Good Beer Week 2013 #1 - From Beechworth to Bombay - India vs India

The use of Bombay wasn't offensive was it? I mean... Beechworth vs Mumbai doesn't quite... After all, I'm not looking to advocate any British imperial sentiment here... though now I think about it, without the British East India Company... we probably wouldn't have been gifted the India Pale Ale... so...

ahem...

India vs India, the collaboration event between Bridge Rd Brewery and masters of Indian cuisine Horn Please, was the first event locked in for me upon my initial glance at the Good Beer Week program. Indian food matched with IPA's? Genius. And all this before I'd stepped foot in the restaurant. A subsequent reconnaissance mission, (albeit a boozy endeavor of a Sunday $20 All-You-Can-Eat) to Horn Please uncovered a gem of a restaurant with quality fare and a craft beer selection from both local and abroad that would leave most bars envious.

The evening began for Dave and I at the Tramway Hotel with a couple of pre-dinner beverages as part of the South Australian offering for Good Beer Week's Pint of Origin series. Then the Horn Please feast was upon us. Ben Kraus, the brains and brews behind Bridge Road Brewery, was on hand to introduce the beers  that would accompany the culinary offerings from our hosts, explaining the ideas behind his Single Hop IPA series (in which we would be sampling the Summer, Stella and Galaxy versions) as well as the India Saison collaboration with Norwegian brewers, Nogne and the recently brewed Imperial IPA, Bling Bling. Bridge Road Beers are as solid as they come in this country. You always know what to expect, and generally, that's a bloody good beer, and this was evident in the beers sampled on the night.

I was keen to see how the dishes would match up with the beers and how they would interact, but each dish that appeared brought an explosion of flavours that I felt potentially out-muscled a lot of the hop characteristics, but as a result, each beer was a malty palate cleanser making way for further adventures in spice and herb. One thing I will say for Horn Please is that the food is spectacular, and their range of beers on offer makes for the perfect place for a night of great food and drink without spending a small fortune. Its kind of like the result of a drunken conversation... "wouldn't it be great if... you had... a curry shop, that.. also had a bar-worthy range... of good beer... and BLACK JACK!" ... okay... maybe without the black jack.

Anyway, the food! The meal opened with an Indian spin on nachos. topped with chickpea and herb and yoghurt salsa, then samosas, one of the most succulent tandoori chicken's I've ever tasted and a trio of curries, Lamb Madras, Butter Chicken and Goat Curry with rice and naan. The pain of overindulgence kicked in somewhere between the Samosa and the tandoori chicken, but at Horn Please, that part of your brain that would usually kick in to say "you should probably stop eating now, you're going to rupture something" switches off, lays back and guzzles vindaloo sauce... it then becomes a compulsion. To devour everything that reaches the table. It's just that good.

Indian style Nachos.

By the time desert arrived, a coconut homemade iced cream in stick format matched with the delightful Bling Bling DIPA, tears of both joy and pain were being wept at the table. There was no room left anywhere in my torso, yet both items managed to crawl their way in and nestle amongst the rest of what had been an amazing night of beer and culinary indulgence. If you haven't already been to Horn Please, I really can't recommend it enough, even just for the food alone. The two, well stocked beer fridges are just that delightful bonus and further evidence that beer and Indian food are the perfect duo for a great night of taste exploration. 

Good Beer Week 2013

"There comes a time in one's life when all harvests of existence align so all the fruits of labour can be picked and enjoyed. These are the times when the heart is full of joy and the mind rests easy. Be true to your instinct and desire and you will be rewarded with harmony and pleasure."


That is a famous quote by a man that I haven't made up yet because I only just finished making up that quote.

But it's applicable to Good Beer Week, isn't it?

Of course it is, I made it up with that very intention.

Good Beer Week 2013 is upon us. It's here. It's finally here!

The culmination of an incredible amount of time and effort, crammed into 9 joyous days for the enjoyment the local (and not so local) public.

Where do you even start when you're talking about something as sensational as Good Beer Week? Well I'll keep this short and sweet. Here's a few thoughts about the week ahead and what I'll be doing;

What am I doing during the week?

Saturday the 18th.

Rhythm and Brews: Swinging by Trunk for some Honey APA and a little bit of pig on the spit before Ubering my way to the launch party.

Festival Hub Opening Party: Kicking off with a bang. The Terminus Hotel are hosting the launch party, and how awesome does it sound?

Sunday the 19th. 

Going Large: Goat IPAs, fried chicken with all the sides. Need I say more? If you're not going to this I have a few questions for you.

Monday the 20th. 

India v India: How good are Bridge Road's IPAs? How good is Horn Please? Put them together? An obvious choice for me.

