How to Drink Good Beer at Good Festivals and Have a Good Time With Good Friends.

As the end of Summer draws near and the festival season winds up it's nice to trawl through the muddy waters of of memory lane and get reminiscent over a few brews. In honour of this great festival season I've cracked the last can of Dr Tim's and here's hoping the clouds clear and inspiration shines through.

The only festival I really made it to this year was Rainbow Serpent Festival. It's become a bit of an institution in my world (this was the 12th time) and I have the scars and tarps to prove it. It's an amazing four (to seven) days with elements relating to both The Rainbow and The Serpent - music, art, workshops, food and a community of 15 000 like-minded human beings making the most of the freedom gifted to our generation in this lucky country.

RSF has a huge sustainability focus with about 150 composting toilets, requirements that food stalls use biodegradable cups, plates and so on, carbon neutral contributions to offset the generators and option for punters to add $10 to their ticket price to carbon neutralise their car trip. They also have a "No Glass" policy. Although this prevents glass rubbish being left in the natural environment and injuries relating to being attacked by meth-crazed ravers or walking barefoot in the dark, it does make it incredibly difficult to drink good beer.

A few years ago I was privileged to run a small specialty bottle shop in Thornbury, Carwyn Cellars. Thornbury has a great community and many are avid festival-goers as well as avid good beer fans. Unable to face the prospect of offering only CUB canned beers to these ace people, I spent the Winter months hunting suppliers who could hook up cans of good beer. And success! That year, for the first time, punters were able to smash cans of Dr Tim's (Can-conditioned Coopers Pale), Newcastle Brown Ale, Authentic Kronenburg 1664, Heineken and Asahi, Kirin Lager, Kirin Ichiban Shiboru, Suntory Rich Malts, Paulaner Munchen Helles and Oktoberfest, Brok, Zywiec, Tatra, some ridiculous 10% ABV Polish Lagers and Schwartzbiers and a few more lines that I can't remember. The next year McCoppin's (Fitzroy), Duncan's Church St (Richmond), Acland Cellars (St Kilda) and the dreaded Dan Murphy's had cottoned on and the advent of drinking good beer in cans at festivals had happened. Fuck yeah!

This year I saw, hiding behind a myriad of stubbie holders, cans of Peroni, Asahi, Kirin, Cascade Pale Ale, various ciders and the ubiquitous Melbourne Bitters. A couple of groups went for the truly sustainable option and brought kegs and taps and ceramic steins and tiki mugs, one bunch known as CocoPocoLoco brought a total of 15 kegs of quality brews, that's 1125 pints. Committed. This year we saw a RSF first as festivals around the world, as well as economic motivations, drive the companies that own big beer brands to develop technology that results in lighter-weight and more recyclable packaging like the dinky little aluminium Asahi bottles that were everywhere at RSF. Here's a picture:

Would you drink out of this?

 We took a range of good gear to the Rainbow Serpent Festival. The maths can be difficult but we ended up with 14 slabs and some random cans. Here's the breakdown...

Coopers Dr Tim's 

4.5% ABV, 375ml can, $50 Slab from Carwyn Cellars

 Photo stolen from http://iansaleadventures.blogspot.com/

Dr Tim's is a canned version of Cooper's Pale Ale which, for abstract marketing reasons, is only available in Adelaide. When I asked the Melbourne Cooper's sales rep if we could get a couple of pallets (there's 64 slabs on a pallet) he reluctantly said "No" so the next day I called Goodwood Cellars in Adelaide and asked if they could freight a pallet over for us. They were amazed I couldn't get it from Cooper's and obliged with only a small mark-up. In Adelaide a slab sells for $44, here in Melbourne they were $55.

The beer is simply good beer, the only beer I know of that's conditioned in the can (they put yeast in the can so it can ferment and mature slowly and accentuate texture and complexity). For some reason in the can it loses a lot of the hop aromas and the yeast esters are the driving aroma. It smells like a loaf of sourdough, which is good for some and not so good for others. In the mouth its dry and full-bodied, straw, mild English hop spice and lees (retired yeast cells) are the main flavours and the texture is full and juicy with great length from the lees and hops combined. I'd drink this over anything from CUB, not just because it's independently owned, and not just for flavour, but as it's all natural (no glucose or dextrose, brew enhancers, flavours, colours, filtering agents, etc) you can drink more of it, it makes you feel good rather than smashed and the hangover, being alcohol-related rather than sugar and chemical-related, is easily fixed with food and water.

