Yearly Archives: 2016

Wine review – Clonakilla, Craggy Range, Tate, Yalumba, Jacob’s Creek

Clonakilla Ceoltoiri 2015
Clonakilla vineyard, Murrumbateman, Canberra District, NSW
$45

Clonakilla’s push into Rhone Valley wine styles began with shiraz and now extends into varieties once thought to be too late ripening for the Canberra climate. However, in warm seasons like 2015, grenache, mourvedre and cinsault ripen fully and join shiraz in the fragrant, light-coloured Ceoltoiri (musicians), modelled on the Rhone’s Chateuneuf-du-Pape. The grapes come, “From a one acre block personally tended by Clonakilla founder and Irish fiddle player John Kirk”, writes winemaker Tim Kirk. The 2015 leads with the sweet, inviting fragrance of grenache. Delicious grenache flavours flow onto the palate, too, backed by spicy and earthy flavours and amazingly slick, slippery tannins. It’s very young and fruity now but should take on more earthy, savoury character with even short-term cellaring.

Clonakilla Hilltops Shiraz 2015
Hilltops, NSW

$28–$35

What if Canberra had been located at Young, centre of the Hilltops region? Would our winemakers be known fuller, rounder styles in the warmer climate? And would they have used grapes from Murrumbateman for their secondary wines? We’ll never know. We can be sure, however, that winemaker Tim Kirk’s entry-level red captures the deep, sweet, black-cherry-like flavours of Hilltops shiraz. The intense fruit flavour comes with spice, savour and satisfying, smooth tannins.

Craggy Range Chardonnay 2015
Gimblett Gravels, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand

$31.30–$40
The spare, stony soils of the Gimblett Gravels wine region, likened by some to hydroponic growing, produce unique wines, some of breathtaking quality. From those soils, Craggy Range gives us a particularly delicate, refined take on chardonnay. Fermentation and maturation in barrels impinge not at all on the soft, delicious, lemony palate – other than providing a deep, smooth texture and subtle barrel-influenced aftertaste.

Tate Franklin Tate Estate Sauvignon Blanc Semillon 2015
Margaret River, Western Australia

$16
The Tate family founded Margaret River’s Evans and Tate in the early seventies. The business now belongs to McWilliams, but Franklin Tate continues to make Margaret River wine under his own label. His version of the region’s much-loved sauvignon blanc-semillon blend gives lashing of fresh, vibrant fruit flavours, with typically pungent, herbaceous edge. It’s fresh, dry and made to drink now.

Yalumba Y Series Tempranillo
South Australia

$10–$14
Yalumba’s work on its more expensive wines, combined with extensive grape sourcing, results in cheaper wines of very high quality. For as little as $10 (you can pay more if you want) Y Series gives a big mouthful of juicy, ripe tempranillo flavour. It’s clean, fresh and vibrant, soft enough to drink now but with sufficient tannin to give structure and finish.

Jacob’s Creek Reserve Signature Cabernet Sauvignon 2014
Barossa, South Australia
$17.10–$20
A third certainty, after death and taxes (large companies excluded), is the perennial discounting of Jacob’s Creek wines. The now confusing array of wines under the label includes this extraordinarily rich, solid cabernet, anointed with the two apparently meaningless terms “reserve” and “signature”. While we choke on the superlatives, we can happily drink this sturdy, sweet-fruited Barossa cabernet and marvel how much pleasure we get from such a modest outlay.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2016
First published 27 April 2016 in the Canberra Times

Oops, by gum, another Canberra brewer

Clonakilla winemaker Tim Kirk once told me the quickest way to humility was through humiliation (according to St Augustine). And so, eating humble pie, this column belatedly introduces the Tortured Gum Brewery of Hume.

The brewer launched in 2013, a year before BentSpoke, two years before Pact Beer Co and three years ahead of Capital Brewing Co’s arrival this month. Somewhere along the line Tortured Gum morphed out of what used to be U-brew it, a brew-your-own franchise that once occupied the same site.

Tortured Gum Brewery offers 150 recipes for customers to brew on site and also sells its own keg and bottle beers into Canberra pubs, clubs, restaurants, bars and one retail outlet.

