January Update

Hi All,

Sorry it has been 2 weeks since i last got on here, but after the KB lager, there is not much that is noteworthy after it. still doesn't mean I haven't been having a brew or three. from mountain goat, coopers, leffe, monteith's, not to mention a few of our homebrews, I have been keeping the faith. hmmm sacrilege...

Anyway, just last night my brother and I hit lower Fitzroy to do a pub crawl around where he lives, and found some interesting pubs in the maze. good vibes in the Union Club Hotel on Gore, and a good beer selection at the Napier Hotel. A big parma went down well at the Standard, and a Ranga at the Rainbow Hotel went down well to start proceedings (creamy, caramelly sense from the red ale). another good pub in the area i haven't plugged yet is the Lambsgobar, with a great selection of beers to try out.

On Thursday i hit revolver (for a Twok's gig. better plug them, and the gig was well worth a plug) and found a Emerson's Dunkelweiss (6.3%). I do enjoy a dark wheat beer and must say i was impressed with this as well. quite smooth dark brown beer with a decent head. I must say NZ beers don't impress me too much apart from the odd Monteith's (summery beers), but like the range this brewery has, and that this one seemed to come off quite well. was a little miffed at the 'caramel chocolate bananas' on the label. banana is pretty standard with wheat, and choc from the malt can be covered as well. the only thing that came to me could be the use of brown sugar for the caramel on the bottle. must say the banana was easy to taste, the chocolate slightly harder and the caramel very difficult to find in it. I'm still not sure on the last one, but at the very least it took some warming to get more than a standard dark wheat beer taste from it. still, worth the effort, and saw revolver also had the London Porter that Emerson's also do. this will require another visit to this pub. Luckily Midnight Circus are playing there on the 29th Jan, so will have to try it then.

With Australia Day coming, I am happy to announce that our Little Creatures Bright Ale batch has come through quite well. I little over-hopped but the drinkability is stupidly high (which three longnecks can attest to from last Tuesday night). this will mean perfect conditions for drunkeness while camping for Australia Day.

One thing I am also looking forward to later in the year is the next batch of Moo Brew Barrel Aged Imperial Stout Vintage Release. having tried it for the first time 8-9 months ago, and keeping one spare to try out when the next batch comes out in a couple of months time, am looking forward to seeing if storing this beer for a year does anything to it. while there was an alcohol sting (at 8.5%) it was still quite smooth as i recall. luckily now we have this blog to record the next tasting.

in terms of the blog, I would like to send a shout out to my mate JR who is spreading the word of this blog, along with another mate, Jaimi Faulker. Jaimi has shown that beer and music are a great combination putting a link to this site from his muso page (Stass/Bill, require your assistance putting in a link here back to his). Big thanks to both these boys for; 1) finding this blog in some way interesting, and 2) sharing the love of beer with others. That is basically all Stass and I are doing with this, and like to see people are leaving comments upon visiting. If anyone has any beers they think we should try as well, let us know. as you know we are up from trying anything, and any feedback is appreciated.

Well, bring on Australia Day, and the aussies continuing to do well in the cricket (where is my KB?)

Beefy