3 Ravens Black Stout

Another small Vic brewer to test, this time with a stout. A stout imaginatively titled 'black' at that.

Bang. Aeration far too high, pretty damn fizzy out of the bottle. It says it's actually bottle conditioned - possibly this is the trouble - all I know is it took 10 minutes to be drinkable.

The aroma reminded me more of Coopers stout than anything else. Taste kind of along those lines too.. reminds me of good stouts without actually being one. Bit watery, bit fizzy even after settling, bit sour. Bit unimpressive all round. 4.0

Murray's Shawn's Fault Black IPA

I have to say, this is just about the final chance for Murray's after a run of pretty poor results.

This .. is not bad. Nice pour, good frothy head. It's a dark brown colour and 7.5%. Some (all?) of Murray's previous efforts had struggled to hide the alcohol: this does a bit better job at it.

Taste wise it's more porter than anything.. bit of malt in there too. Quite passable, not a chore but without being all that impressive, particularly given the mysteriously high price point. Goodbye Murray. 7.0

Mornington Peninsula IPA

Another IPA, this time from a hitherto unknown Victorian brewer.

Cutting straight to the chase, this is pretty darn good. Stonefruit hops dominate, it's a good ABV for the style, and nice refreshing mouthfeel too. I found a slight sour edge toward the end the only real downside for this one.

It's a step short of greatness (perhaps needs another hop style in there or something) but so far ahead of larger brewers (cough Squires cough). Good stuff guys, will drink this some more at the price point. 8.0

Mildura Brewery Mallee Bull Strong Ale

Bit of a gamble on this one.

5.6% is hardly 'strong' from the outset and it probably doesn't help to enter a beer with skepticism. But even being generous the main characteristic of this beer is its bittering hops. There's not enough malt for this style, not by a long shot.

Not a lot to recommend here unfortunately. 3.5

Burleigh Brewing My Wife's Bitter

Back to Burleigh for Myrtle's favoured drop.

Pours pretty dark actually with an off-white head, surprised me a little. Malty bread nose, bread malt taste too quite gentle and restrained. Ever so slight caramel to back it up. This is a faithful recreation of an english style ale.

Is this a seaside beer? Maybe for the english seaside? 7.0

Yeastie Boys Pot Kettle Black

Love-hate the name of this place, but by all accounts they brew some top drops.

This is a black IPA approached from the porter side. And indeed it smells like a porter, talks like a porter, and tastes like a porter. It's just lucky that the porter it resembles is in fact a very good one with dark chocolate and coffee delicacies.

There's probably a little more fruit / bitterness than the norm here but it's not as hoppy as I was expecting. Would like to try a fresher (or better still draft) effort to confirm what the brewers were aiming for, but even now this is a pretty top drop. 8.0

Green Flash West Coast IPA

Had heard a bit about Green Flash so excited to finally try one of their flagship IPAs, especially when the label suggests it's 'extravagantly hopped'.

7.3% is the target mark for a beer that's truly Indian like this one. Nose reminds me of stella hops. Bit of sediment swirling throughout this bottle.. but not offputting. It's quite opaque in any case.

It's got a lovely creamy head, and a lingering sweet citrus bitterness that make it a pretty good effort. But I can't help but think this is more a reasonable example of a style I love, rather than a steller example of an average style. Little bit heavy in the mouth, just not quite got the wow factor. 7.5

Monteith's Sparkling Ale

I need to stop buying things just because they're from NZ. Case in point:

What about this is sparkling? It's stale and lamentable throughout, insipid in all ways, with no real redeeming qualities. Even the fact it was a 500ml turned out to be a downside in this case.

Terrible. 2.0

Harviestoun Bitter & Twisted

I was oddly not looking forward to this one despite loving Harviestoun's first one.. a 4.2% blond beer doesn't usually set my world alight.

What a pleasant surprise then when this too turned out to be an excellent beer. Again this is true to the label in an impressive display of scottish truth in advertising: it is indeed zesty, spicy, and

The key is in the balance here - malt melds beautifully with the zingy bitterness. It's very well crafted. And very gently aerated as a deliberate measure to boot.

Looking forward to some further testing of this one, particularly given the attractive price point. 8.0

Double Espresso Premio Caffe Birra

Seems this is brewed by some mob in Scotland called Traditional Scottish Ales.