Owner Craig McAuliffe says the business is currently split about 60:40 between private and commercial brewing, but the mix is moving steadily to the commercial side.

Tortured Gum’s commercial brews include Black Mountain Porter, Capital Pale Ale, Duntroon Pilsner, Majura Brown Ale, South of the Border Mexican style, and Zingiber (an alcoholic ginger beer).

Pact Beer Co 100 Acres IPA (Australia) 330ml 6-pack 5.95
Pact’s Kevin Hingston launched his new IPA this month in Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne. Based on a recipe that made Hingston Australia’s home-brew champion, the new brew provides rich, malty flavours with assertive but well balanced aromas, flavours and bitterness of centennial, citra, cascade and simcoe hops.

Boon Marriage Parfait Gueze 2012 (Belgium) 375ml $11.90
Gueze beer takes the palate on a challenging dry, sour, thrilling trip. Be in no rush though as Marriage Parfait carries at eight per cent alcohol. The beer combines mainly old, wild-ferment lambic beer, with a smaller amount of young lambic containing sugar and living yeast, which produce the secondary ferment in bottle.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2016
First published 27 April 2016 in the Canberra Times

Wine reviews – Rabl, Andrew Thomas, La La Land, Freeman, Seppelt, Bremerton

Rabl Gruner Veltliner Spiegel 2013
Spiegel vineyard, Kamptal, Austria
$24.50–$28
Rabl gruner veltliner brightens a short wine list at Canberra’s Akiba restaurant. Its shimmering fruit–acid harmony matches the vitality of the restaurant’s food, but doesn’t compete with it. The flavours, reminiscent of lime and green apple with a unique spicy, peppery note, carry through even the spiciest dishes. Beautiful, fresh acidity accentuates the fruit flavours and gives a clean, dry finish. Gruner veltliner – also known as gruner, G-V or gru-vee – now appears in several cooler Australian regions, including Tasmania, the Adelaide Hills and Canberra. Rudi Rabl’s comes from Austria’s Kamptal region, centred on the town of Langenlois, on the Kamp River, a Danube tributary.

Andrew Thomas Kiss Shiraz 2014
Pokolbin Estate vineyard, Pokolbin, Lower Hunter Valley, NSW

$75

Winemaker Andrew Thomas writes, “Just as I’ve completed my thirtieth consecutive Hunter Valley vintage, I’m about to release probably the best range of shiraz that I’ve made in all of my time up here”. Leading Thomas’s range – priced between $25 and $75 a bottle and due for release on 7 May – is his flagship Kiss shiraz. From low-yielding old vines, this is concentrated Hunter shiraz, intensely flavoured and cut through with firm tannin. There’s a spicy note from the oak and, despite the wine’s power, it remains medium bodied in the regional style. It deserves medium to long-term cellaring.

La La Land Tempranillo 2015
Murray-Darling, Victoria

$15–$16
Along with Azahara, Deakin Estate and Coonawarra’s Katnook Estate, La La Land is a brand of the Wingara Wine Group, owned by Spain’s Freixenet. Tempranillo, grown along the hot expanses of the Murray-Darling region, yields a medium bodied red of bright fruit flavours, cut through with rustic tannins and an undercurrent of resiny oak.

Freeman Dolcino 2015
Freeman vineyard, Hilltops, NSW

$25 500ml
Winemaker Brian Freeman chides Australians for restricting, “The pouring of dessert wines till the end of the meal – usually already heavily weighted to sugary treats”. Instead, he suggests serving stickies with savoury entrees, such as blue-mould cheese or duck liver pate. Amen to that, possibly with Freeman’s sinfully luscious Dolcino, made from late-harvest, botrytis infected viognier grapes.

Seppelt Jaluka Chardonnay 2015
Henty, Victoria
$23.75–$27

Jaluka chardonnay comes from the Henty region, near Portland in Victoria’s far south west. The southerly location, cooled further by ocean breezes, produces fine-boned chardonnay, with intense, grapefruit-like varietal flavour, indicative of the cool climate. Fermentation and maturation in a combination of new and older oak added to the wine’s texture and injected complimentary nutty flavours. Although the flavours are generous, bracing acidity gives the wine a lively and refreshing character.

