Batch Brewery

So I had the pleasure of heading to Batch Brewery the other week and when I was telling a friend about this he told me "I often have a few beers there when cycling back home" and you what? He wouldn't be the only one... When we were there a number of people had cycling hats on the table which only added to the community feel this place had in abundance. 

those big tin things in the back is where the magic happens... My technical brewing knowledge is at an all time high... 

The crates that make the bar give this brewery a cool chilled out vibe.

I had a few different Batch beers before in a number of pubs in the inner west (Welcome Inn and East Village) and I had always known them for their full flavour so it was great to try a bit more of their range. 

We started with their APA and it was a great full full flavoured beer - fruity upfront and taste with a big kick at the end. Not overly bitter finish, more just a complimentary aftertaste.

We then moved onto the The Big Kahuna. A coconut brown ale. I don't know how to explain this beer other than to say it was malty and very unique - the coconut oil wasn't upfront but rather more obvious at the end of the taste where the bitterness has been replaced with a sweet finish. I only had a small jar of this (they serve all their beers in jugs or jam jars!) and I don't think I could drink much more of it but never-the-less it was an enjoyable experience! 

After a taste of the Big Kahuna we moved onto my favourite - the Indian Black Ale. A really great mix of more malty hops brewed for longer but in an IPA style. The outcome is a dark beer but has all the refreshing tastes and smells of an IPA. Not what you would expect when you look at it, but definitely a beer you have to try...

We finished with their Summer Farmhouse Ale which is a saison, which is an odd mix between fruit upfront taste, light body and then a sour aftertaste - somehow the beer morphs tastes! I never liked saisons until I tried one in Drygate (Glasgow, UK) but I really enjoyed this one at Batch.

The last thing I would say about this place is that due to it's size, what it has on tap is always evolving - I reckon if I blogged about this place in a years time it would be discussing completely different beers. 

Overall, a real neighbourhood gem that if you can get someone to drive you there, or in close proximity to cycle there, you have to pop in here. If you can get hold of an Indian Black Ale you would be a fool to pass the opportunity up.

Neil

Willie the Boatman Foo Brew Golden Ale

So how many people have heard of Willie the Boatman? Well not many, yet at every festival they go to, it seems to be the crowd favourite. We (the wife and I) had the privilege of going to Willie the Boatman on Daves Brewery Tour and we got a few bottles of their beers. Well the other day I had their golden ale. It is a great beer! I have always said with a golden ale, the thing that makes it work for me is that it has a light body but a decent amount of flavour on the tongue. This way Golden Ales can be a session beer - i.e. a beer you can drink happily all night. This is a great example of a great golden ale. 

their labels make great door hangers!

Golden in colour but actually a light body that you can see through...

A proper size for a beer, none of this 330 ml rubbish!

So the Foo Brew doesn't have too much smell on the nose, a light body and it has a slightly bitter finish that gives the beer a nice finish. I drank this on a warm evening after a day of exercise (tough mudder) so I was great need of refreshing beer. This was perfect for the occasion. I reckon in winter this beer lacks the big flavour but thats the awesome-ness of craft beer - this beer is perfect for a time and a place while their other beers (such as 'Todd's Trailer Ale' or 'The Crazy Ivan') are bigger in flavour and taste. While other refreshing beers such as Saisons or Belgian wheat beers you can drink, but not all night - a golden ale, such as Foo Brew, you can sit happily with and enjoy whoever's company you are with.

If you can find Willie the Boatman - http://www.willietheboatman.com.au/venues.html then grab one, or if you are in Marrickville, or are looking for an excuse to go to a small and really cool brewery, head to Marrickvile and then pop in to their new brewery you won't regret it... OK, I need a few more beers now - the pain of tough mudder is starting to kick in; what high strength beers do I have? Bugger it, it's whisky time!

Rise of the Saison?

So in my recent posts about Drygate in Glasgow and Batch in Marrickville I have drank and discussed the "saison" beer (among others). 

