11-12. Carlton Black, Coopers Pale Ale

don't fancy yours much

Newtown is Sydney’s Camden, sort of. Along and just off its main thoroughfare, King Street, lie funky shops, tons of places to eat and drink, and the mix of crazy crusties with a dog-on-a-string and middle-class  students and DINKYS slumming it that made London NW1 such an interesting place fifteen years ago. It’s not quite on the tourist trail yet and all the better for it.

One of the first proper Australian (drinking) hotels I ever went into was Newtown’s Marlborough Hotel, but we gave that one a swerve this time for the even more, erm, straightforward Town Hall Hotel, right next to the station and so handy for meeting Louise’s friend Emma in. Over two levels the smell of stale beer and sight of dodgy blokes staring into space over a schooner is never escapable. Bar staff are nice though, and for some reason it’s one of the few places that has St Peters Pale Ale on draught, a beer the barman tried to put me off buying the last time I was in there (“Have you had it before? It’s a bit odd-tasting…”). It also has Carlton Black and, since it was on my mind from a previous blog posting and I’d been drinking dark beers all day, that’s what I ordered.

none more black

They reckon Carlton Black, or something like it, has been brewed since 1835 which, in a bit of Melbourne/Sydney rivalry that I’m getting used to, tops Toohey’s Old by about thirty years. The beers themselves are pretty similar, with Black being more roasty in taste. As I said before, a good sessionable beer and if I were a Melbournite I’d probably drink more of it.

After a couple (and some second-hand smoke) on the first floor balcony of the Townie, we walked up to The Cooper’s Hotel, no relation to the brewery of that name but sellers of their brews amongst others. We came here for the bistro, which provided very large portions of pretty good food and (we hoped) would help offset the reasonable quantity of beer already sunk. To wash my pasta down I went for an old faithful, Coopers Pale Ale. I would imagine that this is Coopers’ best-seller, a 4.5% hazy, slightly malty, slightly soapy brew. There’s a bit of citrus in there but it doesn’t knock you over the head with it. The biggest difference between this and the modern aussie pale ales is that there’s virtually no hop taste. For me it means it’s very drinkable but not very exciting. A good standby when the choice isn’t great.

that's a very unmanly glass

After this night and before I wrote this up I’ve had the Pale Ale in the bottle a couple of times, once in great quantity at the house of our tallest friends. Goes down great with pizza and conversations about Sydney crims. Did I mention it’s bottle conditioned? It’s bottle conditioned. Drinking it out of the bottle mixes it up nicely but when they serve you with it in the Qantas Lounge the bar staff always give the bottle a roll to do this before the pour. They’ve obviously been told that you should do that.

10. Hargreaves Hill Stout

actual stout not pictured

A sunny Saturday afternoon found Louise and I in Darlinghurst with her brother and his wife, and I managed to persuade them to stop into the Local Taphouse for a quick one. The Local is the Sydney sister to East St Kilda’s original, which Louise and I stumbled upon by accident back in November 2008. Both places are beer meccas, keeping a rotating selection of interesting draughts from home and abroad (16 taps!) plus a good selection of bottled stuff. They also – and this is important – have a nice atmosphere and knowledgeable and friendly staff. If only the Sydney branch wasn’t in the Eastern Suburbs…

In deference to our visitors we shared a paddle of samplers of pale-aley locals so that they might find something they liked. In my 2010 beer odyssey I really don’t think I should be counting little slurps as “beers drank” so we’ll pass over that – and mention what is technically beer 9a – Kostrizer Schwarzbier, a light (4.8%) black ale with a sweetish tinge which I had drunk in Germany a couple of years ago and was, on this day, one of only two dark beers on tap (well, it is summer).

The other dark beer was part of a brewery showcase for the Hargreaves Hill Brewery. This Victorian brewery was destroyed in the bush fires of February 2009 but has risen, phoenix-like, to be brewing again and doing very nicely. Three beers were on display – their pale ale, their hefeweizen and their stout, which was my choice.

At 6.7% this is a strong brew, chewy, very black in colour, with good licorice and coffee flavours. Worth checking out. Not sure if Hargreaves Hill are up to bottling this yet, but if you find it on draught you should definitely give it a try. Might be worth the 50km trip out of Melbourne for a visit to their brewery tap.

