Haandbryggeriet – Haandbakk Nordic Oud Bruin 375ml Bottle 6.7%. Sour Red/Brown ale, aged in oak wine barrels for 18months. No idea how old this one is, but its best before 05/05/23. Thats fine, its an Oud Bruin style beer, its just going to be extra sour… Brown sediment on the lid and caking the lip of the bottle (saved for brewing). Cloudy “dirty” dark brown colour, no head, little noticeable carbonation. Smells like an intense oaky red wine, leather, dark fruity vinegar, a little farmy spiciness. Taste is sour and tannic, that leads to sour citrus more lime than lemon, pucking green apples, and a big oak dryness on the finish, but the tartness keeps the mouth watering, and I keep sipping. Still great, regardless of when it was meant to have been at its best.
Wychwood Brewery – Hobgoblin Ruby Red ESB 4.5% 500ml can. Bready malts, caramel, dried dark fruits and a little spiciness. All the flavours and aromas really pop as it warms up. A real nice Bitter. Rocky Ridge – Lone Palm, Paloma Pale Ale 5.5% 375ml can. Guava, tropical fruit, lightly malty with a very soft hop bitterness. Has a fuller mouthfeel than a normal Pale ale. Rocky Ridge – Are You A Robot IPA 6.5% 375ml can. Its an modern IPA. Smell is mango, guava, pineapple, the usual suspects. You know the rest. Big modern hop bitterness with a soft hazy hop thing going on. Its fine. Rocky Ridge – Syncopation Pinapple Session IPA 4.5% 375ml can. Taste is very IPA bitter with no back up, very XPA kind of thing. Citrus pith bitterness and a what tastes like a rice XPA. Rocky Ridge – Polski Pivio Grodziskie 4.5% 375ml can. Real nice balanced smokiness. Not overpowering, and Its a good lager, the smoke seems to gives it just a bit more dryness. Nice. Slow Lane Brewing – Like a Chimney Lichtenhainer 4.0% 375ml can. The sour is pretty standard, probably kettle soured, and theres a bit too much of it. The smoke is light and is overpowered and disappears too fast after a couple of sips. Its fine except for that. Slow Lane Brewing – Liquid Bread Doppelbock 8.5% 375ml can.– This is big and boozy. Its rich, dark, fruity, viscous. Almost a port wine. There is a tonne of depth. A great version of a classic style. It is a fantastic beer. Artisan Brewing – Blonde Belgian Ale 5.9% 375ml can. Funky, fruity Abbey ale yeast. Pilsner-like malts. Its quite dry. Its everything missing from modern stronger pale ales and Golden ales. Saaz hops are well balanced. Real nice. Currumbin Valley – Waste Oil Stout 5.8% 375ml can. Looks like actual used motor oil, tastes like pith and ash. First sip you’re like Jesus, thats huge hopping for a Stout, It smells great. Pirate Life – Best Pilsner 4.8% 355ml can. Extremely clear light golden straw colour. Its a lovely beer, nice malts, nice bitterness, the combo of Ahtnahtum and Loral make the bitterness a bit sharp. Its nice. Finlays Brewing – Munich Helles 5.0% 375ml can. Slightly bready malts, nice light bitterness, and quite dry. Quite a lot of yeast esters going on. Its pretty good, could be a bit cleaner, but its good. Slow Lane Brewing – Refectory Beligian Blone Ale 4.8% 375ml can.– Theres little malt character, this is all yeast and hops. Its moderately light, crisp, with depth from a nice bitterness and spicy yeast character. Slow Lane Brewing – Frozen Seas Baltic Porter 8.5% 375ml can. – Pours a dark brown. This is big, rich booze infused dried fruit and port wine. Dry, big oaky dry, maybe the Special B malt. It’s really nice. Slow Lane Brewing – Stanger Danger Kolsch Style Ale 5.0% 375ml can. – Big yeast character, spicy. Its unfiltered. Weirdly Saison Dupont. This is a kolsch? Pirate Life – Lager Italiana Italian Lager 5.2% 355ml can. Its a nice lager. Its pretty much their Best Pilsner with a different hopping and lighter malt character. Rocky Ridge Brewing – M is for Milk Stout Cookies & Cream Milk Stout 5.5% 375ml can. Chocolatey, lactose, cocoa, all the good stuff. Nice!
Bayreuther – Hell, Helles Lager, 4.9% 500ml bottle. Nice standard Helles Lager, a little sweet, a little spicy, nice moderate bitterness, clean, crisp. Sierra Nevada – Celebration, 6.8% 375ml can. No idea when this was canned, but still fine, old school stuff, a classic. Hargreaves Hill – ESB, 5.2% 375ml can. Bitter, malty, hits all the marks for style, decent beer. Sudden Death Brewing – Bull Dog Brown, Brown Ale, 4.5% 500ml can. First beer from these guys, surprised its German, canned March of 22 so…Instantly comes across visually and smell as too massive and dark, more like a Porter, on drinking its mild and a decent Brown Ale, nice enough even with the age. Fruh – Kolsch, 4.8% 500ml can. A perfect standard, a great beer. It is what it is every time. Rocky Ridge – Karls Date Turns Sour, Lemon Sherbet Berliner 2,6% 375ml can. Its nice, its a lemony sour, tart and sherbetty.
I havent had or seen this since 2014, it was the first craft beer 6 pack I purchased and it was somewhere between $26 – $30? The most expensive 6 pack I had purchased at the time. I love the art on the containers and on the 6 pack holder. Its also a great old school style Rye IPA. Caramel and spicy rye malts, and a real nice big traditional bitterness. That old school “balanced” idea. Great stuff.
Anderson Valley Blood Orange Gose, Orange Ale 4.2% 375ml can. Pretty sure a version of this was my first Gose? I’d have to look back but some version of this was always around in the early days and disappeared and is now back on shelves. Its a good, enjoyable Gose, nothing extreme, easy drinking. Nice!
Nowhereman Raspberry Citrus Lager, 4.5% 375ml can. I love Nowhereman, but this is a bit meh because this particular can has real low carbonation, the raspberry and citrus suffers because of this I think. Decent beer, I reckon It would have been great fresh on tap. Will try it again if I can.
Beerfarm Passion Pils, Pilsner, 4.2% 375ml can. Smells like passionfruit and passionfruity hops. Did not expect how hoppy this would be for a fruited beer, Its not dulled down to allow for the fruit at all, just a straight up Pilsner with passionfruit in it. Its a nice beer, with some passionfruit adding a slight sourness and a nice smell. Crazy.
King Road Brewing Seasonal Pilsner, 4.5%, 375ml can. Made with a local grown hop called Beedelup. Canned in October so worried these hops wont be shining like they should. Still, its a Pilsner, so we’re not looking too hard at flavour or smell as much as bitterness, I guess. It still smells fantastic, very lemony, and that nice standard lager smell. This is a fantastic Pilsner, the hops are a very rounded bitterness rather than a sharp or focused bitterness but still fully fulfills the Pilsner hop needs. Excellent choice of hop. The malts, the yeast, the balance is all really great. Super enjoyable. First beer from this brewery and I hope to try more.
Big Shed Smash Gordon, SMASH Pale Ale, 4.5% 375ml can. Gladfield American Ale malt and US Bru-1 hops. This is a pale ale, tastes like a perfectly fine pale ale. Clean as all heck. The malt is very slightly bready. The hops seem very candy berry and pineapple. Perfectly good pale ale. Nice.