Beautiful nose if you're into coffee - doesn't hold anything back. No real head to speak of though (possibly a result of the coffee injection itself?).

The taste falls just short of backing this up, it's a little bit more watery than you'd like. Tastes of chicory, or like those Kopiko lollies. Bloody good way to back up a chocolate dessert though. 7.0

Mikkeller Texas Ranger

Well now this is different, even for Mikkeller. Nah scratch that it's just another stroke of genius (?) from the Dane.

This is absolutely beautiful to look at. Solid, pitch black, attractive mocha head, soupy and velvet. Smells delicious too, real quality presentation to this stout reflects the quality of brewer, and the quality of content.

Mouthfeel's brilliant too, the taste develops like a king stout throughout, top quality. But then you think, why is the back of my throat burning? And look it up on your phone. And realise it's filled with Chipotle peppers. The effect is pretty interesting. It's really quite spicy this, tastes of roasty jerky bbq, and it gathers down your throat rather than front of mouth. The beer itself is a bit like chili chocolate - two things I like, and together they're interesting, but actually flawed because they are not complimentary flavours.

It's hard to know what to give this. It's brilliant beer but just not my favourite thing. It seems there are two barrel aged versions of this also .. wow. The concept alone is mindblowing. 8.0

Mikkeller Jackie Brown

Mikkeller town once more. I'm putting the place for these as Denmark but it's a bit laughable given his strategy of gypsy world beer domination.

What the hey I'm just gonna copypaste the description I found:

Mikkellers tribute to the foul-mouthed stewardess Jackie Brown from Quentin Tarantino’s movie of the same name. It’s a roasty, chocolaty brown ale with hints of coffee and licorice. Being a Mikkeller brew the malts are inevitably complimented by a great amount of hop bitterness, aroma and flavour.

That's pretty much spot on for mine. This is strongly, offputtingly brown, but agreeable complex while maintaining a lovely drinkability due to the bitterness. Great stuff. Want more as soon as possible. 8.0

Invercargill Stanley Green

Hmm, another NZ brewer = time to take a chance.

This is marketed as an English Pale Ale and I'd say it fits the bill. It's a bit grainy when you take a pull, not much taste to begin with, pretty empty, then you get a sort of grapelike flavour from there on. Aftertaste and finish turns into that barley tea-like territory that EPAs often stray into. Bit sour in places also?

I quite enjoyed the aftertaste of this, but everything leading up to that was unappealing and hardly worth it. 5.0

Nail Stout

Nail Stout came recommended by several in the community, now finally tracked down for tasting.

The barman tells me Nail used to do a different stout that was absolutely excellent, and this was always the step down. But the current batch has leveled up a bit and found some middle ground.

This is certainly a fine stout, pitch black and creamy, with a strong choc-coffee aroma. Slightly too fizzy, and slightly too light for my personal tastes but it's well balanced and roasty throughout, with a fine bitter finish. 8.0

Mikkeller Thoerst IPA

Mikkeller's Thoerst, on tap at the Sail & Anchor.

This is a solid IPA with a herbal pine aroma and a nice frothy head. It's fruity sweet at the end but somehow the flavour profile is a bit different to the norm. Bitterness is integrated throughout though; it's clearly well crafted and balanced.

There's something, different, about this beer and it's hard to put a finger on it. It's not brilliant but certainly intriguing. 7.5

Burleigh Brewing 28 Pale Ale

The first venture into QLD craft brewing if I'm not mistaken.

Certainly pours nicely, dark, well built head, aroma of sweetness and bitterness, not bad.

Take a pull and it's pretty muted malt as the order of the day, bitterness more in line with a lager than anything particularly hoppy, little if any floral notes or fruit. Slight peppery finish.

This is not a particularly great beer - but taken in the beachy context of the label the watery nature starts to make a bit of sense. I could drink this under a cabana on the hot sands. 7.0

Test

8 Wired Haywired

Hooray, 8 Wired finally on tap. Our bartender at Sail and Anchor says he specifically lined up his holidays so he could come in (to work) to get blasted while they had 8 Wired. Sensible bloke.

All sorts of fruits here throughout the aroma and the beer itself, a veritable medley of plum, peach, melno, passionfruit, pineapple at turns. Very unlike any wheat based effort I've tried before. There's not much malt in the mid body, but it's all replaced by a nice uncompromisingly bitter finish that prevents it all from cloying.