I mentioned above that the staff at The Local were friendly. Well, as we were supping up and about to leave one of them came over to us and, very politely, told us that the table we were sat was reserved for a group in about twenty minutes time, would we mind moving to another? Just as we were about to say that we were leaving anyway, he continued to say that he’d shout us a free beer each for our inconvenience. How good is that? Louise and I had another, and because we felt so welcome we bought another beer after that, what is I suppose 10b, Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier Marzen, the smokiest beer on the planet and one of my top three beers of all time. The memories of Bamberg came flooding back with every sip. It was about this time, Mark and Deanna having long gone, that we started phoning Louise’s friends to see if they’d be up for a beer over in Newtown…

6-9. James Squire Golden Ale, Governor King, Craic, Choc Bock

I believe five pints constitutes "a binge"

Ooh,  a session.

The James Squire beers were my first inkling that Aussie beer could be something other than Fosters. I may have had a Coopers at some point earlier, but on my first adult trip to Oz in 2006 Louise made sure I tried a few, including their limited edition Rum Rebellion Porter which I really wish they’d make again.

You probably all know the story of James Squire, but just in case you don’t: James Squire was probably the first commercial brewer in Australia. A sometime publican and habitual criminal back in the Old Dart, Squire came over in the First Fleet in 1788. He apparently started brewing more-or-less straight away, and at the end of his sentence he set up a farm at Kissing Point. Being the first man to successfully cultivate hops in Australia, Squire opened The Malting Shovel Tavern to help slake the thirst of river travellers passing his property, lying as it did half-way between Sydney and Parramatta. As was the custom in those days,  Squire brewed his own beer for his tavern, and continued to do so until his death in 1822. His children kept the brewery going until 1837. Kissing Point now lies within the well-to-do Sydney suburb of Putney.

The modern 21st century James Squire beers owe their existence to an American and our old friends Lion Nathan but come back! They’re still worth drinking.

The American in question is Chuck Hahn. In 1986 Hahn set up the Hahn Brewery in Sydney, one of the first of the new wave of small breweries in Australia. The recession of the early nineties led to a sell-out to Lion Nathan. The big boys recognised that Hahn wasn’t just any chancer, and worked with him to create a new line of beers. The Camperdown Brewery had its name changed to The Malt Shovel Brewery in honour of Australia’s first brewer and the new beers were called…I see you’re ahead of me.

Last week Squiresy (no relation) and I felt the need for post-work beers. A big project had been delivered, it was hot, it was Tuesday…we had lots of excuses. We went down to the James Squire Brewhouse on King St Wharf, helpfully downhill from our place of employment, and settled in for a few.

One of the good things about the Brewhouse is that it sells beer in pints. One of the bad things is that those pints aint cheap. However, we arrived during Happy Hour and were able to get a couple of $5 big’uns down each before the prices rose.

My cheap and cheerful drinks were both Golden Ale, light and eminently sessionable. There’s been grumbles in the beer community that this isn’t what it was a few years ago, but its slightly bitter, slightly fruityness went down well enough.

After six o’clock I decided to go for one of the beers that are only brewed in the Beerhouses, and not bottled or kegged for sale elsewhere. Governor King is an unfiltered pale ale, and it was pretty insipid. No real hop flavour, and a watery dullness that was a chore to finish. Blah.

Keen for some taste (and looking to replace the dinner we’d not got round to ordering, let alone eating), my next choice was a pint of Craic. Can you guess what kind of beer it is? Irish stout, and done well, despite the rather annoying name. Another of the exclusive Brewhouse beers, this is thick, toasty, slightly nutty and much nicer than Australian-brewed Guinness. But then everything is nicer than Australian-brewed Guinness.

The night was becoming hazy but I was determined to try the Chock Bock. The Governor King and Craic are always on, but this was a new one and didn’t even have a proper sign on the tap. And it was 6.9%. At a quarter to ten these things are catnip to me.

Pity it was so average. Maybe my tastebuds were shot, but the only taste I could get out of it was a slight caramelly sweetness. No chocolate at all. It was a bit thin too.

Davo stuck with the Pilsener all night and one might think he made the right decision, given the up and down nature of my experiences. However, his hangover the next day was about twice as bad as mine, so perhaps not.