Paulaner Oktoberfest

6% ABV, 500ml can, $70 Slab from Carwyn Cellars

 Photo stolen from http://agirlandherbeer.com

What better beer for a festival than an Oktoberfest beer! Paulaner are a Munich brewery making possibly the world's best lager, of which this is a beefed up version. This is one of the finest examples of German brewing with gamey, roasty flavours, complex Noble hop spicy finish and a warming effect from the increased ABV. The long lagering (cellaring) period creates an environment where the yeasts can slowly feast their way through all the sugar leaving a rich, dry and STRONG beer. Bless you little yeasts! This beer is a little dangerous at festivals as it tastes so good, comes in such a big can and at 6% ABV will get you dancing more sideways than what you had intended and sleeping in a spinning tent that may or may not be yours.

Kirin Ichiban Shibori

5% ABV, 500ml can, $92 Slab (Wholesale)

Photo stolen from random Japanese beer website

This is Kirin's flagship beer, brewed with the "First Press" method where basically they throw all the weaker elements of the wort away and brew only with the richest, juiciest part. Hence the hefty price tag. What a crackin beer - brewed using corn and rice as well as barley, fine Japanese Toritate hops and the mega-team of scientists that makes Japanese beer, whisky and gadgets as damn good as they are. The adjuncts (grain additions) make the beer lighter, drier and slightly sweeter than a straight  malt lager and the Japanese hops are somewhere between the English and German varieties giving good bitterness but also elegant and complex spice. The result is a clean, dry but flavoursome beer you can drink all day and not get tired of the flavour, or bloated, or sick, or in a fight. It has been proved on more than one occasion. 

It's important here to note the work of Dr. Masaru Emoto (http://www.masaru-emoto.net/english/e_ome_home.html) and his work on the effect of words on water crystals. Dr Emoto has experimented with attaching written words to bottles of water and researching the word's effect on the shape of the the water crytsals. Fascinating and beautiful. Kirin Ichiban Shibori cans feature the words "Brewed for Good Times" and I have always had a good time when drinking this beer. Hmmmm....

Anderson Valley Brewing Company Poleeko Gold Pale Ale

5.5% ABV, 350ml can, $6.99ea from Purvis Cellars

Photo stolen from http://www.chiph.com/

Thank God, Satan, Krishna, Cthulu and all the rest for Purvis Cellars! We had to pick up the mega-eski from Kate's place in Richmond, conveniently close to Purvis Cellars where we picked up a few sneaky glass bottles which we'll talk about later as well as these life-saving cans of one of the world's best American Pale Ales. Anderson Valley are a solar powered brewery in an isolated part of Mendicino County, California. Their beers are works of perfection showing flavour, texture, balance and terroir without the extremism of other West Coast breweries like Stone and Dogfishhead. The big American hop presence in the Poleeko Gold Pale Ale makes for an uplifting, stimulating, refreshing and, at times, psychedelic drinking experience. After drinking so many lagers it was absolutely fantastic to feel those mega alpha acids coat the inside of my mouth, to have aroma that transports the mind and to feel full, rich and bitter texture wash away the days of dancefloor dust, gum-burning chems and smoking herb clag. Again, a naturally brewed beer that will make you feel good, alive and fed (yes it is actually nutritious, you can google it). It also pairs well with mushrooms, by the way.

Australia has had an anti-can bias since the days of tinnies and with industrial canning machines being quite pricy the humbled canned beer remains out-of-reach of our tax-oppressed microbreweries (http://www.fairgocraftbeer.com.au/). We look down on cans but really they treat the beer better than any bottle. Lighter-weight packaging means less carbon footprint, technological developments have led to food-safe seals that leave no trace of aluminium flavour in the beer, no sunlight or air can get in to decompose the beer and the finished product can be easily recycled to live once again as a vessel of sweet beery nectar. Check out http://www.craftcans.com/ for a glimpse into the future of beer. But I digress...

