Unfortunately, I was at Goat from 8am to 11pm yesterday. Fortunately, we had a Good Beer Week event at the Goat bar last night.
After what I will call a successful filter run yesterday (well, as good as I can do at the moment) and a clean up of the brewery to deal with the amount of people that would be walking through it that night, I had just finished my day of work and was heading across to the bar, when I see Pete. Perfect, just in time for a beer! Tried him on the Moon Dog American/Belgian Brown Ale while we caught up and showed him the brewery from the comfort of our seats. Deano turned up not long after and thought it best to start him on a Hightail. After bagging them both out for looking like they are in a Mother's group together (know it is footy season, but get off the pies boys), we stepped up into the Pepperberry Black IPA and the beer I was looking forward to...the Abbey Collaby itself.
The bar was starting to pack out a bit, so also grabbed one of the special sausage pizzas to help us get through the big beers on offer. As I have probably mentioned before, the Mikkeller/Goat (Gypsy and the Goat) Collab Pepperberry Black IPA has that malt character that I relate to Mikkeller beers quite a bit, with a sweet boldness that prepares you for the alcohol the normally follows. The fruity spice of the pepperberry come through quite well on the midpalate and rises into the hop character and cleanse. However, there is a muddiness to this beer that dulls off all of this when on tap. I recommend having it from the bottle where the flavours are much better pronounced.
The Abbey Collaby this year was an Imperial Stout (yep, right up my alley) that had used candied sugar and been 'dry chipped' with oak that had been soaked in rum. The candied sugar seems to have fleshed out the front palate as there is some good malt body to go with it before the alcohol sense kicks in with the slight rum character. It actually tasted better than I remember from when I kegged it, but the 'rummy' keg (last one of the run) did not make an appearance I suspect...I just hope we still have it and it hasn't been sent anywhere else. Little disappointed it only got to 8.1%, but probably means I have pulled up that slightly bit better this morning for it.
While working our palates back and forth over these two beers for the night, Stass rocked up, giving me a chance to grab another special pizza for the night, a blue cheese (yes, blue cheese makes another appearance this Good Beer Week) and pear, with some cured meat thrown in for good measure, to help line Stass's gut, and keep me going through the night. What was going to be 'just a couple' seeing GBW is starting to take it's toll, became a 3 time telling from the guy on security that we had to finish our drinks and leave as the bar was closing...oh dear.
Was great hanging out with the boys for a very 'unwinding' beer session, meeting up with a couple of people I have seen over GBW, showing Jayne my fermenter troubles we had discussed the night before, catching up with Simon, who use to work at Purvis but is now working the bar at Matilda Bay (hope to get down there soon), somehow getting into an arm wrestle with Josh from Moon Dog (no actually, I think I do know how, I instigated it between him and Karl after Josh lost to Karl in the battle of the footy teams on Monday night with St Kilda beating Carlton...Karl lost to Josh, but then I beat Josh...Karl had softened him up for me), and ending the night with Stass and I spouting our philosophy of beer to Pete who had got attached to our group over the night.
So all in all, a pretty standard Wednesday night at the Goat Bar...or is that Goat Bahhh. Sorry, it is getting late in this week full of good beer. The only event I forgot to take a photo from, but may be for the best as it was a long day in my Mountain Goat uniform.
...and so Good Beer Week continues...hope I can find enough people to join me for the beer scavenger hunt tonight...
Cheers,
Beef
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