Category Archives: Beer review

Beer review — Matso’s and Kiuchi

22 December 2010Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Matso’s Broome Brewery Ginger Beer 330ml 6-pack $29.90
Have I missed something in this cult beer from Broome? It seems to owe less to brewing and more to those ready-to-drink concoctions of sugar, carbon dioxide and alcohol – in this case saved from complete blandness by the ginger. A flat, headless appearance added to an impression of a soft drink for adults.

Kiuchi Brewery Hitachino Nest Real Ginger Beer 330ml $5.70
This is real beer, with an emphasis on sweet, rich, smooth malty flavour, velvety, creamy texture and abundant, persistent head. The sweet maltiness, high alcohol (seven per cent) and subtle, spicy tang of ginger make it excellent company for Christmas fruitcake. It’s made using fresh ginger in Naka, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan.

Beer review — Weihenstephaner and Hook Norton

15 December 2010Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Weihenstephaner Pilsner 500ml $5.90
In a world where pilsner means a thousand different things, Bavaria’s Weihenstephaner, from a brewery founded in 1040, remains a glorious standout – my top beer of 2010. It’s a perfect example of complex but subtle lager, featuring lovely hops aroma and flavour, smooth, rich malt and a lingering, dry, perfectly balanced bitter finish. Perfection.

Hook Norton Brewery Old Hooky Ale 500ml $8.00
Old Hooky presents layers of aroma and flavour. It’s fruity, malty, hoppy, bittersweet, brisk and delicious. It’s built on malted barley, but it also contains wheat – presumably source of the pleasant tartness that adds life to the generous malt flavour. This is distinctive ale with lingering, refreshing bitterness.

My top 10 beers of 2010

15 December 2010Beer, Beer reviewChris Shanahan

For beer drinkers 2010 goes down as a year of contrasts, where bland, insipid brews made for soft drink sippers stand alongside really exciting, complex beers displaying the brewer’s art in all its glory.

Looking back over tasting notes for the year, I’ve pulled out ten brews, across a spectrum of styles, that thrilled on first sip and sustained interest to the end. These are beers to sip and savour. They deserve a place at the Christmas table.

Lighter styles
Weihenstephaner Pilsner (Bavaria)
Weihenstephaner Hefe Weissbier (Bavaria)
Asahi Super Dry (Japan)
Schneider Weiss Hefe-Weizen (Bavaria)

Medium bodied styles
Sharp’s Special Oak Aged Ale (Rock, Cornwall, England)
Hook Norton Old Hooky Ale (Hook Norton, England)

Full-bodied styles
Cooper’s Vintage Ale 2010 (Adelaide, South Australia)
Bootleg Raging Bull (Margaret River, Western Australia)
Samuel Smith’s Old Brewery Tadcaster Taddy Porter (Tadcaster, Yorkshire, England)

Specialty style
Brasserie Caulier Bon Secours Myrtille (Blueberry flavoured, Ghisienghien, Belgium)

Beer review — Gage Roads and Cascade

1 December 2010Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Gage Roads Atomic Pale Ale 330ml 6-pack $17.99
Gage Roads’ interpretation of the American Pale Ale style sits in about the middle of the spectrum – not as opulently malty and in-your-face hoppy as some. But it’s generously flavoured and the citrus-like aroma and tang associated with dry hopping separates it from other styles.

Cascade Stout 375ml 6-pack$14.99
It’s been a long time between drinks, but how wonderful to catch up again with this old friend. At 5.8 per cent alcohol, inky black and with warming, sweet rich chocolate-like flavour, it’s clearly brewed for a cold Tasmanian night. Just the right amount of hops freshens and dries out the finish.

Bootleg Brewery — a Margaret River original

24 November 2010Beer, Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Margaret River’s Bootleg Brewery (the oldest of six in the area) bills itself as “an oasis of beer in a desert of wine”. And like the local wineries, it’s set in the magnificent bush landscape, offering its products in a distinctly cellar-door setting.

Brewer Michael Brookes says the bit he loves about his job is introducing people to “different styles of beer in a beautiful environment” – in this case a tame patch in the scrub, complete with lake, offering a tasting tray ($12) or individual beers brewed on site, and food served inside or on the lawns sprawling between the brew house and lake.

Thomas Reynolds founded Bootleg in 1994 and Brookes took over brewing in 1998. The beers win medals consistently, and on the day we visit the entire range seems exciting – Sou ‘West Wheat, Hefe Wheat, Tom’s Amber Ale, Wils Pils, Settlers Pale Ale, Moses Extra Special Bitter and Raging Bull.

While they’ll never taste better than they do on site (Bootleg’s a must-visit if you’re in Margaret River), the packaged versions now make their way to the east coast, including Canberra, under a new distribution arrangement with Australian Boutique Beverages.

Bootleg Brewery Sou’West Wheat 6-pack $19.50

You might call this the spaetlese riesling of beers – a delicate, ultra-fresh ale featuring the subtlety and zesty acidity of wheat and herbal and floral high notes (but not the bitterness) of Hersbrucker and Willamette hops. A gentle kiss of residual sugar sits well with the beer’s acidity and herbal hops.

Bootleg Brewery Raging Bull 6-pack $22

It’s dark and alcoholic (7.1 per cent), but the alcohol doesn’t intrude on the luxuriously malty, coffee-like flavour and smooth, verging on syrup-rich, palate. Pride of Ringwood hops offset the great richness and sweetness of the palate to some extent – perhaps explaining why the finish is so sweet, but not at all cloying.

