Tripple Hightail

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. In my last post I had a good whinge about my epic brewday fail. It is true it was a massive failure that meant I got no Zen. However I have some lightbulbs on the drive. Ideas for new tweaks on saisons, beers that I’ll brew in the coming months, and a bit about getting some beer made that I can actually sell. I’ve had some awesome conversations about this recently, everything from finding people who will actually talk to me about doing beer on a contract basis, people I think can make good beer, and do it in volumes I can handle and where I can play in the brew house. Also my folks are OK with the idea of me pinching part of the farm workshop with a small brew house (a nano brewery).

It’s still all just talk, but its good talk. Now I need to look more into the boring paperwork side of things. This is probably something that the guys at Mountain Goat did 15 years ago. Those lucky (read hard-working) bastards have made it to 15 years in the brewing industry. They are the Sierra Nevada of the Australian brewing industry. I don’t love all their beers, don’t get me started on the Steam Ale, but a their stout and a bunch of their one offs are great, as is the original Hightail Ale. These guys are the You Am I of the Australian beer scene, without them we wouldn’t have breweries like Moondog, Feral or even Little Creatures.

Trailblazers and trendsetters.

Anyway to their beer that I’m drinking while I’m contemplating the mountain of paper work that lies in front of me – Mountain Goat Triple Hightail. It’s a bigger version of its little bro, it has the same chewy flavor but its kind of sweeter. That might be due to the bumped up booze content. The beer has a definite belgo feel to it, again I think it’s the chewy boozy thing. I like it. After drinking Hightail for a few years this is a nice change, a boozy less hoppy version. Actually I can’t work out how many years I’ve been drinking Hightail for, probably 10 at least? its just one of those always there beers.

Anyway cheers for 15 years of beers MG! good luck for the next 15. For now I’ll be happy if I can get something to a 1st birthday, and thanks to my dud brew day I maybe have an idea of an 1st b’day beer 🙂

Cheers D

 

Southern Bay Porter Three Ways

Just a quick post as I have to go have beers at a work related industry dinner. No doubt they will be serving Crown Lager because as we all know that is one classy mother of a beer.

Last night I went across to the Royston Hotel in Richmond to have a crack at some beers made by Hendo, at his “Southern Bay Porter Three Ways” event. This gave me not only a good excuse to drink some good beer with some like-minded people (always a good idea) and try some one-off beers (also a good idea) but also I also finally got to drink at the Royston.

Now I’ve only ever heard good things about the Royston, as a great pub and craft beer venue however I’ve never made it there. I have planned to but I’ve either had to many over the road at Mountain Goat or ventured there on days when it was closed. Fixed all that last night.

The unremarkable pub from the outside is warm and beery on the inside. Last night it also had three versions of one beer on the go, Southern Bay Metal Head Porter. This was designed, overseen, engineered, given birth to by Hendo, a man who does not have hair but is very intense about his beer and started his brewing career using only bottled Evian water.

Enough on Hendo, on to the beer. I’ve had the porter before (at De Ja Vu I think?) and it was ok, not the best beer in the world but certainly a good porter for having a few off on a lazy winter afternoon. Nice beer, not overly complicated but a good beer to go for if you want something dark.

Stage 2 to this beer was the addition of cold steeped coffee to one batch and bourbon vanilla to another. Enter the challenging beers!

So the coffee beer was on tap in the regular fashion and initially was I thought less impressive of the two adulterated “metal heads”, but then it warmed and it grew. The coffee added a real roasty backbone to the beer, almost a dustyness. There was a fair dose of fruity acidity added by the coffee, but I got more of my morning coffee hit than fruit out of this beer. There was also an interesting conversation about how much caffeine actually makes it into the beer? the answer – we don’t know. Worth considering over a beer though.

Now to the Bourbon Vanilla beer – this one was on hand tap, so is a less carbonated drop. This gave it a real soft pallet, with the removal of a bunch of the CO2 taking away part of the carbonic bite that comes from kegged beer. Add this to the vanilla sweetness and you have a velvet smooth beer that screams desert. One the first taste this beer made me go wow. What a beer, just so different, think vanilla or bourbon whiskey.

