Lobethal = Win
Lobethal Bierhaus has scooped the pool at the Royal Adelaide Beer Show. Lobethal Bierhaus has taken out ten trophies at the awards ceremony on Friday night. A number of other local breweries also did well including a Champion ale for the GTS from Brewboys. Nobody came close to the sweep from Alistair at Lobethal though. Check out the article on Adelaide Now for some good mainstream press for craft beer.
So if you ever needed an excuse to get up to Lobethal and try their beers or drop in again to remind yourself how good it is you now have a good excuse. Go and see some other local breweries too. Get There!
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Check Out the Crown and Sceptre
It appears we have a new beer venue in town. Well it’s not a new venue. The Crown and Sceptre has been around for ages serving cocktails, high end spirits and wine. However, they have just taken the leap into serving great beer. Check out this recent tweet and have a look at their new beer menu. It has me ready to run down there for a beer or two. I plan on doing just that in the next couple of days. Has been a while since I was there so will be able to give a better update on what it’s like then.
Focusing on the beer. They have beers from Murray’s, Bridge Road Brewers and 8Wired. This is some of the best beers being produced in Australia and New Zealand right now. Though it does pain me to admit it the New Zealanders are doing a fantastic job. If you wanted to start with trying one beer from each brewery to start with, but lets face it you should try them all I will give you a quick run down of my picks. From 8Wired my pick is the Hop Wired IPA. This beer has entered my all time favourite list and is truly stunning. Nice dry finish great smack of hops and a good strong bitterness without being harsh. It’s just sensational. From Bridge Road Brewers my pick is the Bling IPA, though I haven’t tried the Chestnut pilsner yet which sounds very interesting. The Bling is a great IPA with a huge whack of hoppy goodness backed up by a strong malt backbone so there is something for everybody. From Murray’s I can’t go past The Icon 2IPA. Seeing a theme here? The dark night porter is also an amazing beer but you just can’t go past the Icon. One of Australia’s great beers and one of the first double IPA’s made here. In the immortal words of Ford Prefect “Your mouth will love you for the rest of your life”.
Check out all of these guys on Twitter too @thesceptre, @8wiredbrewing, @NakedNed and @murraysbrewing. So get down to The Sceptre and support a venue that is supporting good beer. With their great all round drinks menus there has to be something for everyone here. Will give a fuller report once I have visited in the next couple of days. Get There!
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Vale Ale in the News
A new article is up today in the mainstream media bout McLaren Vale Brewing Company. This one is in the Advertiser and on the Adelaide Now web site. It’s a nice piece about the company in general and what is happening with them in the future. These guys have got the marketing right and are doing all the right things with it.
The good news for beer lovers is that their brewery goes in real soon which should allow them to increase their range and volume of beer. Head brewer Jeff Wright hinted about plans for some new beers that sound great. We are just going to have to wait until the new brewery is commissioned and producing before we get to try them. They also have big plans for beer dinners and many other events down at the Salopian Inn to be hosted by their excellent chef Billy Doht and Head Brewer Jeff Wright. Their next dinner is on 9 March. I’m not sure if there are any tickets left but check their web site or give the Salopian a call. Keep an eye out as they have plans for more dinners in the near future.
If you really want to keep up with everything that is going on down there follow @__jeffwright, @mvbeer, @salopianinn and of course @hereforthehops on twitter.
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Australia’s Hottest 100 Craft Beers – Number 1 Vale Ale
The Hottest 100 Australian Craft beers list has been compiled and released. Thanks to The Local Taphouse and the Crafty Pint for putting it all together and publishing it. This years winner is Vale Ale from McLaren Vale Beer company. Big congratulations to the guys. Can’t wait to taste the beers when they start coming out of the new brewery. A couple of other local breweries made the list too. You can check out the full list here thanks to Crafty Pint.
I’m not a fan of a lot of the stuff on the list. I’m not saying they are bad beers but beers from the two largest breweries in the country surely can’t count as craft. I like Alpha Pale but there is no way that is a craft beer. I think the definition really needs to be tightened up to reward the real craft producers around the country and not slap the big boys on the back regardless of their beer being any good or not. Go out and drink something from a small craft producer today!
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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
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Beard and Brau in the News
Another local paper in Adelaide doing an article on a local microbrewery. This time it’s Beard and Brau. Run by a couple from Prospect in a Brewery in Para Hills.
I haven’t met these guys yet but they sound like a couple of really passionate beer people. The beers of theirs I have had have all been excellent. Once again the article is nothing hard hitting but it is good to see the mainstream press covering small breweries. If you can head on over to the article and leave a comment there. If they know people care about this sort of thing they may promote it more.
Make sure you hunt out their beers too. It’s great to support a small local business and it’s even better when the product is awesome.
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