Belzebuth Strong Golden Ale

11.8% ABV, 500ml can, $10.99ea from Purvis Cellars

Image stolen from http://www.brasserie-graindorge.net/strongest-beer.ph

When I saw this on the shelf at Purvis I knew it'd be dangerous to take to a festival. People tend to lose their marbles and inhibitions at these events and do things they may later regret. It's irresponsible to encourage these dangerous activities so I only bought two cans. We only drank one. 

My friends and I go hard, not as hard as we used to but still those 5 days didn't see much sleep amongst the dancing, philosophising, bike riding around lost in a paddock, interdimensional travelling, making sneaky love in scenic places, playing fusball, tripping on light shows, making new friends and finding old ones. But we still only managed to share one can of the Belzebuth between four of us. Brewed with barley, wheat, rice and sugar (to excite the yeast and get the ABV right up there), the beer drinks like a running-punch in the mouth. Spicy, rich, very full-bodied and the heat from the alcohol could keep a family of Inuits sweating for years. Fark! No wonder they named it after our favourite fallen angel. Perhaps this is a beer better drunk at Royal Doof (http://www.myspace.com/royaldoof) in the mid-winter. Awesome packaging and the looks you get drinking a can like this on the dance floor are well worth the pain, even better is the look you get when you give someone a taste.

These were the "drinking" beers, the beers drunk for rehydration, social lubrication, rampant alcoholism and to wash away the taste of certain things. The following beers were drunk in the name of flavour and texture exploration, much like one experiences music or other art forms...

Oud Beersel Farmboise

5% ABV, 375ml bottle, $11 Wholesale

Photo stolen from http://www.flickr.com/photos/k3vini/4445843157/

Framboise is a unique style of beer rarely seen in Australia even though it has massive popularity in the rest of the Western world. It starts life as a lambic - a Belgian style of beer that undergoes spontaneous fermentation, when native wild yeasts and other radical bacteria make their own way into the wort and ferment it on their own terms. The brew comprises malted barley, unmalted wheat and lashings of dry hops and is then cellared in used oak or chestnut barrels. Young gueuze (6 months) and old gueuze (2 - 3 years old) are blended to make the lambic which can be drunk as is or blended with cherries to make Kriek or raspberries to make Framboise, both of which are an unforgettable flavour experience.

The Oud Beersel Framboise is a drier version pouring a deep crimson pink with strong carbonation. The nose is tart raspberry, grapefruit elements from the wheat, funky antiseptics from the brettanomyces bacteria and dry grass from the hops. In the mouth its an explosion of sourness followed by juicy raspberry fruit and a dry, tart, bitter finish with enough remnants of juicy raspberry sweetness to keep you smiling. We drank it for breakfast in the sunshine and I truly enjoyed watching peoples faces as they experienced the evolution of flavours and textures in this crazy beer. 

Southern Tier Blackwater Creme Brulee Stout

9.6% ABV, 650ml Bottle, $21.99 from Purvis Cellars

Photo stolen from http://www.frothyhead.com/

No matter how I describe this beer it will not do it justice. Unfortunately stocks have run out here in Oz and we'll have to wait until after June before we get another shipment of crack, I mean Southern Tier's Creme Brulee Stout. The beer is a Milk Stout, a stout brewed with lactose sugar, and vanilla beans. Lots of vanilla beans. Back in the day in England stout was recommended for pregant women and breastfeeding mothers as a source of iron and calcium. Unfortunately alcohol was not so beneficial for the kids so now we recommend decaf lattes and walks in the park. I have spoken with both commercial and home brewers about this beer and the consensus is that it is an absolute technical masterpiece. Without going into brewing garble let's just say that vanilla beans can be bitter, as can roasted grains, lactose sugar can be too milky and sweet and shipping beer to the other side of the world also has its challenges. Southern Tier doesn't care about these challenges, they just Chuck Norris them out of the way and make the most juicy, rich, psychedelic beer I've ever drunk (apart from their Oak Aged Un*Earthly DIPA, see previous blog entry for more).

