Month: November 2011

Wizards of Oz part three: Sydney back to Melbourne

Two days and one full evening in Sydney before returning to Melbourne for a few more days saw me dragging my Australia-domiciled German colleague Carsten to the Lord Nelson Brewery Hotel in The Rocks area of old Sydney, not far from our hotel.

While Victoria is perhaps the spiritual heart of the Australian beer renaissance of the past few years it isn’t the only part of the country to partake of the “craft” beer revolution. The Lord Nelson Brewery Hotel is a great example of the new beer diaspora the country now enjoys. Indeed, it’s one of the longest standing emissaries of fine beer in the country, having begun brewing in 1986. The pub itself apparently dates from 1841, making it the oldest licensed hotel in Sydney. That it primarily makes British-style beers seems only appropriate. That it makes among the most convincing facsimiles of British beer styles I’ve yet encountered overseas makes it doubly worth visiting. Continue reading “Wizards of Oz part three: Sydney back to Melbourne”

Tonight’s tipple: Birrificio Endorama Malombra

Italy presents an intriguing dichotomy for today’s aficionados of quality alcoholic beverages. On the one hand, the country is so synonymous with and apparently devoted to wine (even I’m a little partial to a nice Chianti, with or without fava beans) – and to a lesser extent its highly-perfumed pomace brandy, grappa – that it would barely seem to have room to devote to the fruit of the barley.

On the other, Italy has been producing quality beers for some years now, and boasts a considerable number of microbreweries, especially (if maybe unsurprisingly) in the cooler north of the country but also with many in the warmer south nowadays. Such establishments may now number in the several hundred across the entire country. Not bad at all for a country supposedly devoted to Bacchus and one of the less well trumpeted destinations for beer travellers in Europe.

Continue reading “Tonight’s tipple: Birrificio Endorama Malombra”

Wizards of Oz part two: chilly draughts and burning wallets

The transformation of the beer scene in Australia over the past few years appears to be even more evident in the pubs and bars of Melbourne than it is in the bottle shops. Even the most resolutely conventional pub seemingly offers at least some small concession to new wave brewing, if not necessarily to micro brews and brewers.

This often takes the form of Matilda Bay Brewing Co’s recently-introduced, American-syle Fat Yak Pale Ale (4.7%, actually owned by Fosters) and Coopers Brewery’s straw-coloured Pale Ale (4.5%, not actually a newcomer but perhaps the brewery that inspired the Australian beer renaissance). Both beers were available widely, including at my Melbourne colleagues’ “local”, the Mitre Tavern on Bank Place off Little Collins Street.

Continue reading “Wizards of Oz part two: chilly draughts and burning wallets”

Wizards of Oz part one: Hawthorn bottle bonanza

Tokyo had provided a tantalising view of how far the Japanese craft brewing movement has come in the last few years. But ten days in Australia prior to that had given me a much better opportunity to appreciate of how good beer can inspire new devotion and put down new roots.

Despite being a beer-loving nation Australia had, until recently, largely forgotten (or perhaps ignored) its brewing traditions and past. But as one of my first blog posts on The Alternative Tipple implied, that has now changed.

Going back to Australia after a gap of thirteen years proved just how much the situation has altered for small brewers. On my previous visit to Melbourne, what had looked like becoming an entrenched if fairly small scale part of the overall brewing scene (if Michael Jackson’s Pocket Beer Book was to be believed) was in fact petering out. Only a handful of new wave breweries looked like making it into the new millennium. On top of this, many of the more interesting old brands were fighting a rearguard action to stay alive in a country that had rewritten its brewing history around endless bland – if perhaps fuller-bodied than many – interpretations of international lager.