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.
[ad#Google Adsense]
Wine Lists and Cocktail Menus
This is something that is common in Adelaide but becoming less so elsewhere. You can go onto most restaurants and pubs web sites and see their food menu. You can check out the wine list. At many you can even see what cocktails they have on offer. All this is great.
However, I have one question that I think is important. Where is the Beer List? Is it really that much to ask? There are increasing numbers of people who like great beer and will make decisions about where to eat based, at least in part, on the beer that is on offer. Surely I’m not the only one that does this. Would it really take that much extra effort to add the beer list?
[ad#Google Adsense]
Sea and Vines Festival with Vale Ale
Sea and Vines with Vale Ale
The good people at The Salopian Inn and McLaren Vale Beer company are putting on a function for the Sea and Vines Festival. Sounds like it’s going to be a great event too. Fresh local seafood cooked with local produce and some Vale Ale in one of the dishes. My mouth is watering already. I’m not familiar with the DJ but if they play music that suits the vibe of the Salopian it should be fantastic. If I’m not in some far flung corner of the country with my day job, a distinct and disappointing possibility, I am going to be there.
I really like what these guys are doing. They are getting out there and marketing craft beer really well and drawing people in by serving it in ways that will appeal to the non beer geek. On top of that they are making and serving really good beer. I can’t wait to see what they have in store when they get their own brewery up and running.
[ad#Google Adsense]
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.
[ad#Google Adsense]
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.
[ad#Google Adsense]
Quick Trip Report McLaren Vale
The day started at Foggo Wines, a small winery a friend had told us about. Great wine and a super friendly wine maker at the cellar door. These guys actually do open ferments in barrels which is enough to scare any brewer but the wine is great. From there we made a quick stop into Shottesbrooke. A very nice place with some good wine. We picked up a couple of bottles but didn’t have a lot of time here. Staff were very friendly but not as knowledgeable as those we spoke to at other wineries.
Then it was time for the lunch. I had been looking forward to lunch at The Salopian Inn with some McLaren Vale Ale and it didn’t disappoint. The service was great, food and wine were great and the beer was really top notch. Everyone was really friendly and helpful and one of the waiters spent some time talking to me about the beer and brewing including the new brewery they have coming. I got a message from the @mvbeer guys on Twitter to ask for someone when I was there but I didn’t want to come across as some tool with a blog so I just enjoyed the long lunch we had there. I will go into more detail about the The Salopian Inn and McLaren Vale Ale in another post soon. In brief, everything was great and you should go.
After lunch, at about 1600, we thought we would try and sneak in one more winery for the day. I had seen a sign on a winery called Ekhidna that sad they made beer so I thought I would check it out. I have to say I was a bit dubious with the incorrectly spelt name but you you never know if you don’t give it a try. All fears were allayed as soon as we walked in. The wine maker and one other staff member were there and they were the most friendly, outgoing and enthusiastic people without being over the top. You just get a real enthusiasm for what they do from them. The beer is an extract beer being brewed on a very small scale. A fairly standard English Pale Ale. Well made but nothing to write home about. They want to ramp up the brewing in future but have only just opened the cellar door and they have a restaurant coming so it’s not the priority at the moment. The wines were great and the wine maker took a lot of time to talk to us and explain different parts of their wine making process. They have a Shiraz/Riesling which, while not my cup of tea, was very interesting. The many different Shiraz we tried were fantastic. These guys may be really small but they are doing great things. You really should go out of your way to check them out when you are in the area.
That was the end of the tasting and, fortunately for me, the end of the driving. We headed out from our accommodation to find some drinks and dinner. We thought we would have a drink at a couple of places then find somewhere to eat. That plan went out of the window when the first place we walked into was The Barn. It has a great lounge area to have a few drinks before dinner with this huge open fire style methylated spirits powered heater. They have around sixty beers in the bottle and an extensive wine collection. The restaurant is down stairs in two flights including the basement where we ate. The menu looked good and the drink selection was great so we decided we didn’t need to go any further. I tried the Goodieson pilsener and pale ale there. Both well made and very drinkable beers. I will write more about these later. Dinner was fantastic. I had a fantastic piece of steak cooked perfectly. I can highly recommend the sirloin if you make a visit.
By the time we finished dinner we were quite drunk and very tired. We stumbled back to our room with intention of opening a bottle we had picked up during the day. We both fell asleep within a minute of being in the room. Sunday was uneventful as we had breakfast then hit the road. Whilst not terribly hungover we weren’t really in peak wine tasting shape either. We had a great time and can’t see how you wouldn’t if you head down for a trip. Get There!
[ad#Google Adsense]