Bremerton Special Release Malbec 2014
Bremerton vineyard, Langhorne Creek, South Australia
$22
Sisters Lucy and Rebecca Willson use malbec in red blends, but they also keep special barrels aside for their mouth-watering straight varietal. A vivid, fruity-floral aroma suggests a wine of mouth-filling richness. And indeed the ripe, fruit-laden palate shows typical Langhorne Creek generosity. However, malbec carries a decent load of tannin. So, after the initial fruity impression, tannins roll across the palate, blending with the fruit and giving a firm but fine grip to the dry finish.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2016
First published 20 April 2016 in the Canberra Times

Canberra’s autumn brews

New from BentSpoke and Pact

New autumn beers from Canberra’s brewers include a BentSpoke amber ale, seeped with fresh hop flowers, and a Pact Beer Co hoppy, aromatic IPA.

The BentSpoke’s Richard Watkins put out three brews for the season, Reflector Amber Ale, Dick Tracy Brown Ale, and Fugg’n Chino Porter.

Reflector Amber Ale picks up its pungent hoppy tang as it passes through an infuser packed with fresh Victorian Galaxy hops flowers.

Dick Tracy gives warming, nutty, malty flavours. And Fugg ‘n Chino goes all the way with powerful chocolate malts, laced with Fuggles and Chinook hops.

Kevin Hingston launched two new beers last week: Pact 100 Acres IPA, at Canberra’s Transit Bar and, in conjunction with the Wig and Pen, Pact and Pen Hello I’m Tracy Grimshaw. This is a Currant Affair. Another beer, Pact with the Devil IPA, is due for release at the Great Australasian Beer SpectTAPular in May.

Beer reviews

Riders XPA Strong Pale Ale (Wonga Park, Victoria) 330ml $5.00
This American pale ale style provides a heady mix of warming malt flavours and powerful hops that dominate the aroma, flavour and bitter finish. After a few sips, a slightly harsh hops character accumulates, throwing the nevertheless enjoyable beer off balance. Riders Brew Co belongs to Phil and Gus Kellly, owners of Kellybrook winery and cidery in the Yarra Valley.

Maredsous Abbaye Benedictine Brune (Belgium) 330ml $5.60
Maredsous winter-warming ale pours a glowing, deep-brown colour. The fruity, malty aroma leads to a soft, supple palate with a wine-like eight per-cent alcohol content. The opulent malt flavour and high alcohol combine harmoniously and deliciously. Serve at around 10 degrees to bring out the rich malt flavours and fruitiness.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2016
First published 19 and 20 April 2016 in goodfood.com.au  and the Canberra Times

Wine review – Andrew Thomas, Sandalford, Oakridge

Andrew Thomas Déjà Vu Hunter Valley Shiraz 2014 $30
Hunter winemakers rate the warm, dry 2014 vintage as one of the best in living memory – some compare it to the now legendary 1965 season. Andrew Thomas reckons it’s the best of his 30 vintages in the area. The season produced notably fuller bodied wines than usual, but they still smell and taste like earthy, medium-bodied Hunter shiraz. Thomas tightens up Déjà Vu by co-fermenting shiraz with a splash of semillon verjuice. The wine leads with bright, ripe fruit aromas. But the semillon makes its presence felt in the taut, finely grippy structure that restrains the delicious underlying fruit flavour.

Sandalford Margaret River Cabernet Merlot 2014 $16.15–$20
Sandalford, one of the west’s largest privately owned wine companies, makes red wines at a range of prices, starting with the $8 Element label, and finishing with the superb $90 Prendiville Cabernet Sauvignon. Between these two, Sandalford Margaret River cabernet merlot blend enjoys the trickle-down effect we see in large wineries with outstanding top-end wines and significant vineyard resources. The brilliantly coloured wine shows the distinctive, appealing, berry-and-cedar aroma of Margaret River cabernet-merlot blends and remarkably juicy, sweet mid palate. Firm tannins cut through the lovely fruit in textbook cabernet style.

