Category Archives: Beer

Winning amateur brew bound for Wig and Pen

24 October 2012Beer, PeopleChris Shanahan

Canberra’s amateur brewing competition this year resulted in 18 category winners progressing to the Wig and Pen trophy taste-off.

The coveted trophy gives the brewer a chance (working with brewer Richard Watkins) to make a one-off commercial batch of the winning beer for sale through the Wig and Pen.

This year’s winner, Mark Overton, fielded five of the 18 finalists. Overton won the trophy with an American cream ale style, described by Watkins as an easy drinking style with plenty of flavour, a light finish and the distinctive taste of American Liberty hops. The winner contained a high proportion of polenta in the mash. He says it’s a recognised hybrid style, developed in America from Germany’s Kolsch beer.

Watkins expects to brew the beer with Overton at the Wig and Pen in mid October and to release it in mid November.

Life drawing at Sydney Craft beer week

17 October 2012BeerChris Shanahan

No event at the coming Sydney Craft Beer Week (20–28 October) captures my imagination more than the life drawing event.

Yes, real life drawing – billed as Barley’s Angels: Beer Meets (Life) Art – open to all for a $26 admission fee. The fee covers drawing pad and pen, food, beer and a “light hearted art lesson while we pair various techniques of life drawing to a variety of well-crafted beer styles”.

The eight-day event includes beer and food related activities mainly around the city and the inner north south, east and west, with a couple of outliers at Manly and Parramatta.

Participating brewers include the craft arms of Foster’s and Lion (Matilda Bay, James Squire, White Rabbit and Little Creatures) and 23 independents, including Stone and Wood, Murray’s, Mountain Goat, Holgate and Moo Brew. Details at sydneycraftbeerweek.com

Better with brett — the Wig and Pen’s new brews

3 October 2012Beer, Beer review, PeopleChris Shanahan

The Wig and Pen currently offers four beers fermented with the spoilage yeast brettanomyces (brett) – some in conjunction with the bacteria lactobacillus and pediococcus – and one aged, post ferment, in barrels with a brett population.

These normally unwelcome microbes add exotic aromas and flavours to the beers, well removed from the pure malty, fruity, hoppy characters we find in standard lagers and ales.

But the Wig’s customers, me included, love the sharp, pungent, sweet and sour character of these beers. That’s no different, I suppose, than learning to enjoy sherry’s distinctive, pungent flavour caused by aldehyde compounds – the product of intentionally oxidised alcohol.

The almost-sold-out, delightfully fruity, tart but gentle Brett, an English pale ale style, is to be replaced by Sour Blonde, Bob’s Armpit, LPG and Rye of the Liger – a wonderfully diverse and adventurous range of beers.

Wig and Pen Rye of the Liger Lager half pint $7
Brewer Richard Watkins wonders is this the only brettanomyces brewed lager in the world? It’s a medium amber colour, with an abundant head, cereal-like aroma (rye comprises 25 per cent of the malt) and rich, caramel-like flavours. There’s a slight, exotic funkiness to the aroma and a mild, pleasant sourness in the finish.

Wig and Pen Sour Blonde 200ml $7
Sour Blonde combines wheat beers of various ages (18 months barrel aged, 18 weeks and 18 days), all fermented with brettanomyces yeast. The flavour’s vibrant and lemony, with wheat beer’s distinctive brisk acidity. Barrel ageing adds to the creamy, soft texture. And brett provides an exotic sweaty and sour note to a most refreshing brew.

A glass half full

19 September 2012BeerChris Shanahan

From Bristol, that great city of brewing excellence, we learn that we quite likely drink beer faster from curve-sided glasses than straight-sided ones.

In a University of Bristol study, 159 male and female social drinkers consumed either lager or soft drink from a curved or straight glass. The researchers also asked participants to pick the half-full point of the glasses.

The experimenters concluded, “Participants were 60% slower to consume an alcoholic beverage from a straight glass compared to a curved glass. This effect was only observed for a full glass and not a half-full glass, and was not observed for a non-alcoholic beverage. Participants also misjudged the half-way point of a curved glass to a greater degree than that of a straight glass”.