So I tasted all 3 beers at the same time, switching back and forwards. Initially I was in love with the vanilla, then I ended up in love with the coffee. Then I did a 50/50 mix. That didn’t really add anything special, but the beer was still good.

So get on down to the Royston right now if you want to try these beers, they might be still there? no idea how long for but get there anyway as they have a bunch of great beers on tap.

Oh and go hassle Hendo on twitter if you want to know about more of his beer events, I think his twitter is SirHendo but I don’t know the twitter so that’s just an informed guess.

Cheers D

The 10 minute commute and a Seedy Goat Coffee IPA

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned but I’ve got a new job. Its a good gig, more cash, great opportunity, all that stuff. Oh and did I mention that my commute to work is now only a 10 minute walk? Yep its great. It’s through a nice park too. Excellent way to start the day, that and coffee, that makes for a good start to the day. However today I am choosing to also end my day with coffee. It’s in beer though, a Seedy Goat Coffee IPA.

I will get to that in a minute. Firstly I brewed last week and it all went more or less to plan. Let there be ZEN! After my resignation IPA that was a prick of a brew day (mice, blocked equipment and electrical fires) and then the beer didn’t even work out (all sour and off tasting, I tipped it out) I was really hanging out for a good brew day. New equipment, fresh ingredients, no sheep in my brew house. What could go wrong? well a lot actually but the only two things that were anything other than spot on was some hops that I’d had for a while didn’t smell right so I used some other hops instead (it was some whole cone galaxy that was oxidised, didn’t smell good at all) and I forgot to put a charge of hops in the low ABV saison so I added it as dry hop instead.

Both beers are now fermenting away beautifully, well at least I think they are. My Dad checked them last night and reported that the temp controller was on 19 deg C (its set for 20 deg C) and that they looked all foamy and a bit brown. I’ll take that as a healthy krausen, and call them fermenting well. They need to be, I need to have the low ABV saison set for the ANHC “How low can you go” comp next weekend (the 15th Sept I think) and the IPA ready for Vicbrew (the 22nd Sept). So far so good, will have to see how they go.

Anyway back to the beer, its one of their seasonal releases, I usually like them but seldom go crazy for them. This beer is no real difference. Its good, and clean with some coffee character that’s a bit like you get out of those pour over or siphon coffees. Dont buy this beer expecting to taste espresso. It fits in the realm of an English IPA, the fruity coffee from Nicaragua sits well with fruity beer. They apparently also used galaxy and cascade hops, I’m not really getting them though. Could be the coffee cutting over the top or just me not getting them. Not sure, I may be having a bad tasting night? I’m not really sure on this one either way. Let me know if you’ve tried it?

Anyway that’ll do for now, day number 2 of the new job tomorrow.

Cheers D

 

 

Gypsy and the Goat

And now to a beer that sounds like a children’s story or a Tripple j hottest 100 winner. This isn’t my first go at this beer but I havent had time to taste it properly and reflect on it a little. Also it kind of went to the back of the fridge.

Now I have time, and I’m looking at emptying out the fridge as I’m moving in a week or so.

My first crack at this beer I wasn’t as into it as I am now. Really enjoying it.

So what is it? It’s a collaboration between Mountain Goat and Mikkeller. Mountain Goat doesnt do anything particularly awesome these days, good standby beers made in Richmond at a cool brewery that does great pizza. You may remember them from beers such as; Hightail Ale and Surefoot Stout. Mikkeller is a wandering gypsy brewer from Denmark but with no real fixed brewery address, all collaborations and contract stuff. He’s a little crazy and there is a YouTube link of him dancing in overalls somewhere. You may remember him from beers such as all the Beer Geek Brunch beers, his single hop beers and collaborations with every brewer worth his salt, if he hasn’t brewed with you and your good it’s just a matter of time…

Now to this beer. A black pepperberry IPA. It’s not the most massive IPA around, even for the black IPA’s that can sort of go either way. They can be massively hoppy (my preference) or just bitter light bodied stouts. This has some balance but I don’t think it all comes from the hops. There are pepperberries in this beer adding a kind of medicinal bitter hit to the beer.