Oakridge Over the Shoulder Yarra Valley Pinot Grigio 2015 $18.10–$23
Highly aromatic varieties like riesling yield lovely fruit flavours with nothing more than a protective, cool ferment, followed by early, hygienic bottling. With these wines, we taste the stark and naked beauty of the grape. Pinot gris, on the other hand, requires a winemaker’s help. David Bicknell’s new release weaves the variety’s apple-pear-spice flavours in with complementary, funky flavours and a rich texture, derived from deliberate winemaking techniques. Spontaneous fermentation, partly in old oak barrels, and nine-months maturation on spent yeast cells, give this delicious wine a dimension that goes well beyond naked fruit.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2016
First published 16 and 17 April 2016 in goodfood.com.au  and the Canberra Times

Canberra vintage 2016 – two good years in a row

Canberra vignerons rarely see two consecutive high quantity, high quality vintages as they have in 2015 and 2016.

But just how good 2016 quality is depends on who you ask. Ken Helm of Helms Wine, Murrumbateman, writes, “The 2016 vintage was the earliest and hottest season on record, but looks like equaling the great 2015, and 2013 vintages in production of quality wines; it shows the depth of the quality from Canberra can be realised across a range of climate conditions”.

Helm’s Murrumbateman neighbour, Eden Road’s Nick Spencer offers a more circumspect appraisal. He says, while quality and quantity were good for both reds and whites, it remains to be seen whether quality is outstanding.

The shiraz flavours remind me of the 2014s. They have fruit intensity but perhaps not the structural balance of 2013 and 2015”, the most highly regarded of recent seasons. Riesling, all picked before March’s dry, hot spell looks good. “It’s bullet proof”, he adds.

The run of ten consecutive March days above 30 degrees came secondly only to the record of 12 days in another El Nino year, 1983. While most whites ripened ahead of the heat, some of the district’s shiraz felt it. Other late ripening varieties weathered the heat to ripen in the cooler conditions that followed.

Several winemakers, including Nick O’Leary, say the key to good shiraz was picking at the right moment. In the prolonged March heat, the variety tended to gain sugar and lose acid rapidly. “You could see the change in a day or so, making harvest time critical”, says winemaker Hamish Young.

I’m happy with 80 per cent of my shiraz”, says O’Leary. “I have some excellent parcels and if others don’t measure up, they won’t go into the blend”. He rates the vintage as better than 2014, especially for riesling, “though it’s early days yet”.

O’Leary sources riesling from Lake George and Murrumbateman in the Canberra District and, for the first time this year, from the high-altitude Cribbin Vineyard at Tumbarumba. “I’ve had my eye on it for six years”, he said.

He rates riesling from the old Westering block on the Karelas family’s Lake George vineyard as “some of the best in a number of years. It has higher ripeness than 2015 with a fair whack of acidity”. Murrumbateman riesling, though lower in acid than in the last four or five years, shows very good flavour. And he rates the Tumbarumba riesling as exceptional and distinct in style from Canberra riesling.

At Four Winds vineyard, Murrumbateman, Sarah and John Collingwood report an early, good and disease-free season. They say crops were a little bigger than expected despite fruit thinning.

Riesling flowered early and well in benign conditions. Shiraz flowering appeared to struggle in hot winds but eventually the vines set a good crop. They rate the 2016 riesling up with the stellar 2015, and the 2016 shiraz as “good and solid”. At the time of interview, shortly after the heat spell, cabernet sauvignon, merlot and sangiovese remained on the vine and all looked healthy.

Brian Johnston of McKellar Ridge, Murrumbateman, says he “Felt some doubts early on with uneven flowering”. But flowering ended successfully and fruit yields came in above average. The worries of a cool, wet January dissipated in the warm, dry spell that followed. Indeed the soil moisture provided a measure of relief for the vines during the heat wave, though irrigation was required.

Yarrh Wines’ Neil McGregor reports, “A quick and early vintage, a couple of weeks earlier than 2015, which was two weeks early. Everyone’s exhausted”. Sauvignon blanc copped it a hit from a November frost, but no other varieties suffered.

McGregor says riesling, cabernet sauvignon and sangiovese look best, along with shiraz “picked at the right time”. The compressed vintage put pressure on picking teams across the district, forcing Yarrh to machine harvest part of the crop.

He says, “Pickers were flat out, so we saw lots backpackers, including French, Germans and Americans”.

