have expected to like: a 2.9% watermelon wheat.

Doesn’t that sound like something I would hate? I pictured a watery, fruity wheat beer – the kind of thing a more careless brewery might label “one for the girls”. But in fact, it had serious ‘tude. It was dry and crisp and wonderfully sour, with this beautiful fresh watermelon flavour that didn’t dominate the whole thing. I threw a lot of strong stuff at my tastebuds that day – chilli, sarsaparilla, all manner of hops – but even after all that this one held it’s own, like a palate-cleansing lemon sorbet.

Other beers I really liked from that session were the True South Coconut Porter, Mountain Goat Spiced Red Saison, and the Resistance IRA. No doubt there were dozens of other beers that I would have loved on their own, but in a marathon tasting session like this it’s generally the biggger/more unusual ones that stand out.

Thank you to GABS and all the volunteers for such a great weekend, to Ollee and Dan for being excellent dates, and to my lovely mum for buying the flights as a birthday present. Same again next year?

 

#274 Tuatara – Double Trouble

Name: Double Trouble
Brewery:  Tuatara (Waikanae, NZ)
Style: Double IPA
ABV: 5.5%
Source: GABS

If I were any kind of self-respecting beer blogger I would have been posting live from the Great Australian Beer Spectapular: juggling laptop and tasting paddles, giving commentary on beer festival fashion and conducting video interviews with brewers…

But I’m Beer for a Year! So instead here’s a quick run down about a week too late.

GABS was gabsmackingly good. In my mind this is largely thanks to the stunning venue – the Royal Exhibition Building in Carlton Gardens – which made the whole beer-drinking business feel incredibly grand and important. Phil Cook has some nice photos which you can peruse over here. 

 I had tickets to two sessions – Saturday and Sunday afternoons, and planned to spread the beers over the two days so that I could get through all of them. Best laid plans and all that – I actually ended up getting quite over-excited on the Saturday and trying 40 beers (in many cases just half a tiny cup), and only making it through about 15 the next day.

This post corresponds to the Saturday session, during which I tried all of the NZ beers plus a bunch of Australian ones. Some favorites were Garage Project’s Double Day of the Dead (a chilli chocolate lager), Mike’s Rose IPA, Rennaisance Stonecutter Oak, and 2 Brothers/Diamond Knott Bloody Oak. At least those are a handful that I can remember, but there were so many good ones and I had such tiny amounts that it’s hard to say.

After making my way through several tasting paddles, I thought I should have at least one full glass of beer for my ‘beer of the day’. I would have liked to write about the Double Day of the Dead, but at 8% it seemed a dangerous choice, so I chose this because I hadnt tried it yet and it was only 5.5% according to the booklet.

But was it really? Double IPAs are usually up around the 10% mark, and this certainly tasted like it was too. It was massively hoppy  (citrus and pine) and equally sweet, with a suspiciously full mouthfeel for a regular ABV beer. Also, I felt really drunk after I’d finished it. Was it just the forty-odd beers I’d tried before-hand? Maybe. Maybe not.

I tried two beers that day that I liked better than all the rest. One was the Yeastie Boys Gunnamatta (which won People’s Choice Best Beer!!), and the second was a beer that  sounded absolutely horrific, but was in fact gorgeous. So gorgeous that it will be the star of my next post.

TO BE CONTINUED…

#273 Dupont – Biere de Miel

Name: Biere de Miel
Brewery: Brasserie Dupont  (Tourpes-Leuze, Belgium)
Style: Saison
ABV: 8%
Source:

Last Tuesday night (yes, I’ve stuffed up the order slightly because I had this before Raffe’s Saison), I went to the Belgian Beer Cafe.

This is how the ordering process went:

Me: I’ll have the Dupont Biere de Miel please.
Waiter: Sure, I’ll be right back with that.

Waiter returns 10 minutes later with a Saison Dupont .

Me: I’m really sorry, but that’s not what I ordered.

Waiter lingers with the beer waiting for me to take it anyway, eventually lets out an exasperated sigh and disappears with it. He returns five minutes later empty-handed. 

Waiter: I’m sorry, we don’t have any Biere de Miel. Can I get you something else instead?
Me: Damn. OK, Lindeman’s Apple please.

Waiter disappears, and returns five minutes later empty-handed. 

Waiter: I’m really sorry, but we don’t have any Lindeman’s Apple. I did find the Biere de Miel while I was looking though, would you like that instead?
Me: Yes! Thank you!
Waiter: Are you ready to order food now too?
Me: I was ready last Christmas. Can I have the metre-long sausage please?
Waiter: I’m terribly sorry, but we’re all out of that. Can I get you something else instead?
Me: Are you sure? Are you sure you won’t find some if you go back and look for something else?
(defeated) No, no, I jest. I’ll have the mussels.

Now, I’m not usually one to complain about bad restaurant service (having delivered my fair share of it myself) but I feel like this happens at the BBC nearly every time I go. And this time I’ve had it – I’m not going back! (At least not until my birthday when I’m eligible for a free meal.)

