Category Archives: Beer

Strickland brothers launch beautiful new beer in Canberra

13 October 2010BeerChris Shanahan

How did five stonemason brothers come to make Canberra’s new five-star beer? Mick Strickland says it started with a Pilzen beer recipe acquired by a great-something grandfather on the Ballarat goldfields in the 1850s.

About ten years ago the Stricklands found the recipe, written in German, in the spine of their grandmother’s bible. Later, they had it translated and asked brewing consultant Brian Watson if he could brew from it.

Watson modified the recipe with the Stricklands and Denis Coldabella, brewer at Southern Bay Brewing Company, Victoria. Coldabella then trialled and tested a few small batches with the Stricklands before producing the first 5,000 litre commercial brew.

Mick Strickland says they aimed to make a beer that started fruity, gathered richness and bitterness and finished dry – a style the brothers hoped might appeal to women as well as men. Their sisters and wives provided feedback on the trial brews.

The resulting complex, very drinkable beer is comparatively low in carbonation with a rich texture derived from a five-week lagering period (natural conditioning). It’s currently available on tap at All Bar Nun, O’Connor, and soon at the Hellenic Club, Civic.

Hopper Soft Brew — zero alcohol fruit beer

6 October 2010BeerChris Shanahan

Will anyone drink fruit juice with a beer flavour – or is that a beer-like drink with fruit flavour? Apparently it’s going gangbusters in the UK and it’s now being distributed in Canberra retail outlets.

The non-alcoholic drink, called Hopper Soft Brew and targeted at young adults, claims to be all-natural, with no additives or preservatives.

Billed as the soft drink born in a brewery, it’s the brainchild of a former Coca Cola Amatil executive, David Mead.

Mead says it’s made at the Southern Bay Brewing Company, near Geelong but took some years to perfect technically.

The brewer starts by making wort – derived by boiling water, malted barley and hops – then blending it with fruit juice and later pasteurising it and adding carbon dioxide. The boiling process, aided by natural enzymes, extracts soluble sugars from the malted barley. In brewing this is to prepare the sugars for alcoholic fermentation. But in this case, there’s no fermentation.

The result might best be described as a full-bodied soft drink with an energetic, persistent beer-like head, fruity flavour and colour derived from the fruit. The range currently includes citrus, apple and blackcurrant.

World’s oldest beer

15 September 2010BeerChris Shanahan

Search “Aland Islands” in Google maps and you’ll see the little group separating the northern Baltic Sea from the Gulf of Bothnia, between Sweden and Finland – at the same latitude as Helsinki.

Normally the islands mean nothing to beer drinkers. But the recent discovery nearby of what is believed to be the world’s oldest surviving beer puts it firmly in brewing’s history book.

The beer was discovered by divers attempting to salvage Champagne from a ship wrecked in the Baltic Sea some time between 1800 and 1830.

Rainer Juslin, from the Aland Islands’ ministry of education, science and culture, reportedly told CNN that the “culture in the beer is still living”.

Whether that statement’s based on science or guesswork isn’t clear. But Lion Nathan head brewer, Bill Taylor, believes that if there are viable cells in the beer, they’re unlikely to be what the brewer started with two hundred years ago, though it might be fascinating to grow a culture from it.

Taylors say he’s tried century-old beer, and “I’m not in a hurry to taste another one”. He said tasting the King’s Ale, brewed in February1902 at Bass Brewery, Burton-on-Trent, was fascinating and interesting. The Baltic find is likely to be in the same category.

When honesty is a foreign concept

8 September 2010BeerChris Shanahan

Dear Foster’s and Lion Nathan, why do I find it so hard to find “brewed in Australia” on the labels of international brands you brew in Australia?

I have in front of me bottles of Stella Artois and Beck’s that you brew in Melbourne and Sydney respectively.

I’m reading Stella’s front label and see “Belgian Tradition”, “Belgium’s Original Beer” and “Anno 1366”. On Beck’s I read “Brauerei Beck & Co Bremen, Germany”. No mention of Australia. But I’m looking.

So, over to the back label. Oh, there it is, smaller print, but clear enough. But how many people might never look there? How many people see Belgium and Germany prominently on the front labels and believer that’s what they’re buying? Why wouldn’t they — these are reputable international brands.

I’ve no quibble with the beers. They’re excellent facsimiles of the originals, brewed with extraordinary care and attention.

But aren’t the front labels misleading? Don’t drinkers deserve the truth? Why not put “product of Australia” prominently on the front labels.

