Bridge Rd Posse Takeover (Week 4)

Bridge Road Brewers run a regular beer post group they call their posse. As a result of this I find myself with an over-abundance of Bridge Rd beers kicking around. So I figure why not do a week of Bridge Road Beers. Genius! I know. Here we go-

Day 22: Bridge Rd – Celtic Red Ale

Big and Malty, some heavy toffee character which is really nice. Caramel in abundance, very nice.

Day 23: Bridge Rd – Posse Winter Ale

Available only to Posse members this changes every year. I think this 2015 one is supposed to be a dunkel. can’t quite remember as I was hammered on Friday night when I drank this one 🙂 will have to revisit…. old stock though so hopefully it holds up well.

Day 24: Bridge Rd – Posse Summer Ale

Just like the winter one, the summer ale changes every year. Now this 2015 version is an absolute delight and luckily my fridge is full of it. It’s basically just a really nice rye pale ale.

 

Day 25: Bridge Rd – Chestnut Pilsner

Solid Pils, but not really one of my favourites from this brewery. No Idea what a chestnut tastes like or is adding to this beer.

Day 26: Bridge Rd – Höpfen Köpfen

Collaboration beer with Lost Valley. It’s a German IPA maybe? Like a west coast IPA but using noble hops. Interesting, I quite like it.

Day 27: Bridge Rd – Fat Man Red Suit Big Sack

One of my favourites from Bridge Rd is this fantastic hoppy Red ale. just the right amount of malt backbone to substantiate the massive hop hit.

 

Day 28: Bridge Rd – Enigma Pilsner

My favourite new style (or is that old style) of beer at the moment is the reimagined “New World” Pilsner. this one features the Enigma hop. I’m a massive fan and will be keeping an eye out for more of this.

 

3rd week and still kicking…

well, drinking really. It’s been a quiet week over at chateau Crofty, not a lot going on so I figured I’d drink a whole bunch of beer… probably not wise given I can only log one a day and I depleted the stocks a little bit of beers I could have held for logging later. But, that’s not really the point of drinking now is it?

In any case across the week I managed to take a photo of at least 1 beer each day for the purposes of logging some beers in.

Day 15: Belhaven Brewery – Twisted Thistle IPA

An american style IPA brewed by a scottish brewer, it pours a nice copper colour with a white head. slight sweetness to the malt, bitterness up front from the hops, however no discernible characters from the hops… could be an old bottle? anyways, nothing extremely great, from memory it was a cheap 6-er from Uncle Dans.

 

Day 16: Akasha Brewing Company – Angry @$#%

Friday afternoon, so I stopped in at local (to work) brewery Akasha. I’m pretty much found there most Friday afternoons, so this is no real surprise. what was is the new bottling machine they were setting up, and this gem – An XPA.

 

Day 17: Coopers – Mild Ale

Saturday sees me up the Blue Mountains for a mate’s 40th birthday, with home-brews on tap, and me driving I’m going to need something mid-strength to keep me on point. Enter Coopers mild ale, my go to case beer of choice and official beer of the v8 Supercars (it’s also the beer that tried to kill me, but i’m not getting into that one).

It’s a fairly solid beer flavoured beer, nothing a craft beer snob would go anywhere near, however I love this beer and keep a couple cases around all year round.

 

Day 18: Mornington Peninsular Brewery – Lager

Hazy german style lager, it pours a light golden to straw colour with a weak head. light yeast aroma mild hop characters and a grainy malt flavour. Finishes dry with low bitterness. Fairly run of the mill german lager, I think given the choice I’d probably pick up an import instead.

 

Day 19: Bridge Road Brewers – Chevalier Saison

This beer is an absolute delight. one of the best, Bridge Rd have to offer. Pours a Straw golden colour with a white head. some tropical aromas with the yeast kicking out slight banana. Flavour profile is more towards the tropical, with added lemon and a bread character. Spicy finish which is not entirely as dry as I would like it, but overall a great experience.