Wednesday the 22nd.

Sourfest: After all these IPAs I'm attacking I'll need to cleanse the pallet with some sours. New and exclusive sours from Hendo's BrewCult and the 7 Cent lads. Hell yeah.

Abbey Collaby: Come on, one of the must-do events of the week. Matilda Bay and Moon Dog collaborate with the Goats for some good, old fashioned Abbotsford teamwork.

Friday the 24th. 

Hair Of The Dog Breakfast: BeerMenTV return to the mantle for the premiere breakfast event in town. Beer and breakfast? Heavenly match.


Hold on a second there, idiot. You've missed a couple of days!


Well spotted.

I plan on filling the weekdays sauntering around to the Pint Of Origin (PoO...)venues tasting the best of what the various states have to offer.

The weekend will heavily feature GABS. I haven't planned any of that yet. Not like some of these mechanical beasts that have structured the week down to a tee. I tip my hat to you guys. I'm not organised enough to execute that.

I'll probably hit up that giant 30cm burger with Rian at some stage.

I'll head to a few free events too, it's going to be a wonderful week.

What do I want from Good Beer Week this time around?

I just want pure enjoyment. Isn't that what everyone wants in life? Oooh, that marries up really tidily with that quote at the beginning of this post that I made up.

I also want to meet all the punters. Not all of them. I want to put faces to names of people that I've tweeted to, heard about etcetera and so forth.

That's why I've gone through this utterly pointless process of telling you what I'll be doing over the week. If you're doing any of the same events that I am, then come and say hello to me. I'll be nice. I promise.

I know what you're thinking. If I don't know my PoO or GABS schedule then how do I expect you to synchronise any of your schedules with me?

Valid.

Let me know when you're going and I'll see if any of it marries up with my schedule. I'll probably tweet my movements anyway. I don't even think you really care, to be honest.

Alright, well I'm bored now. I think it's time for a pre Good Beer Week beer anyway.

I'll see you suckers at the Terminus for the launch!

Classic Good Beer Week moment featuring James Smith as landlubbin' pirate with two idiots. 

Cool Story Brew #1 - The Great London Beer Flood of 1814

It's been quite some time since I last put virtual ink to webpaper on this blog, not that I have been short of beer-spiration with the local craft beer scene continuing to flourish much in the same way that, say, Nickelback's credibility doesn't. However, I've felt the need to get back to what my original idea for my contribution to this page, the strange and bizarre of the beer world.

So with that, and the cobwebs that accompanied my laziness-induced hiatus now out of the way, I offer you the first in a series of strange and bizarre happenings from history, involving... well, beer obviously. (Terrible set up... this is what happens when you don't write for 15 months...) This is the bittersweet tale of a beer, free in both price and spirit, that finally got fed up with fermenting in a large vat and decided it wanted to see the world.... killing eight in the process, (though unofficial reports put the number anywhere upwards of 30.)

Meux's Horse Shoe Brewery

Like many of the mass beer manufacturers of the recent era, Meux's Brewery Co Ltd, the  beer-producing cash-cow (or possibly penny-oxen at the time?) of Sir Henry Meux, had made a small fortune buying out smaller breweries in the area and brewing ales on the grandest of scales. From its humble beginnings in 1764, it had risen to be one of London's main suppliers of porter,  and had amassed a large collection of local breweries under its wing.  One particular brewery under the control of the Meux empire was the Horse Shoe Brewery on Tottenham Court Rd. In 1785, construction began on the company's flagship brewing set-up, a series of massive barrels, the largest of which, designed to hold over 510,000 litres of their best selling porter, the Meux's Nut Brown Ale. So large was this tank, that it required 29 iron hoops to hold this monstrosity together (fabricated reports suggest this was much like what Mama Cass had in her later years),

The morning of 17th October 1814 began the same way most did in Georgian London, under a thick cloud of industrialisation. The people went about their business like the fodder of future Dickens novels that they were, or would be. The porter had been fermenting away for months in these giant vats at the old Horse Shoe brewery, which had started to show signs of distress and aging, and, as maintenance was expensive and money was good, had been generally unattended by repairing hands. At around 6pm, the iron hoops gave way with an ear-shattering eruption that was reportedly heard up to 5 miles away. The 510,000-odd litres of beer, glorious beer, crashed down to the brewery floor causing a domino effect in rupturing the other giant vats surrounding the largest. In all, nearly 1,470,000lt of beer (about... *sniff* 2,655,000 pints... *sniff*) smashed through the walls of the brewery and flooded out like a tsunami of porter into Tottenham Court Road and New Street, with waves as high as 15ft bearing down on anybody in it's path.

.

Somewhat creepy 19th century etching depicting the event. 

