Dinner at Sparrow Kitchen
I had been hearing a lot of good reviews and enthusiastic support for Sparrow Kitchen, a reasonably new Adelaide eatery. I had even heard good things about the available beers. These things tweaked my interest and got me out of the pub and on the way down there with the wonderful Miss Claire for dinner on a Saturday evening. After a brief look over the menu online I was looking forward to the meal. I booked us a table in the court yard and Saturday evening was set.
The evening didn’t start well. I dropped Claire off and went to find a park. When I got back I saw Claire sitting at a table right in the front doorway. No explanation or apology for not putting us on the courtyard table we had booked. I was expecting lots of people bumping into my chair and high winds through the front door. However, it wasn’t near as bad as I was expecting and the night just got better from here.
The beer list whilst not being amazing is pretty good for a non beer focused venue in Adelaide. I kicked the night off with a Budvar whilst looking over the menu. However, when it came down to picking something to drink with dinner it was going to be wine this night. This restaurant like most doesn’t offer the range of beers to match with food or beers that would be something for people to share. That is a topic for another article though. So a nice bottle of red was selected and ordered. From there it was time to pick some food. The menu is extensive and very interesting. With so much to chose from we decided to go for the tasting menu and have a little of a lot of things.
The tasting menu is a great mix of things. I won’t list everything that is on it but you can check it out here. That said if I am going to talk about the highlights I have to end up listing most of the menu anyway. The parts that really stood out were the Duck Donut, Wagyu Burger and the Raspberry and white chocolate popsicle. The duck was rich and really deeply flavoured. The meat was incredibly moist and had a fantastic texture. The Wagyu burger is everything you expect it to be. Rich flavourful meat with just enough fat for great texture and flavour. The popsicle was a great surprise. I was expecting the white chocolate to be too sweet. I was also expecting a really sweet raspberry sauce with it. I couldn’t have been more wrong. The white chocolate was subtle and the sauce was a great tart sour raspberry sauce made from fresh berries. I don’t have much of a sweet tooth but this is the kind of dessert for me.
So what started off badly turned into a great night. The food was great, the wine was good and the beer was good for a restaurant. I highly recommend getting down there and checking it out. A bigger beer list would be great but it’s a good start.
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Review – Anderson Valley Brother David’s Double Abbey Style Ale
It’s time for another review of beer from Bier Shop. Another interesting beer that I have wanted to try but haven’t had the opportunity to until now. This time it is Brother David’s Double Abbey Style Ale from Anderson Valley Brewing Company. Everything I have had from Anderson Valley in the past has been sensational so I have been looking forward to trying this one. Anderson Valley is one of the longer standing breweries in the USA craft beer scene. They have been making beer since opening their brew pub in 1987. Since then they have grown into one of the mainstays of craft brewing.
The beer pours with a large fluffy head that drops quickly but leaves some lacing down the sides of the glass. The beer is a redish dark brown with ruby highlights. Despite being very dark you can see through it and it is brilliantly clear and bright. When swirled it produces legs and a oily slick on the sides of the glass that slowly sink back into the beer. It is a very attractive beer and looks great in a nice balloon glass.
The aroma is one of thick chewy malt up front. The malt has a rich caramel and toffee character. This is backed up by warming alcohol aromas that bring sherry, brandy and other fortifieds to mind. The alcohol also gives dark sugar, fig, raisins and other dried fruits. The fermentation characters provides some spiciness with clove and cinnamon evident. This all adds up to give the beer a real fruit cake or Christmas pudding like character. The aroma of this beer just makes me think of Christmas pudding and minced pies. However, there is some tartness that helps to cut the perceived sweetness in the aroma.
