Other

Some beers…

Rocky Ridge – Rock On XPA, 4% 375ml can. This is an XPA, but its not as “weird” and empty tasting as many. It has a nice fruity hop smell, nice piney bitterness, no idea if there’s rice or what grains are used, its also gluten reduced. Nothing over the top, 4% and easy drinking. 2.5/5

Rocky Ridge – Rock Candy Fruit Sour, 5.5& 375ml can. Smells like a sour with some kind of sweet candy-like smell, sherberty. Taste is like a sour sweet fruit, some kind of red fizzy candy. Website says the fruit used is passionfruit, kiwi and strawberry. Real nice 3/5

Garage Project – Pickle Beer Sour, 4.3% 375ml can. This big on dill flavour, and its actually great. Thought this might be a bit gimmicky, or also/otherwise a Gose style, but its not either. Its a nice sourness, some cucumber freshness and a lot of dill flavour. Theres some other things in there which I think are the “pickle spice” listed on the website, unsure what that is. Very enjoyable. 3/5

Rocky Ridge – Karl Requires Clarification West Coast IPA, 5.8% 375ml can. Its a modern West Coast IPA, always a bit lower on the malts than they used to be, the bittering hops are a bit less piney/resinous as well here. Ticks all the boxes for an IPA. Its fine. 2.5/5

Drinks

Some Beers

Bonehead Brewing in Melbourne Victoria, another new brewery for me.
Bonehead Brewing – Sweet Pea M.D.L. Melbourne Dark Lager, 4.8% 375ml can. The style is basically a Schwarzbier. The smell is fantastic big coffee malts and cocoa. The taste complex but not muddled or overpowering, its nice roasty dark malts, bitter cocoa and coffee notes, and it has that cola thing going on that keeps it all open on the tongue. The hopping is very mild and leaves it all up to the dark lingering malts it seems, that or its just well balanced with the malt bitterness and cola-thing. All of this and its still a very crisp, and clean even, very drinkable, super enjoyable dark lager. What a great beer. 3/5

Rocky Ridge – Good Energy V2, West Coast Juicy IPA, 7% 375ml can. Another good colab with my local alcohol purveyor (Copper & Oak). Stinks real big and nice, Hi-C orange juice, mango, guava, passionfruit etc… The more oldschool West Coast IPA elements are there in the pine resin and sweeter malts as a base, but then it has all the big juicy style stuff as well on top, the soft mouthfeel and big rounded out hop bitterness, the crazy fruity juicyness. It works well. Real nice. 2.5/5.

Also, had another Rocky Ridge Door to Helles (3.5/5), and it was again fantastic even after 3 months.

Drinks

Some beers…

Pirate Life – Short Stack, Brown Ale. 8% 355ml can. I just assumed this was a standard Brown ale, it is not. Its 8% to begin with, is dark, viscous and contains maple syrup. This is some kind of big sweet stout. Its really damn nice. Great thick lasting tan head, nice mild carbonation, smells like a sweet, syrupy dark stout, too. 3/5.

Rocky Ridge – The Door to Helles, Helles Lager 4.5% 375ml can. Nice textbook lager smell. Clear clean golden amber colour, nice head on pouring that settles to light speckled lacing. Very clean, very crisp. Minimal, light, with a nice sharp bitterness. Absolutely crushable, quenching, moreish, fantastic. 3.5/5.

Slow Lane Brewing – Definitely Maybe, Maibock 7% 375ml can. Nice old school Euro hop and biscuity, slight caramel malty smells. Taste is lovely malts, biscuity again, toasty, nothing too sweet or “crystal”, with good balanced hop bitterness. Just real nice stuff. A good version of a classic style. 3/5.

Slow Lane Brewing – Rye Sense of Humour, Roggenbier 4.5% 375ml can. A German Rye Ale. This smells funky as heck. A dark red-brown opaque colour. It uses a Heffewiezen yeast so that explains the funk. Has a bit of that rye “spicy” thing too. A very weird ale. Not a fan. I wont rate it because I don’t know other examples, I didn’t like this one too much, though. Not a Heffe fan, so very biased.

Eagle Bay – India Red Lager, 5.8% 375ml can. A colab with Copper & Oak. This is good. Caramel malty smells, taste is fanastic, its a IPL Red Lager. Well balanced, nice bitterness and a bit of dank, a bit of that Nelson Sauvin white wine thing, nice roasted and carmel malt flavours. Its basically like a West Coast IPA but a red ale and lagered and its rounded out and smoother. Its very damn nice. 3/5.

Music

Darkthrone – Astral Fortress

Updated/Cleaned up 15/11/22

Album images HERE

Astral Fortress is real good. Its Darkthrone, I cant really rate it some number. Side one is like OK, this is the modern Darkthrone we kinda know from the last 2 albums. The more you listen the more you find. There’s some call backs to previous album songs in the riffs, the references to cult bands, the awesome new Ted riff’s, and some real oldschool style D.T. black metal riffs now in a cleaner sound, and I swear there is literal Panzerfaust style riffs on here? Side 2 though, as well as all the above, has some real standout ideas, and riffs, and just interesting new directions. There’ also a few moments where you go OK fuck that’s something I have never heard from them before, or maybe at all. And its fantastic. Yes, Its not ’92 or ’93 or ’95….there’s not ever going to be another Under a Funeral Moon like album by Darkthrone, they did that, its probably the best Black Metal album ever and its called Under a Funeral Moon. Some weird Ved Buens Ende era isn’t coming, either (they did Goatlord already). Who would even want that now? We know these guys, and we go back time and again because we like what they do. I want the metal anchor of Darkthrone to hold fast doing what it does, what they want to do, regardless of opinion or modernity or genres, and I will love it not out of some mindless loyalty, but because its two people who like what I like and create an interpretation of the metal we all like into their own thing. And they do it very well.

I like to be surprised and challenged by music. I also like to be on a level playing field of sorts with people, like with friends, and just drop band names and best songs, and this and that fucking riff, and be related to each other by the love of the metal, the music. And that’s what we get from a band not making attention seeking hits, or pretending to be mythological creatures, but just making true good music in the genre (genres?) we love, with originality, and most of all their own personality.