At first it's all vanilla aroma, so much so that the mind starts to freak as it looks at a bottle of beer and smells a big bowl of intensely flavoured creme brulee. There's hints of rich, roasty stout under there, but just hints, and when coupled with the vanilla it becomes reminiscent of the caramelised sugar sitting on top of all that vanilla cream. In the mouth it's overwhelming - creamy lactose sweetness (brewing yeast won't eat the lactose sugars so they stay undigested and the beers stays sweet), rich roasted barley grains, vanilla vanilla vanilla and vanilla and then that dry, roasty stout bitterness. The second sip (mouthful really) allows for more in depth exploration and reveals rum and raisin elements, shortbread and dark chocolate cream and of course more vanilla. The intensity of this beer, along with the ingestion of various "flavour enhancers", led to an enjoyable moment of synasthesia where the flavour sensations no longer restricted themseles to my mouth but also inspired sound, sight and assorted physical sensations that had previously only been caused by intense music or visual arts and I was thrilled to find a new entry to this sensational world. Thank you Southern Tier and Dr Albert Hoffman. We also shared a bottle of their Oak Aged Un*Earthly DIPA, which was covered recently in this blog. Again I was rewarded by the expressions of people discovering that beer isn't just something you do while drinking.

Soon the festival season will be over and we'll be back to trudging through a Melbourne winter, taking sickies for Seasonal Affected Disorder rather than to go see bands and DJs in the great outdoors, drinking whiskies and dark ales in dark corners rather than gin and juice and pale ales in beer gardens and waiting for that moment when the sun shines through again, the line-ups get released and we splash all our cash on good beer at good festivals having good times with good friends. 

An exercise in sustainability - The Rainbow Serpent 2010 Canaconda. 

Special thanks go out to Lucas, Lex, Gerald, Kate, Martha, Annabel, Sean, China, Jeff, Rach, Noodle, Nick, Frank and the Rainbow Crew, Alex and Allyson Grey, Simon Posford, Raja Ram, Opiu, Matthew Johnson, Simon and Brian at Purvis Cellars, Ben at Carwyn Cellars, the "United Nations" who camped next to us, Joni Numbers the most professional camper ever and to Sid, the originator of the term "Facebook Juice".

Holy Fuck

Mikkeller Black Hole Imperial Stout

Barrel Aged Peated Whisky Edition

Holy fuck. It's all  I can think. The same two words running around in my head. The fellas at Mikkeller are like Mozart, Pythagoras, Jimi Hendrix & Dr Shulgin all tied into two Danish brothers with a small brewery in Copenhagen. How do you make a beer like this? How do you take water, malt, roasted barley, flaked oats, dark cassanade (raw sugar), honey, hops, coffee, vanilla and ale yeast, pour it into an Islay whisky barrel (Lagavulin methinks...) and end up with this nefarious, sadistic, dominatrix of a beer?!


I love the way it pours like a black waterfall leaving coffee coloured lace down the side of the glass. I love the way the aroma penetrates the mind from metres away. I love the way the first taste slaps you upside the head like an old Polish grandfather and leaves you incapable of thought and speech as all your synapses run around like Israelis at a doof, trying to figure out why this thing that looks like a black beer tastes like Islay whisky and feels like the first time you really got properly fucked by an older woman.


All wank aside, this is truly a masterpiece of brewing - an Imperial stout aged in peated whisky barrels that resembles a Lagavlin whisky with a hint of toasty coffee. Complexities abound with seaweed, iodine, campfire, camping coffee, molasses, fir trees, hints of hops and fresh rainforest aromas to name just a few. The 13.1% ABV is very noticeable but the resulting warmth makes for a big, complete finish to the complexities of the brew. I could happily sit on a bottle of this on a cold winter's night as one might do with a true bottle of whisky. Holy fuck.

Beer of the Week for January 2011

I drink a lot of beer. Not excessively, just regularly. OK, sometimes excessively but I don't drive or have a spouse to abuse so it's kinda responsible drinking. Sometimes, in this sea of booze, a beer makes me feel like time has stopped, the world has stopped spinning and this beer and I are in a space/time glitch where there is nothing but the magical sensations making party in my mouth and mind. This one did it.