The flavour brings much of the same character that is evident in the aroma. The first notable thing on tasting the beer was a lighter body than I had expected and a real smoothness. This is a very malt and fermentation driven beer and is balanced heavily toward sweetness. This is a beer you will probably want to share with someone or sip at over a few hours in the evening. It weighs in at 9% ABV so taking your time with it is not a bad idea anyway. The malt is expressed with the same chewy caramel and and toffee characters as were detected in the aroma. However, there is also some bready characters that come through. There is also great fortified wine and brandy like warming alcohol flavours. These combine with the dark fruit and spiciness to give the beer the same fuit cake and pudding character that was detected in the arom. In the flavour we start to pick up some more of the tartness and spiciness expected from a Belgian style ale. This helps to cut through the sweetness and adds to the drinkability of the beer. This style of beer has very low hopping and bitterness so needs these other flavours to aid drinkability.
Overall this is an interesting and complex beer that is a real treat. It’s not a session beer but something that is worth sipping and savouring it’s complex flavours. If you wanted to match it with some food I think some well cooked pork belly with a rich sause would be an excellent match. If you are looking for a dessert choice something with a rich bitter chocolate character would work well. It is a great example of the style and a really interesting and rewarding beer. Go and get yourself some today.
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Review – Woolshed Brewery Amazon Ale
The next beer in my delivery from the gentlemen at BIER Shop.com.au is up for tasting and review. We have a local beer this time from a relatively new brewery out of South Australia’s Riverland. The Woolshed Brewery currently produce one beer, the Amazon Pale Ale at their own brewery. The beer is named after a neer by creek system and not the South American river system.
The Amazon Pale is described as a tradition bottle conditioned Australian Ale by it’s brewers. You wouldn’t know it by looking at it in the glass. Whilst taking no special care it poured bright in the glass with no sign of haze from yeast left in the beer. There is a tiny amount of cloudy yeast left in the bottom of the bottle so they have picked their yeast strain well. The beer poured with a large foamy white head but it dissipated quickly. Only had one bottle so can’t test further, could have been the glassware. Very attractive and bright in the glass though.
The aroma isn’t highly complex but does have a number of nice characters. The hops come through as the most noticeable aroma. A great fruit salad and berry aromas. This tends to give the beer a real fresh feel to it. This is backed up by some sweet bready and caramel malt characters. The malt is more subtle but is present in the aroma.
The flavour follows on from the aroma. There is an underlying bready and caramel malt character. The malt is present but not the focus of the beer with enough to balance the flavour. The hop character is similar to the aroma. Giving the fruit salad characters. This fruitiness from the hops is also aided by a little fermentation character. The beer is very well balanced making it really drinkable. This would make a great session beer for a warm day. It’s light bodied and easy drinking. Enough bitterness and hop character to balance without beating you over the head.
This is just a really good and easy drinking beer that would go well at your next bbq. Next time you are looking for something that fits that mould forget the big boys and pick up a locally produced beer that fits perfectly. Get Some!
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Review – Anderson Valley Hop Ottin’ IPA
It’s time for another review from my latest BIER SHOP delivery. This time we have Hop Ottin’ IPA from Anderson Valley. Anderson Valley have been around making beer for over twenty years and that experience shines through in this great example of American style India Pale Ale.
The beer is a cloudy copper colour in the glass with a medium fluffy white head that lasts well. The foam laces nicely down the side of the glass. It’s the classic example of an American IPA.
The aroma of the beer hits you as soon as it is poured and jumps up into your nose. The beer displays a wonderful combination of malt, hops and fermentation character in the nose. The hops are the highlight of the aroma. The most prolific aroma in the nose in a fresh floral aroma that is reminiscent of a garden on a spring morning. This is backed up by complex malt aromas including caramel and toffee characters. Also present in the aroma are dried fruit fermentation characters.