Clonakilla’s Tim Kirk praises another extraordinary vintage and marvels at “The huge bunches and small berries”. He believes the large crop slowed ripening and, indeed ripened only because of the long run of hot weather. “It’s miraculous”, he says. “If it’d been a smaller crop, with the heat it would’ve been too ripe”.

Kirk’s benchmark shiraz, “Shows great colour, vibrant and bright aromas and lovely tannins. They’re not classic like the 2015s, but more flamboyant, without perhaps the length or longevity”.

Kirk opened the family’s new cellar door facility at the peak of this early vintage. He sees it as offering, “An experience of beauty, space and light, in sight of the vines”.

Winemaker Bryan Martin helps Kirk with the Clonakilla wines. While the two crammed a record crop into the expanded winery, Martin also made wines for his own Ravensworth label. At the same time he experimented with what he calls “weird stuff”.

Martin’s weird stuff always sells out. And his methods – particularly in the use of ceramic, egg-shaped vessels for fermenting and maturing wine – influence winemakers across the district and beyond.

This year’s weird stuff includes a cider-like sauvignon blanc made by through carbonic maceration (where fermentation begins inside berries enclosed in a airtight container), two pet-nat wines.

Pet-nat, an abbreviation of the French petillant naturale (naturally sparkling) is the hot new thing among sommeliers. They’re simple, young sparkling wines and generally cloudy as winemakers mostly leave the yeast sediment from secondary fermentation in the bottle.

Martin made, and quickly sold out of a pet-nat riesling in 2015. This year he’s producing riesling and gamay in the style.

And he’s not alone. Paul Starr’s Sassafras label paved the way with a pet-nat Tumbarumba gamay in 2014. A year later Sassafras pet-nat Canberra savagnin set social media alight when sommelier Mads Kleppe selected it for Copenhagen-based Noma’s pop-up Sydney restaurant. Starr says he’s making another in 2016, using riper savagnin, with a touch of Tumbarumba chardonnay to flesh out the mid palate.

A revitalised Wily Trout vineyard on the high, eastern side of Hall, under Will Bruce, has a few 2016 vintage experiments on he go: a pet-nat from pinot noir and chardonnay; a Beaujolais-influenced, early-drinking pinot shiraz, fermented in a ceramic egg; and a hops-infused sauvignon blanc.

The latter, a joint effort with brewer Richard Watkins, will likely be served carbonated from a keg at the BentSpoke brewpub, Braddon.

On the significantly lower western side of Hall, Pankhurst Wines experienced an early, rushed vintage. Alan Pankhurst reports, “Good yielding but not overcropping, with everything so consistently good. I haven’t seen a year like this”.

He says reds are of superb quality. But he harvested only small quantities of white varieties following a recent grafting program. He expects the new varieties – arneis, marsanne and roussanne to crop more heavily in 2017. A small plot of fiano may or may not succeed in Canberra’s cool climate.

At Mount Majura vineyard, Frank van de Loo says, “I have no complaints” about the early and fast vintage. He juggled for winery space and competed for grape pickers with other growers in the district. “We had a Sydney-based Laotian family group, backpackers and a crew from Cowra. It was lie a united nations here some days”.

On the escarpment above Bungendore, Lark Hill’s Christopher Carpenter describes an “earliest start ever” to the vintage, commencing with the marsanne, roussanne and viognier from the family’s Murrumbateman vineyard and finishing with gruner veltliner from the original Lark Hill site, Canberra’s highest vineyard at 860 metres.

And Canberra has a new label for 2016 – Hamish Young’s Mada Wines, due for release later this year. Young left Eden Road Wines late last year and this year made single vineyard shirazes from Yarrh, Wily Trout and Quarry Hill vineyards. He also made a riesling from Four Winds vineyard, and pinot gris and gewürztraminer from Brian Freeman’s vineyard at Hilltops. Young, too, owns a ceramic egg, convinced it builds more interesting wines.

