Category Archives: Beer

Crown Ambassador 2009 — top beer, pity about the price

26 August 2009BeerChris Shanahan

After last week’s column on vintage beer, Foster’s obliged with a sample of Crown Ambassador Lager 2009. We share it with a dozen or so keen tasters:

Spreadsheet Tom turned from his computer and admiring the sleek, black, gold-embossed bottle, said thoughtfully, “It’s actually $35, not $70”. Seeing our puzzled faces, he explained, “Look, it’s 10 per cent alcohol, and normal beer’s only five – so you’re really getting two bottles”.

But the air of reverence persisted. We carefully cut the plastic faux-wax and levered the cap from our Crown Ambassador 2009 Reserve Lager – one of only 6,000 in the whole world. Our expectations ran high – the stately, black, magnet-sealed box; the elegant bottle; the promise of heady aromas, unctuous flavours; and the price. Could any beer be worth that much?
And the beer was marvellous – as aromatic, opulent and complex as you could imagine. It’s not on the same planet as normal Crown Lager. The high alcohol (10.2%), generous crystal malt flavour, ale-like fruitiness, heady aroma of galaxy hops (from Myrtleford, Victoria) and bottle fermentation put it in the top ranks of Australian beers built for ageing.
I still wouldn’t buy a bottle at $70, despite Spreadsheet Tom’s optimism. But you can see where Crown’s headed with this. The packaging and price create great expectations; and the beer delivers on the promise. But beer lovers can enjoy any number of equally good brews, in plain packaging, for a fraction of the price.

Book review — The Australian beer companion, Willie Simpson, $49.95

19 August 2009Beer, Book reviewChris Shanahan

This is the book Australian beer drinkers have been waiting for – a succinct chronicle of who’s brewing what, where. It’s written by journalist, turned specialty beer writer, turned brewer, Willie Simpson – an experienced beer sampler and keen judge of what’s important about each of the breweries described in the book.

The book starts with a few beer essentials: what goes into beer (including a brief history of hop-growing in Australia) and a summary of the major beer styles we’re likely to encounter. It’s jargon-free and written in plain English, but not dumbed down.

After that it’s a state-by-state tour of our brewers, big and small, starting with Willie’s top-five ranking. In the NSW and ACT section, for example, his selections are James Squire Pilsner, Wicked Elf Pale Ale, Wig & Pen IPA, Redoak Framboise Froment and Murray’s Dark Knight – an eclectic mix that includes beers from Australia’s second largest brewer (Lion Nathan’s James Squire) and Canberra’s tiny Wig & Pen.

The maps help us put the breweries in a place. And the pictures have been thoughtfully shot, capturing the personalities behind the beers as well as their breweries and products.

And the press release came with a wonderful Henry Lawson quote, “Beer makes you feel the way you ought to feel without beer”.

Vintage Beer — Coopers takes the crown

12 August 2009BeerChris Shanahan

Q. What’s the difference between ‘luxury’ vintage beer and ‘extra strong’ vintage beer? A. $60.59 a bottle (750ml equivalent). That’s the price gap between recently released Coopers Extra Strong Vintage Ale 2009 ($4.70 375ml at Plonk, Fyshwick) and Foster’s Crown Ambassador Reserve 2009 Lager ($69.99 750ml recommended) released on 3 August.

How the two compare I don’t know. I’ve tried the Coopers and it’s terrific – consistent with eight previous vintages. But there’s no Crown sample, no invitation to share the Queen’s bottle – and I’m not crazy enough to spend seventy bucks on a long neck. Can any beer be that good?

Perhaps a cache for the retirement fund? If you’re tempted, remember the ‘collector’ ports of the late seventies. They turned out to be dust collectors.

On value, Coopers Extra Strong Vintage Ale 2009 looks the better bet. This is the ninth release. And the older vintages in the Schloss Shanahan cellar still drink well – the fruitiness and bitterness giving way with age to mellow, malt-related caramel flavours.

Foster’s makes pace-setting beers – like Matilda Bay Alpha Pale Ale and Chloe’s Naked Ale – so Crown Ambassador Lager is a probably a cracker. But at $70, I’m not buying it.

Beer review — Dalgety Brewing Co.

5 August 2009BeerChris Shanahan

Dalgety Brewing Co. Golden Ale 24X330ml $75
My favourite of the Dalgety beers has a deep golden colour, a lively, spontaneous head and a hazy appearance. It’s very aromatic, led by fresh, citrusy hops – a character that drives through the rich, smooth, soft, lively malty palate as well, giving a lingering hops flavour and bitterness to the finish.