The first thing to come through on drinking is the assertive bitterness in the beer. Though assertive the bitterness is not harsh or overpowering. The hop flavour is similar to the aroma with floral and mandarin peel characters. Great balance is provided by a good malt backbone. The malt is expressed in a mild sweetness with toffee and caramel like flavours. The carbonation is high enough to aid drinkability but still soft with no harsh bite. This is aided by some great fruity fermentation characters that add softness with dried fruit flavours.The finish is clean and dry making the beer very drinkable. All these flavours add up to a great complexity and not just a hop and bitterness bomb that some American style IPA can be.
Seems I have scored again. This beer has great complexity if that is what you are looking for. However, it’s also a very well made and extremely drinkable beer. If you are after something that is an easy drinking 7% IPA or a really complex and interesting beer you can find them both here. This is one of the classic American IPAs. Go and get yourself some.
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Review – Hitachino Nest Japanese Classic Ale
I have just received a new order of great beers from Bier Shop and it’s time to get some reviews up. Lots of interesting beers to come from this delivery and first up is a real surprise packet in Hitachino Nest Japanese Classic Ale from Kiuchi Brewery.
The beer pours and light copper colour with a good size creamy head that sticks around. With a typical bottle pour it produces around 4cm of head. The beer is hazy as it is a naturally conditioned ale.
The aroma is wonderful. A great mix of light malt that is just detectable and wonderful citrus hop character. The citrus is more of a English mandarin peel citrus than the over powering grapefruit like citrus from American hops. However, there is another secret here. This beer spends some time in cedar barrels and that is the aroma you are detecting but can’t quite pick. The combination of aromatic hops and smokey cedar character give an almost sandalwood type aroma to the beer. This is also backed up by some good deep malt character from the Munich, Crystal and Marris Otter malts.
The flavour carries on as you would expect from the aroma. However, the malt does play a larger part in the flavour. Using malts like Munich and Marris Otter give you the strong chewy flavours that back up the bitterness and hop character. These malts also provide a great chewiness that balances perfectly with the hops. The hops and cedar characters are really where it is at with this beer. The mandarin peel citrus character from the aroma carries over into the flavour. It mixes well with the cedar character again to produce wonderful flavours. These flavours again combine the smokiness of the cedar and citrus of the hops to give sandalwood and lemongrass like characters. The medium body and balance of the beer makes it incredibly drinkable, you need to get more than one. This is very sessionable for a beer that weighs in at 7%ABV. The carbonation is just high enough to aid the drinkability and is well conditioned.
This is an all round fantastic beer. I would team this with a Thai curry or a really nice piece of pan fried salmon. Do yourself a favour and give this beer a go. Get Some!
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Quick Review – Mikkeller Ten and Beer Hop Breakfast
I picked up all the beers in the photo above from The Wheaty right after they became available. I haven’t gotten to the Nogne #500 or the 1000 IBU yet but I have had the Mikkeller Ten and the Beer Hop Breakfast. This isn’t an exhaustive review but a quick run down to help you work out if you want to try them.
If you want a quick spoiler I can tell you these are both amazing beers that I really enjoyed. I have come to expect that from Mikkeller though. I don’t think I have ever had a bad beer from Mikkeller, I doubt they know how to make a bad one.
The Beer Hop Breakfast is a version of the Beer Geek Breakfast with lots of hops. That is pretty much what it is. A big rich coffee imperial stout with the addition of a ton of hops. If you liked Beer Geek Breakfast and you like hops you will love Beer Hop Breakfast. It’s one of my favourite beers I have tried for a while.
The Ten IPA is a result of the single hop series. Mikkeller did a series of ten single hop beers that were excellent and really showed the difference between varieties. Then, just for the hell of it I assume, he decided to make ten which has all ten of the hops in one IPA. The result is something pretty crazy and over the top. This is not a beer to try to start your non beer geek friends on but it is an amazing beer. I thought there were a couple of varieties that dominated the flavour but will not say which as I don’t want to influence anyone elses tasting. I could drink a ton of this beer but it’s pretty challenging and may not be to everyone’s taste.
Plan to get onto the Nogne #500 tonight and report soon.
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