While many Australian winemakers struggle, 2016 sees Canberra vineyards optimistic and confident. After years of development, the district now thrives on increasing quantities of its great specialities, riesling and shiraz, along with well-known varieties like pinot noir, cabernet sauvignon, sauvignon blanc and chardonnay. But the new confidence comes, too, from success with other varieties including sangiovese, tempranillo and gruner veltliner – and our ability to sell a few weird, whacky and sometimes wonderful things being made on the fringes.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2016
First published 12 and 13 April 2016 in goodfood.com.au  and the Canberra Times

Wine review – Andrew Thomas, De Bortoli, Chalk Hill, Larry Cherubino, Soumah, Pike and Joyce

Andrew Thomas Synergy Shiraz 2014
Lower Hunter Valley, NSW
$25
Hunter winemaker Andrew Thomas writes, “There’s talk of 2014 being the best vintage since 1965. Well I was only a twinkle in my old man’s eye back then, but it’s safe to say that 2014 is certainly a once or twice in a generation kind of vintage – the best I’ve made in all my time up here”. That’s a big call for a bloke just completing his 30th Hunter vintage. Synergy, the lowest priced of six Thomas 2014 shirazes on the Chateau Shanahan tasting bench, packs a huge, chewy wad of ripe, earthy Hunter shiraz flavour. It’s fuller bodied than usual for a Hunter, and more firmly tannic, though completely harmonious and a great joy to drink. Released on 16 May, this may be one of the best red-wine buys of the year.

De Bortoli Riorret “The Abbey” Pinot Noir 2013
Abbey vineyard, Tarrawarra, Yarra Valley, Victoria
$38–$42
Some wines make a good first impression but don’t invite another glass. Others, like Riorret, taste OK at first, then grow in interest and, glug glug, the bottle empties all to quickly. Riorret’s sweet mid-palate fruit and soft tannins created the initial, easy-drinking impression. A few glasses in and the pure varietal flavour emerges, along with underlying stemmy and savoury characters – and a rich, smooth texture created by the tannins. It’s a delicious pinot noir experience, one to linger over and savour. A little bottle ageing might add another dimension to the wine, but it’s already irresistible. “Riorret” is simply “terroir”, the French term for a vine’s total growing conditions, spelled backwards.

Chalk Hill Luna Shiraz 2014
McLaren Vale, South Australia
$19

Chalk Hill steps away from the traditional, more fleshy McLaren Vale shiraz in this lean, taut style, spiced up with a small amount of the Italian variety, barbera. While barbera comprises just five per cent of the blend, its potential influence is consistent with the wine’s vivid colour, summer-berry fruitiness and fresh acidity. The acidity, in conjunction with tannin, gives the wine a strong backbone and savoury finish.

Larry Cherubino Pedestal Pinot Gris 2015
Wilyabrup, Margaret River, Western Australia

$25

Larry Cherubino’s impressive pinot gris treads a line between fatter pinots gris and leaner versions, generally selling under the Italian name pinot grigio. Pedestal shows fresh and apple- and pear-like varietal flavour on a medium-bodied, yet smoothly textured palate. Although the texture comes from fermentation and maturation in year-old French oak casks, the wine shows little oak flavour and instead relies on delicious fruit flavour.

Soumah Savarro 2015
Yarra Valley, Victoria
$26–$28
In 1989 the CSIRO bought a woolly pup from Galacia, Spain – a fact it learned some twenty years later. What the CSIRO believed to be the Spanish white variety, albarino, turned out to be savagnin. By then Australian vignerons, including the Butcher family at Soumah, had about 150-hectares of “albarino” in the ground, all of it sourced ultimately from the original CSIRO holdings. But the Butcher family moved on, and created Savarro as its name for the savagnin variety. It produces much the same style of wine as albarino – close enough that even experts struggle to tell the difference. The 2015 pleases with its full body, smooth, juicy texture and vibrant, spicy finish.