5. Mad Abbot Dubbel

Dubbel vision

Australia shuts down between Christmas and Australia Day. I’m used to not being able to get anything done from Dec 24-Jan 4, but the extra three weeks of inability to arrange any meetings, get anybody’s advice on anything or generally DO ANYTHING AT WORK other than plan and generally tidy up is really annoying. Next year I’ll arrange my work so that I have quiet things to do so I won’t get so stressed about the slowness of the pace. And I’ll take some of my holiday time then too, given that the Sydney Ashes Test will be on.

This year Louise and I decided to go on summer holiday before Christmas, which was a good idea in that it was cheaper and less busy than it would have been after the festivities. We had a great time in Port Macquarie (an hour’s flight north of Sydney), swimming, reading, walking and (of course) boozing.

big steel beer brewing things

Port Macquarie is home to the Little Brewing Company, Kylie and Warwick Little’s two-and-a-half-year old micro. It’s doing pretty well, winning awards and brewing beers people want to drink. We sampled the standard Wicked Elf range at the brewery – Pale, Pilsener and Witbier – and had a good chat with Kylie, while Warwick and his offsider tended the brewing equipment a few yards away. We were lucky to also be able to taste one of the brewery’s Mad Abbot range from the tap too, their Dubbel. Louise bought me four packs of the Dubbel and Tripel as my Christmas present and we caught a cab to a winery…

the condensation is real

Late the other night I cracked open a Dubbel. The Littles are huge fans of Belgian Trappist beers and this is a pretty good version of one of those. It’s strong enough at 6.9%, but doesn’t knock you over the head with alcohol. As it warms (don’t drink it out of the fridge, cellar temperature please) the flavours become more obvious –  spice and vine fruits, sweet but not too sweet. I’d prefer the head to stick around a bit longer but other than that I have no complaints at all. An excellent beer that will no doubt develop if you keep one for a year or so in a dark place. Looking forward to trying a Tripel soon.

At some point in the future the Littles are planning a cafe in town to sell their beer (and other NSW micros, I think Kylie said) but they’re concentrating on brewing the beer for now, as demand is outstripping supply. If you find yourself in Port Mac get a cab over and pay them a visit.

4. Tooheys Old

Old

Once upon a time all Aussie beers were like this. Before the Foster brothers (Americans!) and German immigrants and the introduction of refrigeration, lager was unknown in Australia – too bloody hot and no handy caves near the breweries.

Tooheys have been brewing Old, or something like it,  since 1872. Malty, vanilla-y, and with just a hint of burnt ash and coffee, this is my favourite Australian session ale. There are two other mass-produced dark ales that run it close, but Kent Old is more like a brown ale and Carlton Black is more bitter, and both are more difficult to get on draught in Sydney (although the St Leonard’s Tavern, a short walk from my place, does serve Black). Old has become my default draught in pubs that cater for the older generation. Yes, Tooheys are now part of Lion Nathan,  evil megaswill brewers, but as long as they remember at least a little bit of their history they’ll just about be ok by me.

Details: These were my first draught beers of the year, drunk in two places. The first two schooners slipped down at the Coogee Legion Club. One day I’ll have to do a separate post on Retired Servicemen’s Clubs and their influence on the community in Australia: there’s nothing quite like them anywhere else. Louise and I had been swimming at Coogee and snorkelling at Clovelly (hello British readers, wiping the snow off your keyboards) and popped in here for a couple after some excellent barramundi and chips from the hilariously-titled (sarcasm)  Chish and Fips on the beach.

Getting into one of these places usually entails either becoming a member (generally not that expensive, but Groucho’s rule applies) or proving that you live at least 6km away so that you can sign in as a guest, thanks to NSW’s oddly antiquated licensing laws. The guy on the desk didn’t both to ask us for any ID, which won the place a few points in my book, having had my protestations of “but I’m on holiday from England!” fall on deaf ears at the North Sydney Anzac Club a few months ago. Clearly Gallipoli is still an issue for some.

The beer selection is all the usual suspects (Louise had Resch’s) but, and here’s why we go into these places, the schooners were $3.80 each. And if I’d been a member they’d have been even cheaper.

Wanting to get away from the man/woman duo doing Lionel Richie/Fleetwood Mac covers in the corner, we slid across to the infamous Coogee Bay Hotel. Not being on the pull and not wishing to get glassed in the face, or made to eat their chocolate ice-cream, we only stayed for one and then used their bottlo to get a longneck of the beer of the evening to take home. Lovely day.

Lion Nathan have been bought up by Kirin recently: I wonder if the Japanese, with their love of dark lagers, will get a chance to try Old?