 

Day 20: Hopdog Beerworks – Chai Fighter

I have to admit, I don’t really know what Chai is or how it’s supposed to taste… I mean, yeah I’ve heard of Chai, people have lattes with it in, but I don’t know personally what it tastes like, so don’t expect much reference to how the chai works or doesn’t in this beer.

The beer pours has, its more of a dark Orange/Golden colour with a spicy aroma. I’m getting cinnamon, there’s other stuff too, but I recognise the cinnamon right up front. the flavour is what I’d describe as earthy (spicy as well obviously), maybe some ginger.

It finishes with a bitter aftertaste that lingers like the smell of that spice shop you just walked past, you know 2 blocks ago… but in the end it seems to work. I don’t generally like spiced beers so this is one of those rare occasions.

Day 21: Mikkeller – Centennial Session IPA

The world of session IPAs is full of watery garbage, a lack of body, lack of balance due to the overabundance of high alphas and generally shitty mash profile. This isn’t one of those. highlighting one of my favourite hops, this is exactly what i’m looking for in a session IPA. hopefully I can grab some more before anyone else realises how good it is.

 

Next week: Bridge Road Feed Takeover

2nd week is over

and this week saw me fly down to Melbourne for the Melbourne Beer Fest, held on Saturday in Catani Gardens St Kilda. A pretty decent selection of beers and an 8 hour fest, left us well and truly mellow by the time it was over.

I met up with some friends old and new at Forresters Hall on Friday night and wandered aimlessly through Melbourne on the Sunday before flying home. All in all a pretty decent weekend and it reminded me  need to hit Melbourne more often in the future.

Alrighty, on to the Beers;

Day 8: James Squire – Hop Thief

My Mate Jeff was in the park I work at so we caught up for lunch. not a lot of options but the Hop Thief 7 always goes down well. good to catch up and get out of the office for lunch for a change.

Day 9: Rodenbach – Caractère Rouge

Friday saw me fly down to Melbourne and catch up with a great bunch of guys, many beers were consumed, but this gorgeous beer was the highlight. Delightful raspberry flavour and a great beer to share with the group.

Day 10: Kettle Green Brewing Company – Wigged-Out Wonder Woman

You’ll have to forgive me if I forget this beer, it was after 8 hours at the beerfest. picked up at Mrs Parma’s where we went to grab a bite following the fest. Food was great & I recommend you take a look f you’re in Melbourne. Had to be good right, it’s got Wonder Woman on it… Super.

Day 11: James Squires Brewhouse – Crafty IPL

Last Day in Melbourne and following some Breakfast beers at Local Taphouse, I figured I better head into the city to get closer to going home. Cue a stop at the Crafty Squire to watch the UFC Main Event and a couple of beers. this delightful IPL hit the spot and following the fight I rushed to the airport to get my plane.

Day 12: Big Sky Brewing Company – Big Sky IPA

Not a bad IPA, fairly solid but not much to talk about. There are far better beers available in Australia along these lines and plenty available through larger bottle shops.

Day 13: Lost Coast Brewery – Downtown Brown

Great beer, big malty, nutty, caramelly… I’m running out of words. a very pleasant drinker despite the warm temperature this week. Totally worth grabbing if you can find it.

Day 14: Mornington Peninsular Brewery – Commonfolk Brown

Everything the above brown was, this isn’t… well not quite that bad. this just isn’t that great. Perhaps because the Downtown was so good this was just doesn’t stack up. Unfortunate, because I really like MPBrew and I really like Brown Ales.

One week down..

Ah, the end of 7 days of my 366 day challenge and it’s pretty easy going. I must admit that it starts to take over your thinking pretty quickly. I found myself counting the different beers available at the local (24 if you’re wondering) and mentally banking these for later if I get desperate.

I’m also unconsciously noting the bottle shops I pass on the way home, placing each into categories such as, seems an option, definitely going to be a good source and not likely to have anything for me…. this is probably going to be harder than initially thought.

The challenge here being, that whilst I live in Sydney technically… I live in a small rural community. the closest bottle shop other than the pub and club in town is half an hour away, the next a bit further and even then we’re talking BWS and Vintage Cellars. What I’d give for a Dan Murphys or a First Choice right now.