Instantly, the powerful aromas of pine, orange blossom, pineapple, honey, agave, almond, vanilla and cinnamon smashed through my temporal lobe like the karate kid chopping through blocks of ice. The first sip introduced the epic bitterness typical of an Imperial India Pale Ale, like biting into a wasabi and grapefruit sandwich, and before I could register any nuances the tidal wave of super-sweet, super-juicy malts washed in and coated my palate with syrupy, chewy waves of brandy, bourbon, jelly babies, agave nectar and fruit cake. Phwoah!

The second sip was when we really started to get to know eachother, this beer and I. The complexities within the hops began to open up into fresh pineapple, grapefruit flesh, skunk weed and lemon leaves. The malts too began to settle as I got used to the sweetness and the American oak spices began to show, colouring the fruity, lolly-like malts with cinnamon, anise, dried fruits with a variety of phenols dancing between the other complexities.

I tried to savour the beer as much as I could, like when you don't want to finish a book because the story is so enjoyable. It's good to remember that taste is 80% smell so big whiffs of a beer like this will still stimulate sections of the temporal lobe (http://www.tastescience.com/abouttaste2.html) and help to stretch out the enjoyment time of the beer. Many big whiffs were had, with each effort revealing new and exciting elements of this brewing feat.

And that's why Southern Tier's Oak Aged Un*Earthly (http://www.southerntierbrewing.com/index1.html) is my Beer of the Week. It's on the list at Josie Bones (http://josiebones.wordpress.com/) for about $40, but not for long...

PS: It's worth a mention that Earthless (http://www.myspace.com/earthless) played at the Arthouse on Sunday night and their music was the sonic equivalent of this beer.

I kinda forgot about Xmas too...

Xmas, a time for sharing with friends and family. Also a great time of year to be of Jewish background. I spent Xmas at Kate's house where the food and friends were abundant and of excellent quality. There are a bunch of Xmas Ales around too so I thought to share some of these with the loverly crew. Here's a few examples of what got smashed...

Rogue are a craft brewery in Portland, Oregon on the West Coast of America. They have mad philosophy, a Rogue Nation thing where they grow their own grains and hops, encourage people to be conscious of what they put in and where their dollar goes. Legends. The Santa's Private Reserve features their very own Rudolph hop which gives the amber ale the edge of an IPA, piney sprucey tingly goodness to balance the rich, sweet malts in the brew. It's fairly light-bodied, which is good because there's a lot of food on the table. As the sun starts to set the glow-in-the-dark label adds a good, fun element to the Xmas drinking. Yay for Rogue Santa!

Red Hill Brewery are an island of squareness in a sea of creative microbrewers. They brew true-to-style beers and the Belgian style Xmas ale is a great example. A complex mix of malts, abundance of hoppings with their home-grown hops and patience for a long maturation make this ale extremely respectable. It's really is amazing that the Xmas pudding flavours, the nutmeg and coriander seed, are derived from the malt and hops and yeast, no added spices. Although not as pudding-like as last year I truly enjoyed this vintage and have stashed a box in the cellar at Josie Bones to compare to next year's. Be warned tho - 8% beers are not for smashing, savour this one and don't be shy to share a bottle. It'll stretch your evening and you wont be the guy on the couch getting a texta makeover from your friends.

This one I wouldn't share. Nor would I hurry it. It's amazing, more like a sherry or brandy than a beer. 14% ABV, seriously rich and juicy, perfect with cheese and the kind of beer that changes the world for people who "don't drink beer". Eggenberg Samichlaus, brewed on the 6th of December each year then cellared for 10 months before bottling and release. I drank the 2009 vintage and it's almost exactly the same as 2008, 2007 and probably the first one brewed nearly 200 years ago. Merry Xmas indeed.

In between Xmas ales we enjoyed Harrington's Rogue Hop Organic Pilsner, Kooinda Pale Ale, Grozet Gooseberry and Wheat Ale (a sweet and fruity treat) and someone brought a slab of Sol which I believe is still at the bottom of the eski. I particularly enjoyed Kate's "Glass of Water" made from vintage local sparkling wine and mandarin vodka - equal parts. It wasn't beer, but it wasn't really a glass of water either. And special mention goes to Jules' hazelnut cassata which we enjoyed with Rogue's John & John Hazelnut Ale Aged in Hazelnut Rum barrels.

