I could get used to this

I enjoyed another great food and beer dinner last week. The venue was North Melbourne’s Courthouse Hotel. The idea was to match each course with a beer or two and a wine and determine which was the best match. Its a great idea for a night out and I hope the concept takes off. My palate still has a way to go as does my descriptive writing. I thought I’d briefly capture my impressions anyway and maybe get a few laughs when I look back at this in the future. Thanks to crafty for not only organising the night but also typing up the menu and taking some photos (the italics are mine though).

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A sign of the changing times?

In some circles dining at Melbourne’s Grossi Florentino may be a common occurrence. I don’t live in those circles so when the opportunity arose to have dinner there with some good friends recently, it was enthusiastically embraced. The plan was to experience this Melbourne institution by partaking in a 5 course dinner with matched wines. The only drawback was my concern that the wines would be wasted on me. If only the beer revolution had reached establishments like this and they would match beers instead! Well, ask and you shall receive.

Reflections

If this blog had any regular readers, by now they could well be wondering why there have only been 2 posts this year and whether the blog is dead. These are reasonable questions and in fact I’ve been asking myself the same things. Here I reflect on what this blog was for and what its future is.

Too good not to share

I have to break my recent beer blogging silence to share this (soon-to-be) classic.

Beer Song by ElbowSkin from Alister Robbie on Vimeo.

Not all beer and skittles

When I lasted posted, I mentioned that I would be visiting and writing about some other Victorian micro-breweries over the summer. Unfortunately I had some less than inspiring craft beer experiences during December and January and as a result haven’t felt much like blogging about beer (to be fair, there have been other distractions also – sun, surf, kids on holidays, a written-off car, a new car and a new job).

So time for a quick catch-up.

Prickly Moses

A little while ago I spent a weekend with friends in the country Victorian town of Colac. Just down the road from Colac is the Otway Estate Winery and Brewery, where the Prickly Moses beer range – and quite possibly some wine –  is produced. I figured it would be rude not to visit while in the neighborhood so a dozen blokes descended on the brewery on Saturday morning.  One of the brewers, Hendo agreed to give us a tour and soon had us all sharing his enthusiasm for flavorsome beers. In fact if Hendo could find a way to bottle enthusiasm I’m sure he’d be a rich man very quickly.

3 Ravens English Ale

After almost 3 months of blogging silence, I’m temporarily reverting to an old format to quickly record my thoughts on 3 Ravens English Ale which I am sampling for the first time tonight.