Category Archives: Beer review

Beer review — Carlton and Matilda Bay

1 April 2009Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Carlton Dry Fusion 355ml 6-pack $15.99
Today’s reviews represent the style bookends of Foster’s brewing – appealing at one end to those who probably don’t like beer at all to those obsessed with it at the other end. To my taste, if Carlton Dry Fusion didn’t have the word ‘lager’ discretely placed on the label it could pass as soft drink.

Matilda Bay Fat Yak Pale Ale 330ml 6-pack $19.99
Fat Yak bills itself as an American style pale ale – a genre potent in malt and hops. But it strikes me as a toned down version of Matilda Bay Alpha Pale Ale. It’s still intensely hoppy and complex, but perhaps doesn’t have the opulent malt of Alpha.

Beer review — Steinlager and Steinlager Pure

25 March 2009Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Steinlager Premium 330ml 6-pack $17.99
The original Steinlager impressed for its stunning freshness and pleasing flavours. Offsetting the malt richness is a distinctive, herbaceous hops character. This sets the keynote of the aroma and takes over again in the refreshing finish, providing both herbal flavour and satisfying bitterness.

Steinlager Pure 330ml 6-pack $17.99
The new Steinlager, like the old one, is deliciously fresh and clean with a quite full underlying malt richness. Alas, though, the apparently low-impact hops means that the malt flavour dominates and, to me, the beer simply lacks the drive and bitterness that finishes of a top-notch lager.

Beer review — Brew Dog Punk and Young’s Kew Gold

4 March 2009Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Brew Dog Punk IPA $7.50
The sub-title is ‘post modern classic pale ale’ — not that the brewer’s pretentious. In the glass is a mid-lemon-coloured ale with an appealingly malty, hoppy aroma. The palate’s where the punk comes out – it’s aggressively flavoured with a spiky, very bitter, going on acrid finish. Not my cup of tea, so to speak.

Young’s Kew Gold Bottle Conditioned Ale 500ml $7.60
This delicious, pale-golden ale salutes the species-conservation work being done at England’s Kew Gardens. It’s a distinctive, more-ish style because of its light colour and harmonious brisk, tart, bitter hops finish. It’s an unobtrusive, easy-drinking but complex beer. The label says that Young’s donate a portion of sales to Kew Gardens.

Beer review — Knappstein Enterprise and Weihenstephan

25 February 2009Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Knappstein Enterprise Brewery Reserve Lager 330ml 6-pack $19
Knappstein winery in the Clare Valley is part of the Lion Nathan group. So when the winemakers decided to make beer a few years back they had a wealth of talent to tap – including master brewer Chuck Hahn. It’s a superb, vibrant lager as good now as it was on first release.

Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier Dunkel 500ml $5.20
Bavaria’s one-thousand-year-old Weihenstephan brewery makes delicious, complex, traditional beers including this glorious bottle-fermented dark wheat beer. It’s got the dense, abundant head of the style and a harmonious, malty, rich-but-not-heavy palate with the brisk, acidic dry palate typical of a good wheat ale. See www.brauerei-weihenstephan.de for the brewery’s history

Beer review — Urquell and Little Creatures

18 February 2009Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Urquell Pilzen 330ml $3.60
Urquell, from Pilzen in the Czech Republic, is the beer that more than any other put Pilzen, Pils, Pilsner, Pilsner – whatever you call it – on our drinking menu. These days it’s a big volume international brand but it retains the rich flavours and terrifically tangy, refreshing bitterness of noble Saaz hops.

Little Creatures Pilsner 330ml 6-pack $17.99
One of the consistently best Aussie Pilsner styles, to my taste, comes from the part Lion Nathan-owned Little Creatures Brewery, Fremantle. It ‘s widely distributed and presumably popular because I’ve not yet come across a stale bottle in local stores. It’s fragrantly hopped and subtle, but delicious and complex, too.

Beer review — Sünner and Wells

11 February 2009Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Sünner Kölsch 500ml $5.99
Kölsch, one of Germany’s classic beer styles, made only in Köln, is a pale-lemon coloured ale that’s been lagered (cold cellared). Not surprisingly, it straddles the style border between lager and ale, with ale-like, rich, fruity palate and lager-like briskness. Sunner is a particularly vibrant, fresh, drink-by-the-barrel example of the style.

Wells Waggle Dance Honey Beer 500ml $7.20
Subtlety is the key to success with honey beers. Honey provides fermentable sugars, complementing those from malted barley. And if the honey aroma and flavour impact remain peripheral, then you have what the Wells beer delivers: a full, tasty, attractively bitter mainstream ale. It’s another terrific beer from this Bedford, UK, brewer.

Beer review — Belhaven and Emerson’s

4 February 2009Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Belhaven Twisted Thistle IPA 500ml $7.99
The Brits loaded India Pale Ale (IPA) with alcohol and hops to survive the long trip in cask to India. But by the time refrigeration arrived it was too late to stop — and now even the Scots brew it, perhaps better than the English. This is a beautifully fragrant, hoppy, opulent version.

Emerson’s Belgian Style Beer 500ml $8.90
This Belgian-style lambic beer comes from Dunedin, New Zealand. The traditional style is fermented in barrels using wild yeast, with fruit (in this case cherries) added during the ferment. The result is an idiosyncratic sweet and sour ale with a strong and distinctive sour cherry flavour.

Beer review — Rodenbach & Lindemans

28 January 2009Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Rodenbach 250ml $6
This classic red-brown ale from Flanders combines three parts of young ale with one part ale that’s been oak matured for two years. The result is a surprisingly balanced but earthy, distinctive beer with a pleasantly tart, slightly sour, refreshing and acidic edge. Alcohol content is a modest 5.2% by volume.

Lindemans Cuvée René Geuze Lambic 355ml $9
Belgium’s lambic beers undergo a spontaneous ferment in micro-flora-riddled oak barrels, sometimes with fruit, most famously cherries, added during the ferment. This one, a blend of beers of various ages, was bottled conditioned and contains no fruit. It’s intensely sour and dry. But that’s the style – one to love or hate. This is to beer what sherry is to table wine.

Beer review — Timothy Taylor & Petrus

21 January 2009Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Timothy Taylor Landlord Strong Pale Ale 500ml $7.90
It’s not particularly pale – mid-amber’s more like it. Nor is it strong at a modest 4.1 per cent alcohol. But it’s beautifully fresh and wonderfully, lingeringly bitter – although not in the harsh, resiny way seen in some heavily hopped brews. Indeed the hops aroma and flavour work well with the underlying maltiness.

Petrus Oud Bruin 330ml $5.10
Oud Bruin (literally ‘old brown’) is a distinctive, dark, sour beer from Flemish Belgium. The Petrus version of the style is aged in oak barrels for 20 months, allowing plenty of time for a microbial tag team to produce those distinguishing sour notes. And that’s what it is — dark, tart, sour and idiosyncratic.

Beer review — Courage & Hook Norton

14 January 2009Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Courage Directors Amber Ale 500ml $7.10
This is a mild, dark-amber coloured ale built on a rich caramel-like malt aroma and flavour. It’s generous and soft on the palate with subtle hops providing a spicy and mildly bitter counterfoil to the maltiness. It’s an appealing cool-weather drink and best served cool rather than cold.

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.