Well, the past week has been pretty exciting with Stass and Jess getting engaged, and my cousin Anna and her boy Pete (Happy birthday mate!) also deciding to get married, and of course this blog turning 1, having friends down for the weekend and finding some more good beer. On Friday night we hit the Royston and was finding it hard to find a beer I could really enjoy. The Red Hill Golden Ale had sulphur smell, very little malt flavour and a pungent hop that at least they didn't use much of. I retreated into a German wheatbeer to take me back to my trip last month and find I enjoyed the bubblegum from it. With the bar girl expressing a 'wuss' factor in my beer selection at this stage, I asked her to supply me with a 'non-wussy' beer, which backfired on her as he only gave me a Mountain Goat Hightail Ale. Then I decided it was time to educate her on this matter and bought this Rogue's Imperial Stout. I hadn't had it before either, but knowing Rogue's, knew it would be anything but subtle, and I was right. Even as a 2008 vintage, it was still big, bold, and stayed in my mouth long into the beers after, and even the morning after. Big dark malt (there are 6 types of malt in it), intense but well transitioned hop flavours (3 hop types) and a decent level of alcohol did bring some mellowness to the evening. My brother went to get another one, but we had just finished the last bottle they had. Still, could be a late additions to the 'special' beers I have for my 30th next month. Seeing the bar girl had supplied me with so many tasters of other beers they had available, and seeing she needed to know what a non-wussy beer was, I let her have a taste of this. I think she learnt her lesson...The other impressive beer of the weekend came with a group of us getting together, and my fellow brewer Jarrod telling me about his taste for IPA's at the moment. We went to Purvis and he grabbed a six pack of his favourite, the Red Duck Bengal IPA. Yeah, not normally a beer I would go for, but this is why it is good to have mates with differing taste so they can show you good beers in these realms. Still, couldn't help but make some similarities between it and the Holgate ESB with a good caramel malt and probably an even better transition to the hop. there was even a nice creamyness to it even from the bottle, and the hop itself was not too intense even for me. Still, at 7%, it had some alcohol that came through on the back palate, but the flavours of the beer were enough to contain this. With the big malt and hopness, and when it warmed up a bit, I was actually starting to get some imperial stoutness from it which was really interesting to find, and never thought I could get that from this style of beer. It is always good to see how much you have to learn, to keep you open minded, and have mates wanting to share their own tastes with you. I look forward to more beer outings with you J-rod!
Well, that will do for now. What a great weekend and week it has been. Thanks to everyone that came on these journey's with me.
Cheers,
Beef
2 comments:
Was a pleasure as always mate! Currently working late wishing I was enjoying a fine brew with your good self... although a beer loving colleague and full-time champion just saved my life by giving me a nice cold Melbourne Bitter out of his secret work stash! ^_^
any port in a storm buddy! enjoy the MB as much as you can
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