Liquorice beer — how sweet it is

1 September 2010BeerChris Shanahan

If you drop into Edgars at Ainslie or All Bar Nun, O’Connor, you might sip an extraordinary one-off, draft brew from Chuck Hahn and Tony Jones of Sydney’s Malt Shovel Brewery.

The latest in their occasional “Mad Brewers” series is “Noir Stout” – a black, seven-per-cent alcohol, imperial-style, seasoned with liquorice.

Hahn and Jones write, “the powdered liquorice root added at the boil along with super alpha hops, rounds out the middle palate and provides that mysterious finish”.

Of course, their intimacy with the beer means they can see what characteristics the various components add. And in this instance, there’s lots going into the vat: chocolate and crystal barley malt, roasted black wheat malt, Australian super pride hops and New Zealand super alpha hops – as well as the powdered liquorice.

An outsider looking in might taste the rich, roasted-malt flavours and detect a crisp acidity, courtesy of the wheat malt. And the palate’s certainly luxuriously textured and deliciously sweet – before the hops dry out the finish, adding a subtle bitterness.

The sweetness and body, apparently come from the liquorice, which also reveals itself in a pleasant, albeit faint, fennel-like aftertaste. Noir Stout was released on 23 August and is available only on tap.

Dr Cooper prescribes beer

25 August 2010BeerChris Shanahan

With today’s focus on alcohol and health, there’s sweet irony in the history of Coopers Brewery. Its founder, Thomas Cooper, first brewed beer in the family bathtub, urged to do so by an ailing Yorkshire-born wife, convinced of beer’s health benefits. She died.

But not because of the beer, said Dr Tim Cooper on a visit to Canberra last week. His ancestor remarried, fathered 19 children in the two marriages, and in 1862 moved from the bathtub to a proper brewery, perhaps so the kids could bathe.

A Methodist, convinced of the evil of spirits, wine and pubs, Thomas Cooper built his business on door-to-door sales. Only in 1905 did a descendent embrace the devil, and Coopers has been in pubs ever since.

But as the business faltered in the 1970s young Cooper opted for a career in medicine. In the mid eighties, practicing in the UK and seven years into cardiology studies, he felt the call of the family business – motivated partly by a belief in beer’s health giving qualities. So, it was off to Birmingham University to study brewing.

Cooper joined the family company in Adelaide as brewer in 1990, continuing to practice medicine on weekends. In 2001 Coopers moved from its original site to a new $40 million facility at Regency Park. Since then the company has fought off a hostile bid from Lion Nathan, invested another $70 million in production facilities and boosted production from 27 to 62 million litres – lifting its share of the Australian beer market from to 3.6 per cent, from one per cent. Dr Cooper still advocates the health benefits of moderate beer consumption.

Vintage shoot out — Coopers Vintage Ale and Crown Ambassador Lager

18 August 2010Beer, Beer reviewChris Shanahan

There they were at last, side by side on the tasting bench – two beers for the cellar, both made in single batches each year and released in winter; one aimed at beer enthusiasts, and affordable at $20 a 375ml 6-pack; the other seemingly aimed at the hospitality PR machine first, then well-healed collectors, and finally, perhaps, very curious beer enthusiasts prepared to pay $90 a 750ml bottle.

One’s ale, the other’s lager. Both are bottle conditioned. Both are high in alcohol – Cooper’s Extra Strong Vintage Ale 2010 weighing in at 7.5 per cent, about half as strong again as a normal full-strength beer; Crown Ambassador Reserve Lager 2010 hitting a strapping 10.2 per cent – way up there with Belgium’s specialty ales.

Both share a deep-amber colour, the Cooper’s a tad darker, with a mahogany tone. But from there on, each spins off in its own orbit. Cooper’s heading down the banana-fruity end of the ale spectrum; Crown Ambassador where lager seldom treads, but initially defined by distinctive, pungent hops aroma boosted by alcohol.

They’re both complex, substantial beers brewed with bottle ageing in mind. We know Coopers ages well as it’s been around since 1998. Crown looks the goods, but we’ll hold judgement until we see a few oldies.

Cooper’s Extra Strong Vintage Ale 2010 375ml 6-pack $20
Specification – Australian malted barley. Hops: New Zealand Nelson Sauvin, German Magnum and Perle bittering, English Styrian Golding aroma hops. Initial aroma impact is of sweet, banana-like esters. But under that lies a pleasing hoppy note and sweet malt. The opulent, malty palate is cut with spicy hop flavours and a lingering bitterness balancing the malt sweetness.