It's a strange brew, fairly light bodied with this nutty, syrupy undertone followed by the nutty, oaky, rummy goodness of their hazelnut rum. I have a feeling it was old stock but still very enjoyable. A scoop of cassata turned it into a hazelnut spider to die for. Beer spiders, way of the future.

A Year of Beer

Happy new year to everyone! I hope there was much celebration and support for the independent brewers of Australia and the world at your Xmas and New Year's parties! The eski at our party was sooooo sexy - Boatrocker Hoppbier, Kirin Ichiban Shiboru, Coopers Pale Ale, 3 Ravens 55 APA, Kooinda Pale Ale and that was just the drinking beer. Here's a little spiel for those unfamiliar with these brews...
Boatrocker Hoppbier is the second release from Brunswick's dynamic duo Matt and Andrea. These guys have really broken new ground with their Boatrocker brand, persuading the guys at Southern Bay Brewing (Victoria's big contract brewer) that people really do want to taste the malt and hops in their beer. Previous contract brews out of Southern Bay seemed to taste just like one another, a base wort that is then tweaked slightly to the contractor's tastes (Three Troupers, Hawthorn and The Ranga to name a few). The Hoppbier is a pilsner base but boasts lashings of fresh NZ hops giving mad texture and extremely moreish aromas and flavours. Think passionfruit and melon and dry, tingly acids from those fresh flowers but totally sessionable rather than the mouth-stripping hopfests seen in many other hop-driven brews. Yum!

Kirin Ichiban Shiboru is the real Kirin, not the flacid green bottled piss marketed by our friends at Lion Nathan, or is it CUB, same diff. They use the "First Press" method where they ditch the first and last (heads and tails for spirit fans) runs of the wort and make their beer exclusively with the juicy, full-flavoured mid-section of the wort. They add maize and rice to their grist which lightens and sweetens the brew but use just the right amount of hops to give dryness and texture in harmony with the sugars. I'm a sucker for labels too and there's no arguing with the bold, gold stement on the bottle - "Brewed for good times". It works, I had a good time.

Coopers Pale Ale is one of those beers that I keep going back to and marvelling at how enjoyable it can be. I've been drinking the Green for close to 20 years and although there was a change when Coopers changed their brewery and upgraded their equipment (around 2002 i think), the quality, flavour and integrity is still there. A whiff of hops when you crack the beer, beautiful dry ale on the first sip, creamier if you like to roll and slightly sour yeast esters on the nose too if you like to roll. I don't like to roll and shudder when a barperson rolls my bottle along the bar but hey, it's a free world. I do like to roll my Reds though. When I lived in Byron I drank a lot of Coopers Green and got to a point where I could  barely taste it. I started to add a shot of Stone's Green Ginger Wine and boom! Green and Green, heaven on a hot day.

3 Ravens 55 APA is the bitter, hoppy, juicy American Pale Ale from my local brewery in Thornbury (Victoria). Adrian, the brewer, uses five different hops and five different malts to create this dry, refreshing ale. I like it as a palate re-setter for when all the beer starts to taste the same as it's ripping bittereness really strips away any mouth-grot that's built up over the evening (or morning as I think it was maybe).

Kooinda Pale Ale is an APA from Victoria's smallest microbrewery. Full, juicy, hoppy without being extreme and so sessionable. I love it. I've been pleasantly surprised by how many people get turned on by the full body and balance of this beer. The guys that make it are legends too, real salt-of-the-earth Aussie battlers who deserve respect not only for their brewing skills but also for being good human beings ready with a laugh and happy to lend a hand to any good cause.
So that was the eski, but around 8:00am, when the real soldiers are still standing, that's when the big guns come out. Oooh yeah.

Baladin Elixir is a peated malt ale from Italy (!). It comes in a very pretty 750ml champagne bottle and, it may be wanky, but I was given some wine glass shaped glassware from Baladin and there's a good laugh in a bunch of red-eyed guys (and one girl) sitting around the backyard drinking this rich, sweet, whisky-centric ale from stemmed glasses. The ale is magic, one of the best whisky ales I've come across, medium to full bodied, extremely textural and complex flavours of Highland whisky, toffee and oak nuances really wake up the palate. It boasts a 10% ABV but the heat is totally in line with the whisky phenols, small sharp carbonation and malt richness.

