Some Invasion Day beers…

Don’t support Australia Day, but always happy to have a public holiday and have a few beers.

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.

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.

Drinks

A real Budweiser

Budweiser Budvar. Artesian water, Moravian barley, Saaz hops. This is a really nice beer. A really great malty, lager funky, hoppy smell, it hits all the points. The taste is nicely malty, fantastic Saaz bitterness. Its a real beer compared to US Bud. This is really nice and stands strongly along side any good European Lager and Pilsner. 3/5.

Drinks

Some beers…

Nowhereman – Fresh Hop Lager, 5.3& 375ml can. A collaboration with a local hop producer. This kind of stuff will always be best on tap at the brewery as fresh as possible, unsure when this was canned but it seems to be about 3 months ago. Regardless, its a nice lager, nice malt character balanced with a real nice crisp bitterness from Victoria hops, they smell orange, mango, passionfruit. Though not as fresh as could be, this is still a real good beer that ticks all the boxes. 2.5/5.

★★★

Garage Project – Epuni Street Bitter, ESB, 5.5% 440ml can. An Extra Special/Strong Bitter. Big thick creamy head like a tap pour, very nice. Colour is amber/brown and and not fully translucent. Smells very malty, wholemeal bread, slightly yeasty with a touch of hops. Taste is biscuity, toasty, some slight sweetness from the malts, but the stand out is a herbal, earthy, very forward hop bitterness. The earthiness of the hops is really nice. This is really good. 3/5.

★★★

Jindabyne Brewing – Ol Black Diamond, Schwarzbier, 5.2% 440ml can. Another nice thick head on this pour. This is dark, opaque, with a nice tan head. Smell is dark roasted malts and lager yeast. Taste is dark and roasty malts, not overpowering, but very clean, as per the style which is basically a Pilsner. Pilsner hop character, obviously, and well balanced against the dark malt. A good Lager with nice dark roast malts that are not over powering, well balanced with a traditional hop character, and a clean finish. Very nice. 3/5

★★★

Sierra Nevada – Celebration, Fresh Hop IPA, 6.8% 355ml can. This was canned in October ’21 and it was still very damn good. An old style IPA with big malt character, the hops had dropped off so far as brightness and big notes, but still good bitterness, clean with only mild oxidization. I dont think I have had one of these for maybe 10 years? Nice. 2.5/5 only because the age doesn’t offer the full fresh hops it should, but the big malts allow for age and it was still very tasty.

★★★

Drinks

Some beers…

Pirate Life – Raspberry Lamington Stout. 6.5% 355ml can. Smells like fake raspberry and coconut, but still has a nice dark malt scent. Tastes like a stout, then an artificial coconut and a cocoa/chocolate flavour, no real raspberry taste except maybe a kind of berry juice sourness which is probably just a dark malt thing. Its weird, its drinkable, but its too artificial for me.

★★

Pirate Life – Stout. 5.8% 355ml can. Its a stout. Really good, too. Not much else to say. 3 stars.

★★★

Rocky Ridge – You Put the Beer in the Coconut, Dry Hopped Sour with Finger Lime and Coconut. 4.0% 375ml can. I haven’t has a sour in so long, and this seems very sour. Theres sourness, maybe some lime sourness but mostly probably lactic acid. And thats about it. Sone lactic funk on the nose. Some hop bitterness is detectable. Its a nice sour drink, sure, but there’s no coconut or way to know its finger limes and not lemon juice or just lactic acid. 2 stars

★★

Rocky Ridge – Rice Crispy, Rice Lager 5.0% 375ml can. Its clean, crisp, slightly sweet malts, lager style smell and hopping/bitterness. A nice clean crisp lager. Good stuff.

★★★

Pirate Life & Eyre Roasted – Coffee Porter. 6.0% 355ml can. Really big coffee. Insane coffee. Hard to say if any of the bitterness is actually hops. Big coffee and some well balanced dark malts. Gets a bit sweeter as it warms up, a bit of cocoa and chocolate in there, gets slightly medicinal, and the hops are there in the residual bitterness.

★★★

Drinks, Food

Reuben & Beer

Reuben from Old Faithful Perth

Petition Beer Corner. Artisan Brewing Rood Ster 2021 – a barrel aged Flanders Red Ale blended with an Imperial Belgian stout, and their unfiltered Lager.

Drinks

Some German Beers (Late-ToberFest)

Spaten – Oktoberfest , Lager/Marzen
Augustiner-Brau – Edelstoff, Lager/Dortmunder Export
Paulaner – Oktoberfest Bier, Lager/Marzen/Oktoberfest

Spaten – Oktoberfest, 5.9%, 500ml bottle.
Spaten-Franziskaner-Bräu is the brewery. Its a Lager-Marzen-Oktoberfst beer. Its a nice golden lager colour, a nice malty and lager yeast smell, nice head too. Nice back of the tongue bitterness, lager yeast characters are prominent, some mild malt characters, a sweet malt balanced with the bitter hops, some very slight toasty malt flavors in there as well, nothing is overbearing, its all well balanced.

Augustiner – Edelstoff, 5.7%, 500ml bottle.
Augustiner-Bräu. A Lager – European / Dortmunder Export. Lovely head, big lasting, good lager yeast smell, kind of minerally. Taste is light malt in there its noticeable, but its so mild, there’s hops and a nice bitterness but it doesn’t linger, This i have had before, and it is just so clean and crisp and drinkable. The hops and malt are just so balanced and crisp. An awesome beer.

Paulaner -Oktoberfest Bier, 5.8%, 500ml bottle.
Paulaner Brauerei, this is another Lager-Marzen Oktoberfest. Less head, more golden amber colour, sweeter smell. Taste is a bit more bitterness, some sweet malts. This is a lot like the Spaten, with slightly more malt, sweet malts mainly, and a little more hops bitterness, but also this has the mineral aspects of the above Augustiner. Its just good.