Crown Ambassador Reserve Lager 2010 750ml $90
Specification – Malt unstated. Hops: fresh picked Galaxy hops from Myrtleford, Victoria. A portion of 2009 vintage, oak-matured for 12 months, added to the brew. Pungent, spicy hops dominates the aroma and persists through the powerful palate — of rich malt, heady alcohol, complex, dried-fruit flavour, and a bite of tannin from the oak.

Beer for the cellar — Crown Ambassador and Coopers Vintage

11 August 2010BeerChris Shanahan

Beer for the cellar? You bet. On 30 June Coopers released its 2010 Extra Strong Vintage Ale – the tenth in the series following 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2007, 2008 and 2009 – and on 2 August Foster’s released its third Crown Ambassador Reserve Lager 2010.

It’s a choice between the bling and dazzle of Crown’s gold-embossed 750m bottle at $90 (with a pair of purpose-built Riedel glasses for $129) or the no-frills 375ml Coopers 6-pack at $20.

They’re clearly pitched at different markets. Crown pushes into luxury goods territory alongside, perfume and Champagne. It’ll even be served in Australia’s poshest restaurants – Quay, Catalina, Aria Sydney and Brisbane, Circa, The Prince and Grossi Florentino.

Coopers, on the other hand, comes in plain vanilla packaging saluting the company’s long, independent brewing heritage. There are no flashing lights here, just a straightforward appeal to beer lovers, particularly the Coopers faithful, of which there are many.

Without having sampled the 2010s, though, we can be sure they’ll both be top-notch, although very different brews – Crown, a high-alcohol lager, brewed in Melbourne under John Cozens; and Coopers, a strong, dark ale brewed in Adelaide under Dr Tim Cooper.
Bottles are on the way now, so we’ll report on the comparative tasting next week.

How much beer do Aussies drink?

21 July 2010BeerChris Shanahan

How much beer do Australians drink? A fair bit it seems, but less, per capita, than we did five years ago.

Figures released in May by the Australian Bureau of Statistics show we drank 104.7 litres a head in the year to June 2009 – well down on the 109.9 litres we enjoyed back in 2004, when we ranked fourth in the world behind the Czech Republic (156.9 litres), Ireland (131.1 litres) and Germany (115.8 litres).

The ABS figures reveal our clear preference for full-strength and mid-strength beer and a declining taste for low strength brews. Per person consumption of low alcohol beer (above 1.15 per cent alcohol, but less than 3.0 per cent) declined from 11.8 litres in 2007, to 10.4 litres in 2008 and 9.0 litres in 2009.

In the same period, per capita consumption of mid-strength beer (greater than 3.0 per cent alcohol but less than 3.5 per cent) increased slightly from 15.8 to 16.0 litres, while full-strength moved from 78.7 litres to 79.7 litres.

Our total intake of pure alcohol declined from 10.4 litres to 10.08 litres per person over 15 years between 2007 and 2009. Beer accounted for 4.54 litres of this in 2007 and 4.49 in 2009 – making it still our biggest source of alcohol nationally.

The beer spectrum — from boring to beautiful

14 July 2010BeerChris Shanahan

There are delicious, idiosyncratic beers that belt you over the head (like Matilda Bay’s Long Shot, reviewed below), beers that beguile and seduce with subtlety (like Asahi Super Dry reviewed last month) and beers that just don’t register on the flavour meter, but succeed anyway.

The new Carlton Natural Super Dry Lager might fall into the latter category. The sample bottle arrived with the obligatory cliché, jargon-riddled press release. And the beer, to my taste, seemed low on flavour and bitterness, albeit with a trace of pleasant hops character.
It’s a low carb beer – achieved by extending the “brewing process to break down the complex sugars”. But unfermented sugars contribute much to the flavour and body of traditional beers. Take them out and there’s a hole to fill. Brewers achieve this to some extent with clever use of hops.

To me, though, low-carb beers seem made for a neurotic market. And clichés like “the finest natural ingredients are brewed” and “Carlton Natural hits the flavour and style bulls-eye for 25 to 30 year old guys” simply don’t gel in the face of such bland flavours.

What’s marvellous, though, is that a brewer as big as Fosters has the ability to produce both a large volume, market-driven style like Carlton Natural and the idiosyncratic Matilda Bay Long Shot.