Weird Beer at The Wheaty
The first Weird Beer Session has happened at The Wheaty and I couldn’t be happier with the result. We had a great group of beer lovers get together and enjoy some amazing beers. We ended up with ten people for the first session and got through around ten different beers. With one to two bottles between the group we got a large enough sample to get a good taste but small enough that we weren’t rolling on the floor at the end of it.
An amazing group turned up, some I had met before and some I hadn’t. People of all levels of beer geekery and beer tastes but really cool and fun people all round. We started the session according to plan with a couple of Cantillon sour beers. From there it went all over the place. There was organic IPA from NZ, Saison from Belgium, Imperial stout from the USA and much more. We couldn’t have picked a more diverse and fantastic range if it had been planned in advance. The highlight of the day for me was the coffee and Fig stout from the Epic Epicurean range. It wasn’t big on the fig flavour for me but the beer was fantastic with an amazing coffee flavour. So many fantastic beers though. I can’t wait to do it all again.
The plan is to try to get something like this going once a month or so. I will consult with the other attendees and see if we can’t set another date with a bit more advance warning this time. Hope to see you at the next event.
Odd Beer Tastings
I have wanted to do this for a while but out of some other conversations have finally decided to actually do it. I want to do some odd beer tastings. If you are anything like me you are often at the pub and see these out there beers you would love to try but aren’t going to commit to a 750ml bottle of 11% sour beer when you don’t have any beer geeks with you to drink it. These beers are often quite pricey too. So I thought why not try to get a group together to defray the cos and have some people to talk about the beer with.
I wouldn’t mind it becoming something semi regular but thought about starting this Saturday the 21st of April around 1300 at The Wheaty. For the first session I’m thinking of going for some treats from Cantillon. There is a good range in at The Wheaty at the moment so what better time to do it and what better beers to start with? Some of these I have never tried. The idea for the session is that everyone comes along and based on the numbers we get we buy a certain number of bottles of beer. I’m thinking a 750ml between four people is probably a good portion and trying around four beers would probably be enough. So each person would pay the price of a single bottle but get to try four. The plan isn’t for this to tasting to be led by one person telling you all about the beer but just for a group to get together and talk about beer together. The beers I am thinking about are Mamouche, Vigneronne, ‘07 Framboise Cuvee Lou Pepe and ‘09 Kriek Cuvee Lou Pepe none of which I have tried before. That said everything I have had from Cantillon has been nothing short of amazing.
Interested? Let me know. Not sure if this is going to appeal to a large number of beer geeks but it would be cool to get together for some weird beers. If you are interested you can leave a comment on this post but it’s probably best to send me an email aaron at imhereforthehops dot com or send me a message on twitter @hereforthehops. Hope to see you there.
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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Beer Tasting Event in Adelaide?
I have been thinking about trying to get a regular beer tasting event going in Adelaide. Ideally and event that would run every two months or so with one of the local venues hosting. Something like what the Wheaty does with a the guided whiskey tastings is my idea. You could keep it going for a long time working through different beer styles and other ideas.
Other ideas I have had would be to perhaps include some home brewed beers with this where we can find one that is a good example of the style. Also to be able to have a tasting of home made beers after the main session would be good. This may be a little difficult in a bar but I can only ask. I’m not sure how the licensing would work for this either so it may not be a real option.
It could also be expanded further by doing blind tastings where people can win a prize for guessing what it is they are tasting etc. We could try running a bit of a quiz like the guys at the Local Taphouse do with their AleStars sessions.
I think this could be popular. Kept at around the $30 mark and running once every two months I believe it could work. I think there are enough passionate beer people and other inquisitive types out there that this could catch on in the right venue with the right people running it. They are the two questions I can’t answer.
My immediate thought would this would be great at the WHeaty but as of writing I have no idea if they would be interested. I think the bigger problem is the right person to run the event. I could do a lot of the technical stuff and source beers etc but I’m not certain I would be the best person to run the event. Need to find someone who is knowledgeable, well spoken and really enthusiastic about great beer.
If you have any ideas or thoughts let me know. I have started working on getting something together so fingers crossed something will happen.
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Beer Dinner
I’m going to have a beer dinner soon. I want to try to introduce some friends to some good beer. What better way to do it that to offer to feed them and ply them with said tasty beer. I have been doing some research on a menu and tried it out. I am on a real hoppy and bitter beer kick at the moment so that has mostly guided the meal.
The meal kicks off with a dish called Montgomery’s ‘Melting Moment’ which I got from the Cheese Slices tv show. It’s basically a grilled cheese sandwich using cloth bound English cheddar some leek and onions. Pair that with an IPA I have fermenting at the moment that is inspired by and hopefully half as good as Pliny. It came out really well tonight except that I needed to use a denser bread to hold it together. I also need to make smaller serves as it was a meal in it’s self. Tonight I had it with Flying Dog Raging Bitch. A great beer by the way. Although not a typical IPA it worked well and cut right through the strong cloth bound aged cheese.
For the main course I am going with a recipe I found via Flying Dog. The recipe is Grilled Ground Lamb Skewers, Couscous Salad, and Cucumber Yogurt Sauce. It’s the sixth course in this beer dinner. I made a smaller version for two of us and it came out great. Only thing I am going to add is a little extra salt to the lamb to bring out the flavours. Other than that it was excellent. This course I am going to team with the 5l keg of Yellow Snow IPA I acquired recently. I had it with an ordinary IPA of mine tonight and it worked really well so it should be awesome with a good IPA.
The dessert didn’t get tested tonight as I am waiting to get the recipe from a friend. It sounds amazing though. It is a chocolate stout cake with peanut butter icing. I’m going to make it with my own stout. Once I taste it I wil decide if I am going to serve it with my stout or with a black double IPA I have brewing at the moment. Either way it sounds like an awesome cake. Hopefully that can convince someone to keep drinking good beer. Would be nice to get a convert from the night.
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GT Lager Launch at Brew Boys
This Saturday the Brew Boys will be launching their new GT Lager. The beer is 5.8% and 35.1 ibu to match the engine size of the GT. The packaging looks pretty nice too. They seem to be going with this as a theme lately. They also have the Charger Lager. Should be a good day with food and entertainment planned. The tasting room is located at 151 Regency Road Croydon Park, see map below.
I’m going to be there from early afternoon tasting this and the other beers they have on tap. I was there last weekend and they had a couple of small batch limited edition beers on tap. The pick was the harvest ale running through the Randall. The hop aroma on that beer was amazing. All the hops for the beer came from the garden of the brewer. They are growing a wide selection of hops so we should see more interesting beers like this in the future.
Hope you can make it down. I will probably be walking around with a camera to get some photos for the site. Come up and say hello.
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