I’m not sure what we’re to do with this insight. But I notice 99 per cent of Schloss Shanahan’s beer glasses are curved. Oh dear.

Beer with ginger — or ginger beer

29 August 2012Beer, Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Though they’re both labelled ‘ginger beer’, there’s a huge difference between alcoholic ginger beer and beer brewed with ginger.

The growth of RTDs and flavoured beers means we’re seeing more of both on retail shelves – the best of both styles providing the exotic flavour of fresh ginger.

Some, like Crabbie’s, reviewed below, are just alcoholic versions of the soft drinks we brewed at home as kids. They’re really part of the RTD world and generally pretty sweet.

But brewers of real beer sometimes season their product with ginger – giving adults the malty flavours and dryness of beer, overlaid with ginger.

Mad Brewers Ginger Chops Alcoholic Ginger Beer (330ml 4-pack $16.99) is a good local version, brewed at Malt Shovel Brewery, Sydney. It even contains a little malted wheat, giving it extra freshness. The full-bore Kiuchi (below) is an excellent imported example.

Kiuchi Brewery Real Ginger Ale 330ml $9.50
Many ginger beers seem like alcoholic soft drinks, tempering cloying sweetness with tart ginger. But Kiuchi is all beer – rich, warming (seven per cent alcohol) and malty, with an abundant, persistent head, and delicious deep undercurrent of tangy ginger flavour. The high alcohol and generous malt make it a good winter beer.

Crabbie’s Original Alcoholic Ginger Beer 330ml 4-pack $15.99
A crafty brew, this one – the Brits down 2.5 million cases year, “tapping into consumer desire for craft”, claims the press release, adding that it’s “made from a base of four secret ingredients”. Our leathery old palate identified only two, ginger and sugar delicious enough, but too sweet for my palate.

Stone brewed in Byron

22 August 2012Beer, Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Brad Rogers, brewer at Byron Bay’s Stone and Wood Brewery, says he tweaked this year’s Stone Beer to see it through the 12 months until the next release.

The annual brew uses a technique from the middle ages – heating stones and dropping them into the kettle. Rogers writes, “apart from the obvious heating effects, the brewing stones also caramelised the brew to create subtle but rich toffee-like flavours.

Rogers says a number of beer drinkers stretched their supplies over the year between releases – prompting the decision to build cellarability into the 2012 brew.

Brewers generally achieve this by upping the alcohol and hops and, in some cases conditioning the beer in bottle on its yeast sediment – Coopers Extra Strong Vintage Ale, for example.

Rogers dispensed with bottle conditioning, but increased the alcohol, added dark roasted malts and Hersbrucker hops for “firmer bitterness”.

Stone and Wood Limited Release Stone Beer 500ml $9.99
Stone beer 2012 moves from copper red to a deeper mahogany colour. The source of the deeper colour – dark, roasted malts – add their own toasty notes to the rich, sweet underlying toffee flavours. The full body reflects the robust 7.2 per cent alcohol and bitter hops bite all the way across the palate.

O’Brien gluten-free beers

15 August 2012Beer, Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Rebellion Brewing belongs to a couple of beer drinking coeliac sufferers – John O’Brien and Andrew Laver. Dissatisfied with the quality of gluten-free beers (all imports at the time) they decided to make their own. In 2005 they launched O’Brien Gluten Free Premium Lager, brewed under contract at the Bintara Brewery, Rutherglen. Two years later they established their own brewery in Ballarat.

They now make four gluten-free beers from malted millet and sorghum. We lined the four brews up at Schloss Shanahan this week and liked what we found.

Like all low-alcohol beers, O’Brien Gluten Free Light Lager (2.7 per cent alcohol, $23.45 330ml 6-pack) lacks body, but it’s fresh and dry with a pleasant, light, herbal, hoppy character – a well crafted, refreshing brew for life’s almost sober moments.

