Curry Night at The BrewBoys Saturday 5th of June
It’s time for another curry night at the BrewBoys. It’s the second time they have run one of these. Last time was a great with tons of food, good music and great beer. For entertainment they have the Blue Mandarin Band. They food is being made by the guys and some friends of the brewery. I missed the last event but reports are the food was excellent. I’m certainly going to be down there for a curry and a couple of beers. The guys are really good hosts so it should be a really fun night.
I dropped in to see the guys yesterday and congratulate them on their AIBA results. They seemed pretty happy with how they had done and had enjoyed the time in Melbourne. On tap while I was there was GT Lager straight and through the Randall and Maiden Ale. Was great to see Maiden back on tap. They haven’t had it on for a while.
So put this in your calendar. It’s in mine. Get There!
Mikkeller Interview
Conversation about Beer: MIKKELLER (Documentary Film) – English Version from Evoque – Officina d'Arte on Vimeo.
An interview with Mikkel of Mikkeller fame. A really interesting look at the man and the beer. I can’t imagine brewing the way this guy does. No brewery of his own so he just brews in other peoples breweries. Must make logistics a nightmare. He is making amazing beer though.
Double Barrelled Locals at The Wheaty
The first Wednesday of the month is coming up so it’s time for another session of double barrelled local at The Wheaty. It’s on this Wednesday the 2nd of June. Lobethal Bierhaus and Barossa Brewing Co step up to the plate this time to have their beers square off.
From the Barossa we have a past favourite. The Grenoch Dark Ale is to hit the tap again. A good beer and very popular the last time it was on from all reports. Lining up against it the Red Truck Porter from Lobethal. This one hasn’t been on tap at The Wheaty previously. I haven’t had it for a while but if memory serves it was medium bodied with a nice chocolate character, some hints of coffee and very low roast. For my taste it was a little sweet from memory but judgement shall be reserved until Wednesday night.
Should be a good night as always. Get there!
Fosters Splits Wine and Beer
Fosters have announced they are going to split their beer and wine divisions. While not really a local craft beer story it is a big beer story. This is a significant shake up in the local beer and wine scene.
I’m hoping this will help the beer division focus more. It would be good to see Fosters push out more craft beers. While not particularly hopeful they will produce anything amazing they can help to push people towards really good craft beer. I think we can thank Matilda Bay, Malt Shovel and Little Creatures for really promoting the scene and getting more drinkers involved in it. All these breweries are partly or completely owned by one of the two big boys. They help to create interest which helps to drive people to the micro brewed beer. If people realise beer can have flavour they will start looking further afield. I don’t have any data to back this up so I’m really just talking out of my arse but I think there is some rationality to it.
Will remain to be seen how it turns out but hopefully it can be a good thing for beer drinkers.
Lunch at The Salopian Inn
I hadn’t had the McLaren Vale Ale for a long time so I though what better way to remedy that than to head to the source. So off to The Salopian Inn for lunch, beer and wine we went. I have mentioned this before in this article but this is an expansion of that with more detail. I was really looking forward to this as I had always had great meals at The Salopian in the past and had heard good things about the Vale Ale. The previous time I had tried I wasn’t really impressed but suspected it may have just been poorly looked after. The McLaren Vale Beer Company has recently purchased The Salopian Inn and it sounds like a great idea to me.
I started lunch with a glass of the house ale. It was much better than the last time I had tried it. It is a great gold colour with a slight haze from being naturally conditioned. The aroma is a light citrus with some spiciness. They list the beer as an Australia Pale Ale but it has a little more hop character than most people would expect from what they think of as an Australian Pale. This is a good thing though. They have used American aroma/flavour hops to give a great aroma without going too far and turning it into a hop bomb that may scare away some people. On tasting the beer has a good malt backbone with a medium light body. Very easy drinking so you could put away a few of these without it becoming cloying. The bitterness is well balanced with the malt helping the drinkabiity of the beer. The real feature is the hop flavour though. Apparent without being over the top and not too subtle so it can still be easily detected and enjoyed. Like the aroma they have found a good balance between giving you some hop flavour and bitterness and not turned it into a West Coast IPA. I do like a West Coast IPA but this isn’t supposed to be that type of beer. I could certainly have a few of these, I did, and would order it regularly at any bar.
For my appetiser I had the suckling pig with wasabi apple crackling which was as good as it sounded on their menu. It matched with the Vale Ale really well too. The bitterness of the beer cut through the fat of the pork and cracking. The hop flavours were a great contrast to the flavour of the meat. This is a good combination and recommend trying it WHEN you get down to The Salopian.
For the main course I switched to wine. My partner was drinking wine and had picked a nice bottle so I thought I should indulge. For my main I had the ragu which was excellent. The ragu with the creamy sauce was fantastic and very enjoyable with a McLaren Vale shiraz. We had some duck fat potato chips to go along with it. Pretty decadent but you only live once. There is something very special about potato fired in duck fat. We skipped over dessert after the excellent starter and main. The dessert did sound really good and we came close to splitting one.
After eating we went back to the bar and I decided to get another beer in before we headed off. It’s a great spot to sit around and relax. I got my camera out and snapped some shots of the beer and the venue while we were at the bar. You can see my photos here. You can see all my beer photos here.
The whole time the staff were really amazing and took their time to talk to us and answer any questions we had about the food or the beer. All the staff seemed really keen and cared about what they were doing. I can’t say enough about our experience there and all of the food and drink we had. They are doing an amazing job there and really deserve your custom. If you don’t have a trip planned you should start planning.
AIBA 2010 SA Medalists
I have compiled a list of all the South Australian small breweries that picked up medals at the 2010 Australian International Beer Awards. For complete results look here. The big winner this year was Steam Exchange.
Brewboys
Charger Lager Bronze Packaging
Ace of Spades Silver Other Stout
Seeing Double Bronze Scotch Ale and Barleywine
Lobethal
Pale Silver American style pale
IPA Bronze IPA
Pils Bronze Pils
Choc Oat Stout Bronze Other Stout
McLaren Vale Beer Company
Vale Ale Bronze Australian Style Pale Ale
Steam Exchange
Truffles Silver Hybrid Other
Truffles Bronze Hybrid Other (Draught)
Oak Aged Pale Bronze Wood Age Beer
Pale Ale Bronze British Style Pale Ale
Southerly Buster Bronze Dark Ale
Stout Silver Sweet Stout
Santa’s Wobbler Bronze Porter
Steam Ale Silver Lager Other
Stout Silver Sweet Stout (Draught)
Beard and Brau
Red Tail Silver British Style Pale Ale
Golden Paw Silver American Style Pale Ale
Bon Chiens Bronze Saison
Barossa Valley Brewing
Organic Ale Bronze American Style Pale Ale
Woolshed Brewery
Amazon Ale Bronze Australian Style Pale Ale
Campus Brewery
Campus Pale Ale Bronze Australian Style Pale Ale
Campus American Brown Bronze Wood Aged Beer
Campus Cherry Beer Bronze Lambic