Beer review — Holgate Brewhouse and Brasserie Caulier

17 November 2010Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Holgate Brewhouse Pilsner 330ml $4.05
Holgate Brewhouse, in Keatings Hotel, Woodend, Victoria, produces a range of beer styles, including this attractive pilsner. It’s pale coloured, medium bodied, smoothly malty and finishes with the distinctive flavour and clean bitterness of Saaz hops. It’s in the lighter, Euro style, not the robustly bitter Pilzen style.

Brasserie Caulier Bon Secours Myrtille 330ml $7.65
Bon Secours is a bottle fermented Belgian ale seasoned with blueberries. It’s in the traditional sweet and sour style and features high alcohol (seven per cent), the zest and lightness of wheat, and the sweetness of blueberries foiled by a pleasant tartness. Ingredients are barley malt, wheat, water, yeast, hops and blueberry juice.

Matilda Bay — the beer lover’s side of Fosters

10 November 2010Beer, Beer reviewChris Shanahan

In last week’s column we looked at the emergence of bland beers made for people who don’t like beer – a peculiar situation indeed for brewers to be in.

Paradoxically, at the same time as it manufactures these beverages, market leader Foster’s brews classic global beer styles under its Matilda Bay brand.

Disheartened by the trend to blandness, I put a mixed box of Matilda Bay brews on the tasting bench. They scrubbed up pretty well.

I’ve reviewed the style bookends, Redback Original Wheat Beer and Alpha Pale Ale, below, but the other four beers rate well, too.

Beez Neez offers the light refreshment of wheat beer, with subtle honey seasoning and subtle, bitter hops kiss in the finish.

Bohemian Pilsner, a Schloss Shanahan favourite, offers traditional, lingering Pilsener bitterness, with the distinctive bite and flavour of Saaz hops.

Big Helga, a comparative newcomer to the line up, and made in the full-bodied, malty Bavarian style (think of Lowenbrau) has sufficient hops bitterness to freshen the finish and balance the malt sweetness.

Fat Yak Pale Ale, billed as an Australian pale ale style, could be viewed as a mild version of the turbo-hopped Alpha Pale Ale. But if it’s mild by comparison, it remains more malty and bitter than most beers.

Matilda Bay Redback Original Wheat Beer 345ml 6-pack $18.99
This tastes to me more in the banana-aromatic southern German style than the spicy Belgian style. The palate, too, is fruity and smooth textured, with crisp acidity and just a trace of bitterness from the Saaz and Pride of Ringwood hops. It’s on the lighter side, but true to style.

Matilda Bay Alpha Pale Ale 345ml 6-pack $19.99
This is full-bore American-style pale ale, featuring opulent malt and eyebrow singeing hops. It’s the sort of beer brewers love making and enthusiasts adore. It’s quite a trick packing in so much flavour and bitterness and maintaining drinkability. Appropriately, brewer Scott Vincent uses Cascade hops from Washington State.

Beer review — Burnbrae and Young’s

27 October 2010Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Burnbrae Mudgee 548 Pale Ale 330ml $4
Mudgee’s Burnbrae joins a growing number of wineries offering beer at cellar door. In this case it’s a contract brewed three-per cent alcohol pale ale style – light lemon coloured, lively and zesty with a herbal, tangy-bitter hoppy finish. It’s a delicate, light bodied aperitif style. Available at the cellar door.

Young’s Special London Ale 500ml $7.60
This is a strong (6.4% alcohol), bottle-conditioned English-brewed ale, with an attractive deep gold-amber colour, abundant head and a complex malty/hoppy aroma. The palate’s richly malty with assertive hops flavour, lingering bitterness and strong alcoholic lift. It’s an interesting sipping beer for cool evenings – not one for dowsing a thirst.

Beer review — Gage Roads and Endeavour

20 October 2010Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Gage Road Pils 330ml 6-pack $14.99
A press release accurately describes the repackaged mid-strength (3.5 per cent alcohol) Gage Road as a “European pilsner” style. It’s certainly light, tangy and refreshing – easy and pleasant enough to drink, but finally lacking complexity. Take the alcohol out of beer, it seems, and much of the flavour goes with it.

Endeavour Reserve Pale Ale 2010 330ml 4-pack $17.99
The just-released Endeavour pale ale appeals for its herbal and citrus character, derived from Super Alpha, Amarillo and Galaxy hops. The lively, fresh palate features subtle, rich malt flavour balanced by a mild, lingering hops bitterness. It’s a balanced, harmonious style, clearly designed as a “session” beer.

Beer review — Strickland 1842 and Endeavour

13 October 2010Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Stricklands 1842 Lager 330ml glass $7
The Strickland brothers’ first brew sits square in the opulent, bitter Bohemian lager style. And what an impressive debut it is – served in its own custom glass and growing more luxurious with every sip as it warms a little in the glass. A very fresh, clean lingering bitterness balances the opulent malt flavour.

Endeavour Reserve Amber Ale 2010 330ml 4-pack $17.99
This is one of two bottle-conditioned ales released by the new Endeavour brewery. Rich chocolate malt is the keynote of the aroma and flavour – with the velvety texture to match. It’s easy drinking for such a malty beer and fairly delicately hopped for the style.