What do they say about it…..Our collaboration brew with Danish brewer Mikkeller is out and about. It’s a Black Pepperberry IPA. Gypsy & The Goat is big, bitter and funnily enough, black. We added local Pepperberries to give a unique warming, peppery finish that blends perfectly with the wheelbarrow load of hops we added with it. For the beer nerds is 7.3% abv, 70BUs. Look for it at all good beer stores…

First tast of the beer I had it on its own. Tonight I had it with some lamb cutlets and mashed veg. The food balances this beer out, I think the meat hits a spot with the dark malts and the pepperberries. This one would go well with a steak, or a blue cheese (oh is there some in the fridge?). Well worth finding one if you can but it may be getting tough now as it was a once off deal.

Get some,

Cheers D

2 Good Beers……

It was yet another long day in the office. Lots of random annoying stuff, meetings that annoyed, people who wanted stuff that didn’t make sense. Beer o’clock came way too late in the day. I actually went to the gym as an escape from the work, and I enjoyed it. Oh dear what is going on with me?

Well at least I havent changed too much. I had dinner with Mundy last night, a mate from uni. Mundy first studied geology, then archology but now works in some kind of food processing IT and lives in Italy but he is moving to london soon. This week he was doing work on a tortia factory in Northern Melbourne.

Having beers and a parma with Mundy was just like being back at uni.

Now to the 2 good beers from tonight, completly unrelated to last night. I ended up at Beer Delux with a colleague, havent been there for a while, it is a venue that always has the potential to present good beers but can fail. Tonight it delivered a couple of good’uns.

Mountain Goat Saison – reminded me of Saison Dupont, just as a saison should.

Black Lung from Dr’s Orders – black lager that tasted dirty and ashy and black, but in a good way. This is a very tasty beer, not one that should work though. But it does.

There was one other note worthy beer I had, one from Moon Dog called McGuava, I think it was a guava flavored berlinervise. I tasted the guava, got a hint of lacto on the nose but not quite enough on the taste, and otherwise just enjoyed the beer. It wasnt outstanding, but I did like it. Perhaps the idea of the beer more than the beer.  Good beer for thought.

Well that’ll do for now, I wont bore you with the beers that were not that good.

Have a good weekend, I think I will 🙂

Cheers D

Winter – Surefoot Stout and Ugg Boots

Winter is finally here, when I was grabbing a paper this morning the guy at the shop told me he had two jumpers on and two pairs of pants on. I guess that is as clear a sign of anything that it is indeed Winter and cold. For me two things that say cold and winter, that is stout and ugg boots. As I haven’t brewed any stout for some months (yep way overdue for that) I have to buy some if I want to drink it, but hang on I’m ahead of myself. How did i get to buying some Surefoot Stout this evening?

Yesterday I noticed that James from Beer Bar Band posted on Surefoot Stout. Then I posted “tis a good beer, shame its not still on the regular roster” Very true words even if they were said myself. He noted that there was an out of roster batch at Vintage Cellars.

I then spent all today in a meeting where among all other things I dodged having to try and get shearing into the commonwealth games (hopefully). On the train on the way home I listened to an episode of the Jamil Show CYBI, the Shakespeare Stout re brew show.

All this dull work and talk of stout left me with no option but to go to my local Vintage Cellars with the hope of finding some Surefoot Stout. Thankfully it was there. Awesome. Its a tad sad that this beer isn’t on the regular roster these days, bumped back to being one of Mountain Goats “Rare Breed” or seasonal beers. It was nice to have a choice in my go to stout selection other than Coopers Best Extra Stout (a most excellent beer also) but the economics seem to have made this beer a once in a while rather than an always.

Anyway what is it? Its kind of an English stout, think coffee chocolate and roastyness. It has a really nice smooth mouth feel with a not too big dose of bitterness that seems to cling to the roof of your mouth. Its a really nice beer. Have this with some dark chocolate or some blue cheese (neither of which I have in the house unfortunately) The other thing this beer would work beautifully with is a stout float. The recipe is simple, just float some vanilla ice cream in a glass of stout. Enjoy.

Cheers D