Dalgety Pale Ale 300ml 24X330ml $75
This one has mid-amber colour, a medium head and a light yeast haze. The brewer’s note describes an ‘in your face’ hit of hops – but it’s subdued, lacking the ultra freshness for the hops to drive the beer as it should. What’s left is a pleasant, bitter, slightly hard beer.

Dalgety — a snowy brew

5 August 2009Beer, PeopleChris Shanahan

The Dalgety Brewing Company bills itself as the true snowy brewer. Located about half way between Berridale and Dalgety, the microbrewer also claims to be the first commercial producer in the snow mountains region. But I suspect they’d be in a photo finish with Lion Nathan’s Jindabyne-based Kosciusko Brewing for that honour.

I’ve not visited the cellar door (it’s part of the Snowy Vineyard Estate) but the bottled version, distributed in Canberra by Z4, is already available at the Ginger Room at old parliament house and Canberra Cellars, Braddon.

The beers are made on site in 100 litre batches by David Lowe. And if they don’t have the classy polish of Lion’s Kosciuszko Pale Ale, there’s an appealing, idiosyncratic, homespun, wholemeal goodness about them (a natural cloudy yeast haze and a slight resinous edge to the hops that builds as you sip).

There’s the foundation for real quality and character across the range, best evidenced in the very fresh, zesty Golden Ale. It’s not inherently a better style than Dalgety’s Blonde Ale, Pale Ale or Red Ale – just fresher, livelier and showing finer, clearer hops aroma, flavour and bitterness. This could be related to the difficulties of small batch bottling – a tricky feat for the even the cleverest brewer.

Canberra’s truffled beer

29 July 2009Beer, PeopleChris Shanahan

The black perigord truffle (tuber melanosporum) boosts the aromas and flavours of other foods, at least partly through absorption of its penetrating, seductive aroma in fat – dramatically so in the case of eggs and cheese. But would it work its magic, I wondered, in the truffle beer about to flow at the Wig & Pen?

A week later, after a couple of small-scale trials, brewer Richard Watkins pulled the first pints just hours after adding truffle slices to the Wig’s Modus Hoperandus – a metal reinforced glass percolator, built originally for fresh hops flowers, and now perched permanently on the bar.

After the hops season Richard created Spies’d Olde Ale, a 5.8 per cent alcohol, mild, malty brew to seep through a changing feast of fresh spices – including vanilla beans, cinnamon, cardamon, nutmeg and juniper – on the way to the taps.

As the spice influence waned, Richard added thick slices of fresh local truffle and detected its influence almost immediately – as a strong boost to the ale’s molasses and brown sugar flavours.

I hadn’t tried the ale beforehand, but the post-truffle brew impressed for its wine-like richness. And as it warmed in the glass there was a definite truffle note mingled with the hops aftertaste – perhaps extracted by the hop oils or alcohol, or both. Richard hopes to serve the beer for the duration of the local truffle season.

Diversity in Aussie beer competition

15 July 2009BeerChris Shanahan

For an insight into the incredibly diverse world of beer go to www.beerawards.com and check out the 2009 catalogue of results. It’s a mouth-watering list, running to 42 pages, and containing lots of everyday beers as well as some of the hardest-to-find exotica on earth.

Trophy winning breweries include relatively unknowns like the beautifully named Feral Brewing Company of Western Australia, Cerveceria Hondurena (Honduras Brewery), Mountain Goat Beer of Melbourne, McAuslan Brewing of Canada, Weihenstephaner of Bavaria, Blackwood Vale of Western Australia, The Flying Horse Bar and Brewery of Victoria, The Sunshine Coast Brewery of Queensland and Anderson Valley Brewing of California.

Scrolling through the score sheets, though, you find exotic brews mixed in with our old favourites – so we can use the judges’ scores to run the value-for-money ruler over a vast range of beers.

The packaged lager section, for example, bristles with bronze and silver medal beers from around the world. But we scroll a long way to find the first gold medallist, Cerveceria Hondurena Imperial.

The judges reveal their leaning to more complex beers with a run of four consecutive golds in the India pale ale class and vein of gold sprinkled through the draft stout division – including gongs for James Squire The Craic, Port Dock Black Bart, Stearn Exchange Stout, Mountain Goat Surefoot, Blackwood Valley Stout and Moo Brew Seasonal Stout.

Warming winter ales from the British Isles

1 July 2009Beer, Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Like the stouts reviewed last week, English ales suit Canberra’s winter climate. As a group they’re fruity, rich and malty, and a joy to drink at a mild 5–10 degrees.

They vary in colour from pale tan to inky black and in flavour from mild and subtle to rich and chocolaty, with a corresponding variance in hops bitterness.