Pike and Joyce Pinot Noir Rapide 2015
Lenswood, Adelaide Hills, South Australia

$20
From Lenswood – a high, cool sub-region of the Adelaide Hills – Pike and Joyce make two pinots: a serious $38 version and the drink-now Rapide. It’s light in colour and body and offers vibrant, strawberry-like varietal aroma. However, the palate delivers more of the pinot flavour spectrum than the aroma suggests – from fruit, through savour and a stemmy character, perhaps derived from inclusion of whole bunches (stalks included) in the ferment. Surprisingly strong, albeit very fine, tannins give real grip and dryness to the finish of this pleasing, light, luncheon red.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2016
First published 12 and 13 April 2016 in goodfood.com.au and the Canberra Times

Canberra’s new brewer

Capital beer team

Capital Brewing Co team, from left to right: Nick Hislop, Laurence Kain, Tom Hertel, Wade Hurley, Rich Coombes, Ian Stott

Canberra’s vibrant craft brewing scene becomes even more colourful from 21 April with the launch of the city’s sixth brewer, Capital Brewing Co. The new brewer joins our five existing players, the Wig and Pen Tavern and Brewery, Zierholz Premium Brewing, Tortured Gum Brewery, BentSpoke Brewing Co, and Pact Beer Co.

Canberra bar owners Tom Hertel and Laurence Kain began planning the brewery in June last year with Rich and Sam Coombes. The brothers, founders of the Batlow Cider Co, supplied Hertel and Kain’s Civic bars, Honky Tonks and Hippo Co.

The Batlow connection brings an existing national distribution network to the new venture. More excitingly for drinkers, it gives Capital Brewing Co direct access to one of the holy grails of brewing: a secure supply of hop flowers.

Rich Coombes says Batlow Fruit Cooperative commenced hop growing a couple of years back. As the first hop grower in the state, the cooperative received a NSW government grant and sent orchard manager Andrew Desprez on a study tour of US and New Zealand hop-growing regions.

Coombes says the cooperative harvested its second crop this year and, “Capital takes all of the US Cascade and Chinook varieties”.

Like other brewers, says Coombes, Capital uses pelletised hops. But it also has access to Batlow’s fresh hop flowers at harvest (used this year in Capital Evil Eye Red IPA) and a year-round supply of dried hop flowers, preserved in a cold store at two-degrees Celsius.

Unlike brewpubs BentSpoke or the Wig and Pen, which sell most of their beer on site, Capital Brewing Co intends to be a producer and distributor of beer with a distinct Canberra identity.

Tom Hertel says, “The name is a reference to the area. We [Hertel and business partner Laurence Kain] grew up here and we love Canberra. It’s a great place to live”.

While the three Capital beers being released on 21 April were brewed in Sydney, Hertel and his partners expect to commission their own US-manufactured brewery at Dairy Road, Fyshwick around September or October this year.

Hertel says, “We’re gypsy brewing at a couple of sites in Sydney. This isn’t the same as contract brewing, where someone else brews from your recipe. We rent tanks and have total control”.

Inspired by the San Diego craft beer scene, Hertel and partners brought California brewer Wade Hurley to Australia. Hurley produced the “gypsy” brews in Sydney and will head the Canberra brewing team.

The beers being released tomorrow show a distinct California influence. This reflects the personal tastes of the partners as well as California’s ownership of the strong, hoppy beer styles now being brewed globally.

Hertel describes Capital Brewing Co Trail Pale Ale as an American pale ale style, rich in malt and hops. Evil Eye Red IPA ratchets up the malt and hops even more. And Coast Ale, he says, provides lighter, easier drinking, “Like a California common. It’s a beer you’d take down the coast”.

Initially, Capital plans to sell kegged beer into the Canberra market, beginning with the launch tomorrow. However, production and distribution will expand when the Fyshwick facility opens.

It’s a 1000-square-metre warehouse”, says Hertel. “We’ll have a large brewery, canning and bottling machines and a touch-and-feel tasting bar where people can watch the whole process”.

Running the brewery with brewer Wade Hurley will be two more Capital partners, Ian Stott and Nick Hislop, with backgrounds in brewery and cider-making logistics and sustainability.

Hertel and Kain recently sold their Honky Tonks bar. However, they retain Hippo and Co and will offer Capital Brewing Co Trail Pale Ale, Evil Eye Red IPA and Coast Ale on tap there from tomorrow. They expect other outlets to offer the beers, but details are not available at the time of writing. Hertel says they will list stockists on their website (capitalbrewing.co).

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2016
First published 13 April 2016 in goodfood.com.au

Canberra’s currant affair goes sweet and sour

Pact and Pen's new brew
Pact and Pen’s new brew
Hello. I’m Tracy Grimshaw. This is a currant affair

A new sour beer made by two Canberra brewers goes under the Pact and Pen label as “Hello, I’m Tracy Grimshaw. This is a currant affair”.