Oh and I nearly forgot – the Biere de Miel was amazing. It smelled like a field of fresh honeysuckle, candyfloss and musty yeast. In the mouth it was  dry and slightly sour at the finish, but with a nice balance of sweetness. The mouthfeel was lovely – light but not at all watery, and quite spritzy.

It was so delicious that I nearly forgave the BBC all it’s faults, and didn’t bother to complain when I paid. But then as I left I saw at the front of the fridge, prominently displayed, stacks of the Lindeman’s Apple. And I couldn’t help but wonder: was that waiter just fucking with me all along?

#272 Stone & Wood – Pacific Ale

Name: Pacific Ale 
Brewery: Stone and Wood (Byron Bay, Australia)
Style: APA
ABV: 4.4%
Source: Some bottle shop on Brunswick St

As I may have mentioned five or six times, I’ve been away in Melbourne over the weekend attending the Great Australasian Beer Spectacular. If you didn’t go and are the jealous type, I suggest you don’t check the blog over the next few days so that you can avoid commentary on the 50 or so beers I sampled. (No, really I did.)

But first, I just need to rewind to Friday night and quickly tell you about this Stone & Wood beer. And listen up, because I think you actually can buy this in NZ (relevance! Hoorah!).

I thought it smelled of sweet juicy fruits – tangerine, pinnapple and mango – as well as a little saison-like yeast. In the mouth it was really crisp, light and dry, faintly sour and moderately bitter at the finish.

On one of Melbourne’s sweltering forty-something degree summer days, I don’t think you could do much better than a cold glass of Pacific Ale.  As it happened I drank it on one of Melbourne’s freezing eight-degree nights, and I abandoned it halfway through for a glass of red wine. (And before you go calling me a traiter just remember that I tried 50 beers over the next few days. 50!)

PS – I saw the Stone & Wood brewer at a Q & A session at GABS. I thought he was the brewer from the Mussel Inn so I went “Wooooo! Yeah!” (on account of him being a Kiwi) when they introduced him, which was embarrassing. Anyway, he had some good things to day despite not being from the same country as me.

#271 Raffe – Bibliotheque

Name: Bibliotheque
Brewery: Raffe Smith (homebrew)
Style: Saison
ABV: 6%
Style: French Saison

“bready yeast, sweat, flowers,
lemon, delicate, crisp, soda water finish.
They say saison is for farmers, but this tastes too posh – like a summer cricket refreshment.”

That’s not me trying to write a Haiku, it’s just I put my notes directly into a wordpress draft when I drank this last week, and looking at them now I think they convey the vibe of the beer well enough as is. Am I lazy? Maybe. Sick of writing “The aroma was of”? Definetely.

This is the first home-brewed Saison I’ve ever had and I really thought it was marvelous. It was just so clean and lovely, – like a dry champagne or a breeze-dried white sheet. It was as if you could drink it all night and never get a hangover, although of course this is probably untrue. (Raffe, can you confirm?)

Remember at the beginning of the blog when I was all “Saaayzon? What is this I don’t even-” ? Well, I am pleased to confirm that I am  80% sure I know what a saison should taste like, an much more importantly, I know I think they’re swell.

#270 Galbraith’s feat. Joe Wood – Yakima Monster

Name: Yakima Monster
Brewery: Galbraith’s/Liberty
Style: Cask conditioned APA
ABV: 6.0
Source:  Galbraith’s Ales

Does everybody know what time it is?

GALBRAITH’S CASK ALE SERIES TIME!

For this latest installment Ian teamed up with Joe Wood of Liberty, who I would call the ‘darling’ of the brewing community except that nobody who has sported handlebars can ever be called a darling.

Needless to say, he makes great beer (remember C!tra?), and I was super excited to see what he and Ian had come up with.

Like all Galbraith’s beers, Yakima Monster is brewed using whole hop flowers. Unlike all Galbraith’s beers, it’s brewed with a shitload of them. So many, in fact, that brewday took forever because the hops clogged the kettle (or some similar thing that happens in breweries).

The aroma was great – lots of citrus, grapefruit and pine along with some sweet floral notes. In the mouth it was dry and bitter, but with that soft creamy mouthfeel that cask ales tend to have. I totally forgot to make any notes or even take a picture during my first pint, but thankfully it was really drinkable so I was able to handle a second. The things I do in the name of education!

#265-269 – Assorted Victorian Beers!

So things have been a little messy of late, you know, blog-wise, and you may have noticed that I have been running an average of a week behind on posts for quite some time.

It’s not cool, and rest assured I am punishing myself with the appropriate dose of self-flaggelation, but things like work deadlines and going to the Grampians and this really addictive iPhone game I got called Fly Guy have been getting in the way.

Blah blah blah, the point is I made the executive decision to lump these beers that I drank in The Grampians together, so that I might have some semblance of a chance of catching up before I head off to Melbourne in the morning.

Am I wasting my time explaining all this? Does anyone even give two marble-sized shits? I thought not. And on we go.