This is potentially going to require some forethought and planning.

Anyways, onto the week just past.

 

Day 1: Young Henrys – Newtowner

I know, I know… I already posted this… but i’m repeating it for completeness of the week. on that basis it’s not getting any write up.

 

Day 2: Tooheys – Darling Pale Ale

First of my backup beers from the local. it’s a macro-brewers attempt at a gateway pale ale. a little birds told me it’s likely to go the way of the dodo shortly, so I figured I better log one before I miss my chance. it’s got a nice floral/fruity hop character to it when it’s fresh from the keg.

 

Day 3: Hopdog Beerworks – An American Werewolf in Belgium

Always a bit excited to jump out of the bottle, this is an old favourite of mine. I found it hiding in the back of the fridge begging me to drink it. it’s taken on a bit of a tang, which I associate with the wheat used.

 

Day 4: Mornington Peninsula Brewery – Rust Bucket

Hoppy red ale. One of my favourite styles and quite tasty. This one goes down a treat. I notice MPBrew have jumped on the can bandwagon. Good for them

 

Day 5: Feral – Hop Hog

One of the most consistent Australian beers going, this is always a delight. perfectly balanced hop bitterness and malt backbone, but with a nice dry finish that keeps you coming back for more (I also found a new backdrop for indoor photos).

 

Day 6: Mornington Peninsular Brewery – Pale

Solid pale, nothing I’d overly call ah-maze-ing about it, but solid all the same. Could smash an easy six of these on a warm arvo… And at a decent price a case I may just do so in the near future.

 

Day 7: Hopdog Beerworks – 6Tenk II

Big Dark and Strong, this Robust Porter has been bourbon barrel staved producing a marvellously complex beast of a beer. probably better suited for cooler weather it was enjoyable all the same.

 

Well that’s it for the first week, only 51 more to go…

A year of beer…

Or to be more precise, a “Yeer in Beer“.

The brainchild of one Sydney resident, Shane Maguire back in 2012 set out with his good mate Scott Ellis to do what a lot of people would not even think to do.

Drink a different beer every day for an entire year… not just any year mind you, a leap year. Yep, that’s 366 different beers – one per day for 2012. As a result of his achievement, he set up what has become one of the more popular Craft beer Facebook groups in Australia with over 1500 members mainly focussed across Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.

As a member of this group, I’ve attended multiple catch up events & made many new friends. I even ran a competition last Easter to come up with the biggest beer atrocity or Beertrocity as it has since been labelled (it’s true! look it up here), and as recent as last weekend, I guided a group of around 15 people through to 5 breweries on a walking trip cutting across Newtown, Marrickville & St Peters.

Well, A new leap year is upon us and now it’s my turn.

I have revived the blog from it’s almost comatose state, blown the dust off and I’m going to promise to start posting again regularly. At the very least i’ll post up once a week with the 7 beers I have consumed at a bare minimum so that you guys can keep me honest. I’ll keep the comments short so as to not overload the posts with too much information.

The Rules?

1. No ginger beer.
2. No home brews.
3. A different beer must be drunk on each day.
4. No building up a bank in a bender.
5. No doubling up, has to be 366 different beers at the end.

To keep track, I’ll set up a spreadsheet and input the brewery name and beer name to ensure there’s no inadvertent doubling up of beers.

Lets get this started!

The beer to kick it off? This fellow from one of the breweries I visited last weekend.

Young Henrys – Newtowner

Once upon a time only available in Newtown itself (obviously they’ve relaxed that rule once they started packaging it), this pours a light golden colour with a large white head (ignore the obviously not beer clean glass). It’s a little bitter up front and slightly fruity finishing quite dry. It’s quite tasty & for my thoughts one of the better beers on offer at Young Henrys.

If you’d like to know more, you can find out more about Shane & Scott on their website beeriosity or read about their beer journeys on the following pages:

food>drink – news.com.au     goodfood.com.au