The area surrounding the brewery was filled with slum housing primarily for Irish immigrants, many of whom dwelled in the basements of the streets, and as the time of the accident was before most of the working men had arrived home from a long day manually turning the wheels of industry, all eight of those who were officially reported to have died were women and children. Adding further insult to injury and a smattering of irony, the wave of beer also destroyed the local Tavistock Arms, killing 14 year old barmaid Eleanor Cooper.  Although many rushed to the aide of the scores of people injured in the flood, many locals began gathering pots and pans, kettles and anything else that could house the beer and began transporting it back to their surviving dwellings. Reports in the local press at the time (after the page 3 girl revealing a bare ankle) told of the workers beginning to arrive home, then great jubilation erupting in the flooded streets as men began swilling the porter and generally 'ladding' about. In early 19th century London, a street full of free beer was something one wouldn't celebrate lightly.

The Great Beer Flood of London Recreation Society

during one of their daily re-enactments.

Of course, the Meux Brewing Co Ltd was hauled before the courts, lawyers were involved, wigs were worn and those hammery things did hammery type duties. Eventually, the whole thing was deemed to be an "Act of God" which was odd, as he was not on the books of the brewery at the time, nor later tried for his actions. Although the whole ordeal did just about bankrupt the Meux company, who lost a modern day equivalent of close to 100 million dollars, but did succeed in becoming the first mass-producing beer manufacturer to flood the market with their product to the detriment of all who suffer it, a tradition that is lovingly carried on today.

High Country Hijinx – Bridge Road Brewery

For a while now Bridge Road has been one of my favourite Australian breweries, so the fact that I'd never been up to visit the brewery was a criminal act of the most heinous variety.

An unassuming location from it's facade, but inside it's humble entrance was an oasis.

Once you're within 30 meters of the entrance you can smell pizza. Wonderful, mouthwatering pizza. The aroma only intensifies as you get further inside. It's one of the best smelling places I've ever been to.

Second only to the Russian delicatessen on Koornang Road, but that's another blog altogether.

It's a long weekend, so the place was pretty much packed. Any seat would would do us. What's that over there? An empty four seater? Score!

Grabbed the first round of beverages and sat down, basking in the glory of enjoying some of the countries best beer in their intended environment.

We could stay here for hours.

After a few minutes we got asked to leave as we'd actually wandered into the seats that belonged to the cafe next door, and they weren't licensed so they did not want to see us in their seats at all.

Again, on a seat finding mission we were lucky enough to get a legitimate four seater almost straight away.

One of my favourite pale ales, the Beechworth Pale was tasting spectacularly brewery fresh, while the newest kid on the block, the WalDo saison was especially popular on the hot day.

On the table next to us was a group of scumbags that I would have ignored had it not been for this upcoming anecdote.

It was a hot day, and on the drinks menu was a cracking solution to hot day. A Robust Porter float with vanilla bean ice cream. The scumbags at the next table also got the porter floats when we got them.

“What the hell is this shit? That's terrible! What the hell man?!”

...were the comments coming from the loudest scumbag from the scumbag table. This piqued my curiosity of course as the tastes that I was getting was chocolate, coffee and ice cream. It was gorgeous. One of the better floats that I've had.

“It tastes like chocolate, coffee and ice cream or some shit man. That is shit.”

Another pearl of wisdom from the loud scumbag.

He was right though, that's exactly what it tasted like but it was awesome.

I was lucky enough to make eye contact with the loud scumbag as he was delivering his expert analysis of the beer and said “What's wrong with you?!”.

It got a laugh from his co-conspirators, but did not get me any closer to finding out what was wrong with him.

A home made pretzel was enjoyed (like, a lot) and all was well.

Beechworth is a gold rush town that's absolutely picturesque and the brewery integrates seamlessly with the historic appearance of the building and town.

Bridge Road Brewery has now been ticked off the list and all feels right with the world.

 I will certainly be back.

It's customary to take a photo of decals. It's actually enforced by law.

High Country Hijinx – Bright

It takes delicate planning to ensure that we can enjoy every element of this excursion, having to work out timings and travel routes for optimal high country enjoyment.

One situation that required such planning was the activity flow of Saturday night. We would go to Bright Brewery to enjoy some lovely ales in the mountains before we would navigate to Tani Eat & Drink for dinner, before returning to Bright Brewery for a nightcap. (Or a night-10 gallon hat, amirite?)

So it turns out that none of this planning was required because Tani Eat & Drink is about 100m down the road from the Bright Brewery.

Sorted.

Let's have a beer!

The new brewery/bar looks really good and offers a spacious environment to enjoy what the brewery has to offer, but for even more aesthetically pleasing environment, sitting out the back is where it's at.