#265 Good Bastards Dark Ale , 4% 
This is not an Australian beer – it hails from our own dear Westport. This was the emergency beer I bought with me in case I ever got stuck in a drought or needed to put out a bush fire, but I ended up cracking it open as soon as I got into my hotel room. (Flying is thirsty business, especially when they only have VB.)

It was nice enough but fairly forgettable –  a sweetish, chocolatey dark ale that tasted predominantly of roasted malt. The mouthfeel was dissapointing – light and watery – lacking the velvety smooth body that I like in dark beers.

#266 Mountain Goat Hightail Ale, Pale Ale, 4.5%
This one is an Australian beer! I wish I’d been able to pay more attention to it, but I was already the stranger in town and didn’t want to stand out at the restaurant by taking notes. It was crisp and clean, with delicate floral and citrus hop flavours and tofeeish malt that provided a good balance. Nice but didn’t knock by socks off.

#267 Three Troupers Pale Ale, 4.5%
Three Troupers are a husband and wife team local to the Grampians, although I think they contract the brewing somewhere else. Like the Mountain Goat, this was a clean, easy-drinking and not terribly exciting beer. The Pale Ale had nice APA aromas of grapefruit and pine, but they were quite faint and the bitterness from the hops was a bit weak.

#268 White Rabbit Dark Ale, 5.2%
I’ve been hearing good things about this brewery for a while, but this was the first chance I’d had to taste their beer. The Dark Ale tasted of bitter chocolate, coffee, and caramel, with a slightly hoppy bitter finish and a light mouthfeel. To be honest I don’t think Dark Ales really do it for me (they’re often too light and bubbly), but this seemed about as good as they get.

#269 Red Duck – Golden Dragon, Celtic Ale,  7.8%
Of all the beers that I tried in the Grampians, local brewery Red Duck’s were the ones that really stood out. I met the brewer and he is clearly mad – he had 9 beers in bottles at the time and had plans for many more – but he also had great taste in beer. Something about the range of styles really reminded me of the Yeastie Boys.

I thought this Celtic Dragon was heavenly. I only had three sips of it at the food festival, but I remember brown sugar, Mackintosh toffee malt, complex fruitiness, and a rounded creamy mouthfeel. You can’t buy them here (or even outside of VIC) so if you’re going to GABS this weekend, I seriously suggest you check them out. If you’re not – I have a mixed six-pack of Red Duck beers that I bought back, and I would be willing to share them with you for a handsome fee.

PS – If you’ve been reading through this post and thinking “This is all well and good but what the fuck is the Grampians?”, it’s a lovely National Park a few hours west of Melbourne. Their beer is good – their shiraz is better.

#264 Galbraith’s – Antipodean

Name: Antipodean
Brewery: Galbraith’s (Auckland, NZ)
Style: NZ Pale Ale
ABV: 5%
Source: Galbraith’s Ales

Last week I went to Galbraith’s to farewell some friends for the winter, and it just so happened that Tuatara were doing a bit of a tap takeover there that night.

They were launching  two limited release pale ales – Conehead and Mayday – along with the old American and Aotearoa Pale Ale’s.

Why then, pray tell, am I not writing about those exciting new beers?

The thing is, I go to Galbraith’s all the time as you know – usually for some beer launch or to taste some limited release collaboration brew – and so I never ever actually get around to writing about the Galbraith’s beers themselves.

They’ve also been very supportive of me and the blog over the past nine months (once I even got free chips), and I thought it was time I paid hommage.

(Also, so you know, I forgot to take a picture of the Tuatara Conehead, the Mayday I didn’t like (a strong sweet mess) and their other two I’d already blogged.)

I think the Antipodean tastes a  like an English-born New Zealander on holiday in America. The aroma is punchy and fresh, with notes of citrus (lemon and orange) grass and pine needles. In the mouth it is soft, creamy and sweetish at first – but don’t let that fool you – the bitterness arrives with a bang midway and the finish is dry with a hint of spice.

Unlike most of the big, fancy (and don’t get me wrong – often wonderful) beers I usually drink and write about from Galbraith’s, I could drink pint after pint of this.  I never do of course, because I get seduced by the guest taps and then run out of money, but rest assured I could if I had to. (Wanna bet? Let’s go.)

#263 Nøgne Ø – Saison

Name: Saison
Brewery: Nøgne Ø (Grimstad, Norway)
Style: Saison
ABV: 6.5%
Source: Galbraith’s Alehouse

Oh, fuckadoodledoo.

I just wrote a 5-6 paragraph post on this beer, which included multiple pictures and divulged secrets, amusing jokes (I thought) about Norwegians and flowery descriptions of the beer, only to have it all disappear on me during the final proof-read.

Well, sod it. I’m not doing it again. Instead I will just tell you that I loved the beer (classic saison done right – yeasty, lemony aromas, sweet in the mouth and then spicy and dry), and that I drank it to counter-balance a slightly gloomy evening.

Instead of actually describing said gloom again, I will just post this photo of my flatmates (and the beer, see?) and let you make up your minds on what the sad faces were about. Go ahead – be creative!