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.

Three Troupers

Lately there have been a few indications that there may be warmer weather ahead – time to get back into some refreshing ales and lagers. Just as I was thinking that, some Pale Ale and Pilsner from Three Troupers Brewery in Beaufort appeared as if by magic.

Bridge Road Chestnut Lager

The Bridge Road Brewers produce some great beers in Beechworth.  Those local skills and local ingredients have made this one of their best.

Holgate Mt Macedon Ale and Pilsener

I have just about completed my ‘tour’ of the Holgate brews. Their flagship beers are the Mt Macedon Ale and their Pilsner. I have enjoyed both of these recently but have to say that they didn’t really stand out when compared to other pale ales and pilsners available. Both were certainly good beers and will no doubt provide the cash flow for Holgates to keep experimenting for many years to come.

They do have a Dunkel Weizen but it is only available on tap. The perfect excuse to go and spend some time in Woodend at the brewery, I think.

Boatrocker Brewing Company

Strictly, this one doesn’t meet the criteria I established for this blog as its not actually a brewery (the beer is brewed in another established brewery) but the beer is great, it is certainly ‘micro’ and its my blog so I can change the rules whenever I want.

The Boatrocker Brewing Company is a 2 person show (Matt and Andrea) and released its first beer, Alpha Queen earlier in 2009. I tried a few over the weekend and was most impressed.

Mountain Goat Beers

Mountain Goat Brewery is a fairly well known local brewery in Victoria – its located in Richmond in inner city Melbourne. Some months ago I tried a pint of their Hightail Ale and thought it was a fantastic alternative to the other beers on tap (the usual imported and local suspects). Having sampled a few different beers and educated myself a lot since then, I found myself with the opportunity to try a couple of the Mountain Goat beers again today.