I suppose it's a little heavy in the mouth for its ABV. But when it's so flavoursome it's hard to really care. Lovely stuff. 8.0

Temple Brewing Midnight IPA

Finally we reach the dark beer.

Sadly the brewer says he has no plans to launch a porter or a stout at this stage, they're involved in honey related seasonal beers to be produced in champagne bottles, and a couple of other projects keeping them and their production lines busy at present. So this is the closest we'll get.

Best head of the lot this, lingers wistfully, as does the first taste with burnt, hoppy, dry, bitter flavours. All good stuff. The brewer tells me they were looking to avoid 'fruit' here and it shows. Clearly stacks of hops used for a nice aroma with traces of passionfruit, but no real fruit or floral sweetness in the taste.

Highly drinkable, the best of their range, very good stuff without being astounding in any way. Passionate brewers here and bound to continue to improve I think. 7.5

Temple Brewing Saison

Saison, served appropriately in a nice wide goblet. Pretty attractive.

I'm told this and their other beers are being repackaged with the new branding and distributed via Phoenix, so we should be seeing these in Perth soon.

Slight powdery texture to this, mouthfeel and taste like a spicy, funked up wheat beer, most dominant characteristic is the citrus. Bit like a better version of Feral Golden Ace, with more kind of rural character to it.

I tired of this as it progressed. So yet again it's a 6.5 I'm afraid.

Temple Brewing Soba Ale

Beer three in the lineup: a Soba Ale fuelled with buckwheat. And with brewers 1 and 2 in the background talking to some American investor.

Pretty clean taste, easy drinking, bitter first up, develops a bit after that. Head hangs around well but low much like the others on tap. Not really drastically different but I know what they're getting at.

Not sure I would really have picked buckwheat, or indeed anything much out of the norm, if I wasn't already tipped off and looking for it in advance. But hey, I'm a fan of people trying different things and this is not a failure. 6.5

Temple Brewing Pale Ale

Next up: the ubiquitous Pale Ale (American edition).

Kind of sweetish malt aroma, pretty gentle beneath a creamy head. At first taste I thought the curse of sweet malt had ruined this one, but then Mr Pepper (Sgt Pepper? Cpt Pepper? Dr Pepper ??) arrives to save things toward the end with a bit of briskness to balance. There's less fruit in this than a lot of others - less than is suggested from the aroma, definitely - but more malt. Quite dry, possibly due to hop choice.

This is definitely an American Pale Ale as advertised and a reasonable example thereof. 6.5

Temple Brewing Bicycle Beer

Took the chance last time I was in town to visit the newly established Temple brewing, in its new premises now for just a couple of months. As I was there with time to spare I opted for the man-size tasting paddle, ie a middy of everything. And then a bit more. So it can't have been all bad.

First up the Bicycle Beer, finding its way into a few venues locally by the sounds.

Pretty low head on this, gently carbonated, nice for a beer of this character. At just 4.2% this is pretty lightweight but calls itself a tart ale, boasting salt (?) and 7 types of hops. Nice hoppy nose, quite grassy. Agreeable first bite, quite refreshing in the mouthfeel, reminds me of Hop Rocker more than anything.

The wheels fall off this particular bicycle a bit with the aftertaste.. little too sweet. Not a bad start. 6.5

8 Wired Tall Poppy India Red Ale

Must have missed this before but have since had it a couple times on tap also, for research purposes only of course.

India means it's hopped. Red means it's malty. Ale means I like it.

It's hard not to compare this to our lord and saviour Hopwired while drinking and in a direct one on one battle it cannot win. On its own though this is a very good drop and a fine example of a well-made, big, bold malty ale.

Can't understand why politicians and public figures are so against this beer. 8.0

William's Organic Pale Ale

William and I have jousted at various bottleshops for some time now but he finally got the better of me in Melbourne.

Old fashioned bottle. But what does 'organic' mean?

Initial bottle smell is agreeably malty. I expected it to pour quite dark but instead it's very very light indeed. Head dissipates disappointingly.

Taste wise I get green apple more than anything, it's quite unique. Little bit of citrus too, edge of something like white wine? Pretty refreshing.

This is very much an Australian Pale Ale in the mould of Coopers and resembles that more than anything. Efforts to compare it to American / English style examples will fall flat.

I enjoyed this quite a lot. Would be interested to see if it's a session beer also; may rise slightly if so. 7.0