The richest pickings I’ve seen in Canberra are at Plonk, in the Fyshwick Markets, where there seems to be a continuous flow of new beers from around the world.

A recent raid on their shelves yielded a handful of outstanding English beers (all in satisfying 500ml bottles).

The mid-amber coloured Ridley’s Old Bob Strong Premium Ale ($7.28) features deep, supple, smooth maltiness, beautifully offset by hops aroma and flavour – a harmonious brew built on East Anglian pale ale malt and Fuggles hops.

The low-alcohol Manns Brown Ale ($6.03) focuses on rich, treacly malt flavours with little bitterness. It contrasts gently with the assertive, chocolaty, roasted grain flavours and drying hops bitterness of Taddy Porter, below.

Greene King Strong Suffolk Vintage Ale (7.29) – matured in oak for two years – is another powerful but balanced brew. It’s a fireside ale featuring high alcohol and warm toffee flavours.

Batemans Triple XB Classic Premium Ale 500ml $7.11
This lively copper-coloured beer ticks all of ale’s aroma, flavour and bitterness boxes – in its own rich, complex discrete style. The malt:hops balance is superb and the extra vibrance on the palate probably comes from the inclusion of wheat malt in the blend. This is an exciting and easy-to-drink beer.

Samuel Smith Tadcaster Taddy Porter 500ml $8.28
The line between stout and porter is to some extent arbitrary, but Taddy sits towards the robust end of the porter style. It’s deeply coloured, velvet smooth and balances seductive chocolaty, roasted-grain flavours against its lingering, dry, bitter finish. Despite the complexity and strength of flavours it’s oh so pleasant to drink.

Enough of anorexic stout

24 June 2009Beer, Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Stout, like many other modern beer styles, seems to have been dumbed down, on average, to broaden its appeal. But there’s a countervailing force, driven by craft brewers and consumers keen to savour the power of this great ale style.

To see the difference between stout-by-name and stout-by-nature, you only have to compare, say, Australian-brewed Guinness on tap and the Dublin brewed Guinness Foreign Extra reviewed below.

The local version is pleasant enough. But if you’re looking for stout’s strong, distinctive roasted malt flavours, mid-palate opulence and assertive hops bitterness, you’re unlikely to find it. I’ve tried periodically without success.

The brewer’s art in making stout is to bring the strong aromas and flavours harmoniously together – to deliver flavour, bitterness, complexity and drinkability. Guinness’s Foreign Extra, to my taste, achieves that deliciously.

But the Rogue Shakespeare Stout reviewed today and Mountain Goat Stout, reviewed two weeks ago, show that good stout has many faces.

And they’re great winter beers as they deliver all that lovely, warming malty flavour best when served at around 10 degrees.

Guinness Foreign Extra (Dublin) 330ml $5.67
Dear Guinness, if you can brew such opulent, glorious stout in Ireland, why can’t you achieve the same in Australia? Or are we just getting what we deserve? This Dublin brew is a benchmark stout – alcoholic, malty, chocolaty and delightfully bitter, but also harmonious and very drinkable.

Rogue Shakespeare Stout (Oregon USA) 650ml $14.85
Rogue, from Oregon, USA, presents a modern but still opulent face of stout. Its vibrant, fresh hops and fruity, estery aroma are novel in such a dark, potent beer. But these give tremendous freshness and vivacity to the underlying deep, roasted-malt flavours and assertive bitter finish.

Hop Thief steals the show

10 June 2009BeerChris Shanahan

Chuck Hahn and his James Squire team brewed their first Hop Thief Ale shortly after the hop harvest in 2006. For that brew, says Chuck, they used carefully selected new hop varieties from New Zealand.

In 2007, Chuck moved the focus to America, testing ten new varieties and selecting two for the brew that eventually made it to Australian retail shelves.

There was no 2008 Hop Thief. But it’s back this year as a rich, malty, complex ale, featuring hops from the first tangy-sweet sniff to the lingering bitter finish. And it achieves this without the resiny flavour build up that sometimes takes over hoppy beers.

Chuck used hop three varieties at different production stages. Pride of Ringwood and Galaxy, added to the kettle, drive the bitterness and passionfruit notes, says Chuck.

And late hopping with Southern Hallertau (a German Australian cross) boosted the aroma and liveliness of the flavour. For this final step in production the brewers passed the beer through a container of fresh hops – similar to Wig & Pen’s approach for its on-tap Hop Heads Ale.

We enjoy hops in beer all year, of course. But there’s a special freshness to these seasonal brews. And they’re best enjoyed as soon as they’re released.