#257 West Coast/DGB – Greasing Mongrels

Name: Greasing Mongrels
Brewery: West Coast/Dead Good Beer
Style: Spiced/Herbed lager
ABV: 4%
Source: Dave Kurth

I come from a family that could only be describes as obsessive when it comes to food, which meant that games of “guess the secret ingredient” were as much a part of my childhood as Lego or clotheshorse forts.

Having had years of practice, I really should be better at it. Unfortunately I’m usually the one that can clearly taste a flavour just after someone else has pointed it out.

Why is this relevant? Because Greasing Mongrels was brewed for Nelson beer festival Marchfest, where breweries were asked to submit a unique beer containing at least one secret ingredient. Ohhhh…..

I guessed one of them – the ginger, but the other had me stumped. It was fragrant, citrussy, so familiar yet nothing I’d ever tasted in a beer before.

Eventually (OK, after about two minutes) I caved and asked Google, who confirmed that it was in fact lemongrass. I say ‘confirmed’ because I’m pretty sure I knew that all along deep down. It was on the tip of my tongue – honest.

I have a weird aversion to ginger/citrus summer ale type things (for which I blame Monteith’s), and although this is a lager my brain automatically sorted it into that category. For that reason I probably wouldn’t drink a lot of it, but I enjoyed the new flavour experience and reckon heaps of people would love it. It was crisp, dry and well-balanced, and  the Lemongrass gave it a beautiful aroma.  Lemongrass and chili beer anyone? Too noughties asian-fusion perhaps but I’m tempted to try it out.

Oh! Oh! I nearly forgot the best part!

GREASING MONGRELS = LEMONGRASS GINGER.

Genius.

#253 Dead Good Beer – Pilsner

Name: Pilsner
Brewery: Dead Good Beer (Nelson, NZ)
Style: Pilsner
ABV: 4.2%
Source: Dave Kurth

A few weeks ago a box of beers arrived on my doorstep from Dave Kurth of West Coast Brewing. Unusually, most of the beer most of the beers weren’t actually his – but were from this brewery called Dead Good Beer that I’d never even heard of.

Because they’re one of the few breweries who aren’t endlessly chattering on Twitter, I still know basically nothing about Dead Good Beer. Their website describes them as a ‘virtual brewery’ (meaning they contract brew – I’m guessing with West Coast?), and it suggests the recipes are created by Mic Dover and Eelco Boswijk, who run Dead Good Beer Events in Nelson.

Whoever they were, I liked the labels and wasn’t going to turn my nose up at free beer. It was late one night last week and I needed something light to drink (and compared to most of the beers in my cupboard, this was), so I poured this one into my fancy Living & Giving pilsner glass and gave it a whirl.

I was half  expecting it to taste a bit dodgy TBH – partly because I’m not a huge fan of pilsners anyway, partly because I thought this must be a brand new brewery (I hadn’t quite realised at the time they were brewed by West Coast).  I was surprised then to find it was actually really good – crisp and clean, with some spicy floral hop notes and a decent amount of sweetness from the malt. Although I drank this sitting up in bed while blogging (it’s the most productive place, I swear), this would have been perfect with my lunch in the sun yesterday.

I’m looking forward to trying the other Dead Good Beers that Dave sent me, along with the slightly crazy sounding brews of his own. In the mean time if you want to try some Dead Good Beer for yourself, you’ll either have to figure out where I live and where I hide my beer, or get yourself to Nelson. The latter is preferable.