Pact Brewing Company’s Kevin Hingston and the Wig and Pen’s Frazer Brown created the sour, redcurrant-flavoured brew for Melbourne pub, The Ale House Project.

The beer is being served during the Ale House’s “This is red” event between 11 and 24 April.

Hingston says with the Melbourne launch now done, Tracy will go on tap at the Wig and Pen, ANU, and the Durham Arms, Kingston.

The beer, styled on Germany’s Berliner Weisse, derives its sourness from the residues of micro-flora, including lactobacillus, living on the surface of cracked grain. The grain, which also nourished the fast-breeding microbes, was added to a mash of wheat and pilsner malts – all seeped at a Jacuzzi-like 40 degrees before being fermented.

Hingston says the beer, while about double the strength of traditional Berliner Weisse, retains the style’s delicate sourness, offset by the sweet redcurrant.

Beer reviews

Thornbridge Kipling South Pacific Ale (UK) 500ml $9.45
Like coals to Newcastle, the UK’s Thornbridge brewery uses hops from Nelson, NZ. The hops give a distinctive fruity aroma to a beautifully harmonious, golden-coloured ale. The lively palate really sings with smooth, sweet malt, offset by flavoursome and lingeringly bitter, refreshing hops. This is a wonderful, balanced example of a beer revealing the full gamet of a unique hop variety’s aroma, flavour and bitterness.

Schlenkerla Oak Smoke Doppelbock (Germany) 500ml $7.98
Schlenkerla brewery of Bamberg, Germany, specialises in Rauchbier – an ale made from malt kilned with beech smoke. The brewery’s extra-strong (eight per cent alcohol) oak-smoked variant provides a slightly more subtle smokey experience. Charcuterie-like aromas and flavours permeate the opulent, malty, bitter palate.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2016
First published 12 and 13 April in goodfood.com.au and the Canberra Times

Wine review – Mr Riggs, Mount Majura, Tower Estate

Mr Riggs “The Truant” McLaren Vale Shiraz 2014 $17–$19
For a winery producing just 20 thousand dozen bottle a year, Mr Riggs offers a surprisingly large number of labels, albeit of a very high quality. Riggs’ starting point for McLaren Vale shiraz, “The Truant”, sells for a modest $17 or so. His website also offers six other McLaren Vale shirazes, ranging in price from $16.67 to $50 a bottle. “The Truant”, named for a school-wagging Riggs forefather, combines bright, fresh, shiraz flavours with McLaren Vale’s underlying earthy, savoury characters. Smooth, soft tannins complete a sturdy, satisfying, drink-now dry red.

Mount Majura Canberra District Sweet Molli 2015 500ml $22
Winemaker Frank van de Loo recommends Sweet Molli with fruit or fruit-based desserts. Though distinctly sweet, Molli’s not the uber sticky kind as in late-picked and botrytis-affected dessert wines. Indeed she’s a comparatively delicate sweetie, with fresh acidity, the vibrant pear-like flavour of good pinot gris, and a light bite of spirit. Van de Loo sets the pinot gris grapes fermenting, then arrests the fermentation by adding neutral grape spirit. The wine retains its natural acidity, which offsets the sweetness of the unfermented grape sugar. It’s a delicious, refreshing and distinctive wine. And unlike most fortified wines contains a table-wine-like 13.5 per cent alcohol.

Tower Estate Hilltops Shiraz 2013 $30
Hunter-based Tower Estate makes regional specialties from across Australia, including Coonawarra cabernet sauvignon, Adelaide Hills Sauvignon Blanc, Tasmania Pinot Noir and this slurpy shiraz from the Hilltops region. Just how all this ties in with a Hunter identity is anybody’s guess, and I suspect must confuse visitors to the awesome cellar door in Pokolbin, heart of the lower Hunter Valley. Still, Tower can do what it likes and, in this instance, they’ve made something we can all like: a bright and excellent Hilltops shiraz. Vivid fruit, juicy mid-palate, medium body and a touch of spice give great drinking pleasure now.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2016
First published 9 and 10 April2016 in goodfood.com.au  and the Canberra Times