Southern Tier Cuvee Series 2 (Lakewood, New York) is an American Amber Ale aged in American Oak. This brew is extremely limited and I cracked my second last one to celebrate the dawn of 2011 with my best mates (who deserve good beer for supporting and listening to me throughout 2010). So rich, so sweet, those amber malts give such juiciness with a variety of toffee, caramel and dried fruit flavours supported by the vanilla, cigar, burnt sugar and oak textures from the American oak (think good bourbon like Stagg or Booker's). At 11% ABV you'd think it'd be a sipper but it didn't last long, the sun didn't quite make it past the horizon before we were fighting over the dregs in the bottle.

Mountain Goat Double Hightail is my beer of the year for 2010. Mountain Goat is Melbourne's iconic first real microbrewery. Their contentious Steam Ale has brought their craft beer skills to the masses and their Double Hightail is a reward for the Goat Army who didn't let a little commercialisation get in the way of a good drink. Big, juicy malts are balanced by near-perfect hop-levels. Unjudicial use of Galaxy hops provides bitterness and lighter aromatics to the rich fruitiness of this absolutley f*n awesome ale. Bless you Dave, Cam and Jane, may your angels smile on you for all of 2011.

At about this point a few of the soldiers decided to go and lie down whcih left the few crazy and keen hardcore flavour junkies slurring and laughing on the lawn. We needed a wake-up, a refresher, something to bring us back from the brink of drunkenness and we found it in a small bottle of Mikkeller and Brewdog's collaborative effort, a blended DIPA (Double India Pale Ale) humbly named I Hardcore You. Apt. Two of us shared this ridiculously, some may even say stupidly (we certainly were) bitter bitter bitter DIPA. A Coopers Green has an IBU (International Bitterness Units) of about 15. The I Hardcore You is up around 150 IBU. Like sucking on a salt-crusted grapefruit with just enough marmaladey, biscuity malt to keep your mouth from getting up and running away. It was a perfect refresher after the shenanigans and cigarettes of a crackin New Year's Eve. And after so much good beer I barley noticed the 9.5% ABV.
It's probably important to note that we drank about a pint of water with each beer, or between beers. The lemon tree loved it.

 

Beer is awesome, and a major part of the enjoyment is sharing it with great friends, laughing and sharing the memories that the brews inspire. Having said that I capped off the night with a Brewdog Paradox Smokehead, an imperial stout aged in Smokehead whisky barrels. I'd been saving that one for a special occasion and the first day of the year, a cigar, a hammock and warm feeling inside is certainly a special occasion. The peat, iodine, salt and smoke sit just above the dark undercurrent of toasty stout and demand slow and sensible sipping and savouring of this phenomenal brew.
After all these good beers and good people and good time I slept the sleep of the just and woke up smiling,  looking forward to a full and rewarding year of beer and beautiful people. Blessings and best wishes to all for 2011, may all your beers come true.

Something's brewing in the heart of our town...

Well, where to begin? At the beginning. The journey began long, long ago in a suburban park far, far away. I cracked that ice cold can of VB, lit up a smoke and the next thing you know here we are in sunny Smith street with a roasted pig's head, a bottle of unpronouncable Danish micro-brewed beer and some of the most passionate, outspoken individuals you'll find in a bar anywhere. Welcome to Endless Beer.
This beer scene attracts all sorts of people. People come for the flavour, the history, the movement, the politics, the friends and the booze. The conversation round the table flows like the beer. Fast. Everyone has something to say - biodynamic agriculture, tax reform, the global free-market, the history of glass, hop terroirs, and of course, what to eat with these beers. These people are IT nerds, farmers, financiers, home-brewers, foodies, truck drivers, call-centre workers, TV stars, psych nurses. The oldest is talking steel tinnies and 6 0'clock closing, the youngest is googling brews on her iphone. There is one thing we all have in common. Beer. Endless Beer.
This blog is primarily a database of every beer to pass these lips. But beer is more than just a drink, and drinking isn't just about the beer. We'll also talk trends, trivia and trash. So, thanks for following and welcome to a life of Endless Beer.