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).

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.

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.

Three Troupers Amber Ale

Back in October last year I tried the Three Troupers brews available at the time (Pilsner and pale ale). They were pleasant enough but a little disappointing after some of the other local beers I had been trying. I’m pleased to say that their Amber Ale, released earlier this year, is a great improvement.

A fine-looking amber in the glass with a healthy white head, it has plenty of malt and caramel flavours and a smooth mouth feel.

See if you can get your hands on some and let me know what you think

Cheers

Yarra Valley Gold

I’ve had a few people recommend the beers from Grand Ridge Brewery and have enjoyed a few pots of Gippsland Gold on tap so I thought I’d see what else they have to offer. First up was Yarra Vally Gold and I’m pretty impressed!

I’ll have a ‘bland’ please

Having spent so long trying to educate my palate and seek out interesting, varied and complex beers, I now find myself looking around for a less  interesting locally brewed beer. I have a friend whose beer taste was formed while living in Germany. I would have thought this would mean he expects flavour and variety. In reality, it has resulted in a distaste for anything other than Warsteiner (although he can cope with Carlton Draught).

I had never heard of Warsteiner so I gave it a go.

It seems to me to be a very thin, bland beer with almost no complexity or real flavour. Perfect for slamming down on stinking hot days but otherwise fairly pointless. For some reason, I now feel I should introduce him to a locally brewed beer that will satisfy his expectations. This will be a challenge as one of the reasons people brew beer is so that they can infuse it with flavour, complexity and their own personalities.

Delving into my previous posts and some recent experiments I have come up with my top 3 ‘refreshing and least likely to offend anyone’ craft beers.

They are:

Cricketers Arms Lager

Three Troupers Pilsener

Mildura brewery Desert Premium Lager (see below)

I will make these suggestions and post my friend’s reaction at some point.

And I’m not the only one

It seems Effen lager (see previous post) has won the Peoples Choice award for best lager at the Microbrewery showcase last month. My tastes must be reasonably close to those of  “the people”. Regardless of the fact that there were very few lagers on show that night, it’s a good beer and the award is well deserved! Sometimes you just need a good, clean, easy to drink lager and this fits the bill nicely.

My favourite Friday night beer this week is 3 Ravens American Pale Ale, I don’t know why it took me so long to discover it.

A great discovery from the Microbrewery showcase

A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of spending a few hours at the Microbrewery Showcase at Federation Square. I sampled quite a number of new beers, some of which I enjoyed very much. One that surprised me was Effen lager. The name and marketing style seems a little too slick and even forced. My expectation was that the beer wouldn’t live up to the promise. I was wrong, it’s a good lager that I have tried again since – in fact I’ve enjoying one now.