Medium bodied Gluten Free Brown Ale ($330ml 6-pack $24.95) offers a salami-like, smoked grain aroma and flavour on a smooth, malty, dry, mildly bitter palate.

O’Brien Gluten Free Premium Lager 330ml 6-pack $24.95
This is a decent brew by any measure, made principally, in the original recipe, from sorghum with a smidge of buckwheat. The colour’s a pale lemon/gold, the aroma and flavour sit in the mainstream lager spectrum and the finish is emphatically and lingeringly bitter.

O’Brien Gluten Free Pale Ale 330ml 6-pack $24.95
The aroma of the light golden coloured pale ale combines fresh, delicate, floral hops with a light fruitiness and malt. The same combination flows through to the well-balanced, mild palate – smooth, fruity maltiness deliciously cut through with delicate hops and finishing with a satisfying bitterness.

Coeliacs turn to gluten-free brewing

8 August 2012BeerChris Shanahan

Engineer John O’Brien loves a beer. But in 1998, after being diagnosed with coeliac disease, he faced a dry future unless he could find a gluten-free beer.

Gluten’s not a problem for most people. But for Australia’s 30 thousand diagnosed Coeliacs its consumption can be debilitating as it inhibits the small intestine’s ability to absorb vital nutrients. The only cure is to avoid gluten.

A global search turned up nothing satisfactory, so O’Brien made small batches for his own consumption. He later established his own brand, brewing initially at Michael Murtagh’s Bintara Brewery, Rutherglen, using the gluten-free grains, sorghum and buckwheat. O’Brien released the first beer – O’Brien’s Premium Gluten Free Lager –in August 2005.

In 2007 O’Brien and fellow coeliac, brewer Andrew Lavery, set up their own brewery, Rebellion Brewing, in Ballarat and expanded their range of gluten-free beers. We’ll look at these next week.

Beer and cider review — Mountain Goat and Rekorderlig

1 August 2012Beer, CiderChris Shanahan

Mountain Goat Organic Steam Ale 330ml $4.00
“Eat sleep drink Goat”, the label urges. And I’ll happily do the last bit, as it’s a delightful, fresh, bottle-conditioned beer. The colour’s a very pale lemon and the spiciness under the herbal hops aroma suggests wheat beer – an impression confirmed by the fine, white head and brisk, tart, irresistible palate.

Rekorderlig Premium Pear Cider 500ml $8
Our jam makers long ago realised the economies of sugar versus fruit. Dare I suggest the same about Sweden’s popular Rekorderlig cider? Perhaps I missed its charms. But try as I could, the faint but definite pear flavour struggled under the cloying sweetness. Blessed are the sweet of tooth, for sugar is cheap.

Coopers release 2012 vintage ale

25 July 2012Beer, Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Vintage Bottle 013 — Coopers Extra Strong Vintage Ale 2012

We occasionally check out the older Coopers Extra Strong Vintage ales in the Schloss Shanahan cellars – stretching back to the original 1998 vintage. Generally, over time, the hops influence wanes, and the toffee-like malt flavours become more dominant as the beers age.

We note in the just-released 2012 vintage a marked shift in the hops character – away from the pungent, resiny aromas of the 2011, to a more delicate, but still dominant citrus-like character. All of this comes on top of the rich, malty flavour and fruity character we always see in Coopers ales.

Dr Tim Cooper attributes the changes in hops flavour to the varieties and timing of the additions. This year he used five types of hops – Germany’s perle and magnum, New Zealand’s Nelson sauvin and America’s centennial and cascade.

The 2012 provides another delicious variation on this potent, bottle-conditioned ale style.

Coopers Extra Strong Vintage Ale 2012 355ml 6-pack $22
Coopers 2012 vintage ale retains the full body, high alcohol (7.5 per cent) and cellarability of previous vintages, but introduces a new emphasis on citrus-like hops aromatics – hovering over the familiar fruity, malty notes. The new hop treatment invigorates the full, velvety palate, too. But the satisfying, lingering hops bitterness remains.