From your table you look out on the mountain side, in all it's glory. Now that I think of it, I really should have taken a photo of it because a picture tells a thousand words and I'm sure as hell not going to write a thousand words describing a majestic mountain environment. You can probably even imagine what it would be like without the photo, so I won't go in to it any further.

Jeez.

So, we were here to rekindle the love for the sweetheart who charmed us all that time ago but then went MIA. The very same MIA, that it's name is. Strange.

Clearly there was going to be many a glass filled with Bright's MIA IPA, but since I haven't had the range in a really long time, I thought I'd paddle up and get this done.

The paddle was a great idea because it's $12 for six generous samples of their range.

Value and fun.

I'm sure you're dying to know what I think about everything, so I'll tell you. The Blowhard Pale was tasting excellent, and far better then I ever remember it being so I made a mental note to get a pint of that later on. The real star however, was the Bright Lager. Who am I? When did I become a lager swilling heathen? Well that's not a fair judgement, you should be ashamed of yourself.

The Bright Lager clean, dry, a little fruity and it goes down an absolute treat on a warm day, which it certainly is today.

As much as I liked the Blowhard I was alternating between MIA and the lager for the remainder of the evening.

Not only is there good beer in gorgeous surroundings, but they have got toys. So if you're sick of talking to your boring friends there is the oft maligned escape of playing with some toys.

Highly controversial Jenga tactics.

Or if you have kids this would be handy. Yeah, it's probably intended for kids.

The result was a match of Jenga so rule-bendingly devious that I never want to see Jenga ever again.

Oh, special mention, the Fainters Dubbel was tasting really good too, but y'know, MIA.

Food time, and we began the arduous trek to Tani Eat & Drink that we could see from the brewery.

Seconds later, we arrive at Tani.

Good setting, great food.

$50 for the four course set menu. We don't mind what we get served, just bring us food four times and be done with it.

I really should have taken photos of the food. I suck at this.

Highlight course was the chicken with almonds, cauliflower, warrigal greens with a soy milk sauce.

I hate myself for thinking about it again because I want it again now. Even though it's 8:35am I would be all over that chicken.

It should also be noted that Myrtleford Butter is one of the best products to ever be conceived by humankind. I'm not sure if it's already a wonder of the world, but it can only be a matter of time.

MIA money shot. I even used an effect on the photo. 

Rather than return to the brewery we were swept up in some kind of festival that included guitars and classic rock.

I won't bore you with any more details.

Dave out.  

High Country Hijinx – ALL THE CHEESE

It's quite possible that along the way the car lost control and we plummeted to our grim deaths, because we found ourselves at the the Pearly Gates of heaven.

Locals call it the Milawa Cheese Factory.

Cheese tasting? Don't mind if I do. Don't mind if I do a lot.

I'm not going to bore you with my uneducated thoughts on each cheese that we had but it's safe to say that they were all divine.

Highlights for me were the Milawa Blue, a very mild gorgonzola and the Markwood five year old mature cheddar.

The Milawa Cheese Factory have some local brewed beers and of course, locally made wine. Enjoyed on the day was a large cheese platter and some local chardonnay.

Pro tip of the day is to pick up the special deal of the $5 Milawa Camembert wheel, which was tasting sensational.

Also available are a number of cured meats and artisanal breads.

Definitely worth stopping in if you're in the area.


There's no room in the post for more photos, so I figured I'd just tack on some more gratuitous cheese shots. 

High Country Hijinx – Taminick Cellars

First cab off the rank for our little jaunt was Taminick Cellars, slightly off the beaten path from Glenrowan and in a beautiful country surrounding.  

It's a gorgeous little building among the vines which is abuzz at the current stage due to it being the middle of the vintage season for the winemakers who also happen to be the beer makers.

There was a wine paired lunch in progress when we arrived, about 30 people enjoying what looked like some delicious meals and I kind of wished I was staying for the meal.

However, we were here for a purpose so we organised some tasters of the range that was on offer at the current stage.

The Lazy Dog Ale was tasting really refreshing with a good bitterness and the warm weather of the day made this a very popular choice of the day.

The Howling Pale was fantastic. Fresh and hoppy, this is he best that I've tasted it and this is likely due to being extremely fresh. A cracking pale ale that I'll be delighted to see it get some larger distribution once head brewer James gets his new 10HL brewery set up.

The star of the show was the Dead Dog Stout that was being poured through the hand pump. Delightfully smooth with the dominance of coffee roast asserting itself to created a smooth as silk stout. Not at all weather appropriate for this one, but this was not an issue for us because it was delicious.

Back to business, we're hittin' the road.

I think it's cheese time.