3. James Squire Sundown Lager

No, I didn’t buy a carton. Just a six-pack.

James Squire bought this beer in as a limited release last summer, supposedly hoping to tease lager drinkers towards more full-flavoured beers. It obviously was very popular as the label has been redesigned (one of the reasons why I can’t find an up-to-date picture of a bottle on the web) and it’s been relaunched as a year-round, but quintessentially summer, brew.

I don’t think confirmed lager drinkers would use it a as gateway beer though – in fact I think that’s a false premise. People who don’t drink ales mainly don’t drink them because they don’t like them. The idea of converting people suggests that lagers as a whole are inferior in some way and that’s  not the case. There are plenty of very average ales available too.

Tastes pretty good, but nothing special. Bitter, slight citrus taste. Easy to drink, 4.4% and $16 a six at Cellarbrations, another of Crows Nest’s fine collection of bottlos. Does the job, nothing more.

2. Knappstein Reserve Lager

Julian put me onto this stuff a while ago and thanks to Jim’s Cellars, one of five bottlos (that I know of) in Crows Nest, I have a handy supply should I need some. Which I felt like I did today.

Sometimes you want something cool, crisp and refreshing but also with a distinctive taste. Knappstein Reserve Lager is that animal, a pale Bavarian style beer made with sauvin hops that are grown in New Zealand, not far from some classic Sauv Blanc vineyards which, it’s suggested, affect in some way the taste of the hops. I guess it’s something to do with the (I can’t believe I’m going to use this word) terroir. There’s certainly a citrussy, slightly floral taste to the beer, leavened with a smooth bitterness which stops the fruit and flowers from cloying. It’s very drinkable but, in true boutique style, it only comes in (expensive) 4-packs so a full-on session on these is difficult.

The beer is a spin-off of the Knappstein Winery in Clare, South Australia, and the promotional material suggests, a little too strongly in my opinion, that beers are better with a master wine-maker’s attention to detail. Bit patronising and patently not true, as there are countless great beers made by people who have never made wine at all. But this is definitely one of my top ten Aussie beers so they must be doing something right. There’s unlikely to be any of my 4-pack left tomorrow morning.

1. Coopers Mild Ale

An odd one to start the year off with. I first encountered this newish addition to South Australia’s Coopers stable in The Oaks with Squiresy, Lorks and some people who aren’t English in September last year, late into one hell of a Leo. It was on draft, I drank a couple of schooners, spilt half of one over my trousers, and got taken home by Louise. My memory of the beer itself was that it was nothing like a typical English mild, not particularly sweet and a bit fizzy.

Now that I’ve found it in bottles I’ve bought it a few times when I just want a “no-brainer” beer. You know, you drink it but you don’t really notice. Not too strong , but has a beer taste and refreshes. It’s technically a mid-strength beer, a type of beer at 3-4% that is remarkably popular in Queensland and Western Australia, where they know what a thirst is, but not big in NSW and other more temperate climes. It’s nice to read that Coopers don’t adulterate full-strength beer to make their Mild as others do, but brew it at 3.5% on purpose. You know, like real brewers do. Like all Coopers ales, it re-ferments in the bottle so it’s a living product too.

So, if I was to describe it, I’d say it was a fizzy, light-coloured, medium-bodied session ale with no pretensions. Oh, and at A$11.50 for 6 stubbies it’s the cheapest thing in BWS that I’d actually drink. Apparently it’s also available in cans, although I don’t know if they leave the yeast in those so it might taste a bit different.

Matutu

Due to various work-related circumstances, our honeymoon ended up being just over two months after our wedding.  Mainstream New Zealand beer, Heineken and VB(!) were much in evidence in The Cook Islands,  a sorry state of affairs in such a beautiful spot.

When we previously went to the Cooks there was a local beer but that brewery closed down a couple of years ago. Since then two fine gentlemen have started up the Matutu Brewery on Rarotonga, an independent microbrewery with two main beers to their credit so far.

Matutu Mai is a lager in a German style, light and refreshing. I only drank this a couple of times as I was far more interested in Matutu Kiva.  A pale ale in the style of a British ale, it’s not bad at all. My first taste of both beers was in Kura’s Kitchen at Atiu Villas, the island of Atiu‘s biggest tourist accommodation (six villas) and our base for a fantastic five days.

Distribution is…spotty. Back on Rarotonga, I went into a few places in Averua one day to get some bottles only to be told that the truck hadn’t come so they didn’t have any. When would they be likely to get some? Dunno, maybe tomorrow, maybe not. I ended up tracking a six pack down in Muri at a small general store that let me have them for a very welcome NZ$2.50 (AU$2.00) each. At The Pacific Resort the night before one had cost me NZ$7.50…

On Atiu, Roger and Andrew at Atiu Villas had a decent supply at a decent price so all was well during our stay there. I was the only person on the island actually drinking them though. More on Atiu’s own beer in an upcoming post.

I’ve found out since I left that the Matutu boys are happy to give you a tour of their brewery, and that if you turn up at their place with a suitable receptacle they’ll fill it up for you with your choice of their beer, fresh as you can get. Yet another reason for me to return to the Cooks.

There are two further things I’d note about the beers. The bottles are filled to within millimetres of the bottle top, which is good value if a little dangerous when opening. Also, I did notice differences in quality between bottles depending on how long they’d been out of the brewery, and the two I bought back to Sydney with me were slightly flat. If they can get the consistency right, though, I think Eric and James will be onto a winner. Buying local and tasting nicer than Speights have to be two good reasons for supporting Matutu.

Old Ball & Chain

Knowing Al, Knowing Lou

Funny how your wedding takes precedence over pretty much every other thing in your life for months on end.  I’m back.

Speaking of weddings, We’d found from attending other peoples’ that one of the new (?) must-dos is to have a personalised little bag of sugar almonds for each attendee on the table – these things are called bombonieres. Louise and I walk the line between enjoying tradition (even imported ones) but also rebelling against it, so we decided on a more personal (and useful) memento of our wedding. Beer. After all, what symbolises health, wealth, happiness, fertility and long life more than sophisticated homebrew?

For that is what we provided. A few weeks before the happy event we went to The Beer Factory in Seven Hills and, with the help of someone who knew what they were doing, followed a recipe to make 50 litres of a clone of Toohey’s Old (brew no. 208, if you want to have a go yourself). Perhaps it was the stinkingly hot day (40 deg C) or our usual cackhandedness, but we managed to rather overdo the yeast, scooping out handfuls of the stuff before it absorbed into the brew. Our expert didn’t see us doing this so we think we got away with it, but it meant the three-week wait for the beer to brew was more anxious on our part than it might have been. We may also have been less than precise with some of our other measures which means that we’ll never be able to make exactly the same beer again.

On a much cooler Saturday our friend Peter drove us back to The Beer Factory to help us bottle the stuff. After sterilising the bottles we were set up by a tap and, after a quick taste or two, we set to filling 90-odd half-litre bottles and whacking crown seals on them.

Louise and I had decided that “no. 208”, a great name for a bus, was a bit boring for our wedding beer. It took a surprisingly short amount of time for us to come up with “Old Ball & Chain” as a suitable substitute and Louise set about designing the label, using Old Melbourne Gaol and Abba as her main influences.

I’d recommend the Beer Factory experience to anyone who wants to brew themselves some beer but doesn’t have the time, space or ability to home-brew properly. 50-litre batches should perhaps be shared between two or three friends, as (a) it’s a fun few hours out together, (b) it lessens the workload, (c) it reduces the amount of fridge space you’ll require to store them, and (d) it means you don’t have to drink 100 bottles of the same stuff in a relatively short time. Believe me, we were craving variety after “only” working our way through the 40-odd bottles we didn’t give away. It works out relatively cheaply too, especially if you can provide your own bottles, which of course you can recycle, and don’t bother with labels.

So how did it taste? Well, my first thoughts were that it was like a cross between Toohey’s Old and Newcastle Brown Ale, and on further consumption I’d stick with that. Alas, the yeast issue mentioned above did leave a slight apple-like aftertaste which is, I read, the hallmark of unfermented yeast in a beer. Oops. But it didn’t really detract too much from the good swiggin’ dark beer.

Post script: on a trip to Kiama recently I had a couple of schooners of Kent Old, a beer not often found on draught these days, and was shocked to find that, lack of apple taste aside, it was pretty much identical to Old Ball & Chain. Looked the same too. So if you want to taste what our never-to-be-repeated wedding beer was like, seek out some Kent Old. Bizarrely, the place I’m told you’re most likely to be able to do this is…Newcastle (NSW).