Well on a cheeky mid week meal out we wandered home via the London Hotel in Balmain. Here I tried the Little Creatures Saison and it was an interesting beer. As Little Creatures is a bigger brewer their Saison was a bit more mainstream in taste (i.e. the bitter finish isn't there in such quantities but the light body and fruits flowed through) but it was a really nice beer and released in perfect timing for the hot summer evenings.  

A light but refreshing beer for summer

A saison was originally brewed in Northern France / Belgium as a "Farm House Ale" - i.e. in the hot summer days, it was a light but refreshing drink for staff to drink after a hard days work. It is usually low to medium strength alcohol. What you find with it is a light body, bright yellow in colour with fruit and a bitter mash finishing the taste to make it a really refreshing but highly unusual drink.

Bright yellow colour and a light body

What I find amazing is the stellar rise of Saison - from a few craft breweries (like Batch) to the larger, more established brewers, like Little Creatures, are now producing great quality saison's. I wonder if part of the appeal is that it is less of a hoppy beer which is very 'vogue' just now making the brewery stand out or if it is because of the hotter weather? 

Either way, what is clear is that from Europe through to Australia, brewers are producing more unusual beer styles which is great for us punters to try... 

Is this the start of a new beer craze?

There's a beer for that!

You know when you are onto a good thing in life when friends give you some beers to try as they thought it was nice and I should blog about it but it is also nice when my wife sends me an email about a beer initiative!

So it looks like the brewery industry in the UK is having a stab at trying to get people to think about beer with food opposed to just thinking wine. 

Here's the advert - http://youtu.be/1-UtQzdDros

When you think about many of the events at Sydney Craft Beer Week it was clear this was the message being promoted over here in Aus as well - food and beer match just like wine and food.

So the UK industry has created a slogan “There’s a beer for that”. It aims to tout the category’s quality, diversity and flexibility, areas where brewers feel they have lost drinkers to wines and spirits in recent years.

A TV ad (see above), directed by 24 Hour Party People director Michael Winterbottom, launches next month to kick off the category’s marketing makeover. From London to North Wales, the creative spans a huge array of locations and cultures across the country to show that for every type of person and occasion there is a matching beer style. Beer and food pairings will appear prominently throughout the ad as a voiceover notes “There’s a beer for that”.

The real reason I am blogging about this is because they are also making a push into social media - a real-time Mindshare-developed “BeerMatch” Twitter service is to launch in the coming weeks that will recommend beers, expertly picked by beer sommeliers, for particular dishes every time someone tweets @theresabeerforthat.

If spaghetti Bolognese is tweeted, for example, the person will be recommended a Belgian-style blonde ale. An algorithm has been coded to match over 1,000 beers with the top 1,000 foods consumed in the UK, while those requests not on the list will be answered directly by the social media team. It is a reimaging of the brand’s food pairing website last year. 
Additionally, weekly discussions on beer styles such as porters, pilsners and stouts will be held on Facebook and Twitter. 

I think this is a great idea and it shouldn't be just used in the UK - this should go global in my opinion so I am spreading the message!

I reckon I will give it a go and see what they come up with!

Neil

Pop up!

So Aussies seem to love "pop ups" - generally shops but the recent trend has got into bars as well. Asahi have gotten into the act and opened a pop up on Bligh Street in Sydney CBD (next to Frankies). 

OK, I know Asahi isn't craft and a pop up isn't a good pub either, but it's a fun thing that's happening in the beer scene so it's still worth writing about in my eyes!

The pop up serves 2 beers - Asahi Black and Asahi Extra Dry and some cocktails - but who goes to an Asahi pop up for a cocktail? A black and an Extra Dry came in at $17.5.

Cold serving Asahi

Asahi Black

The dark was really surprising - its light bodied and sweet like a normal Asahi Extra Dry but the head was of a Guinness and there was a malty smell to it. I drank it all night long and it was fantastic - a really nice, and unusual, black lager. 

Normal Asahi

As you can see, it is very male dominated - and very after work suits. My friend was one of three girls which maybe shows that beer is still a male drink.

Asian style small bites work as it lets you graze, drink and chat...

We had Edamame, Gyoza and fish tacos; perfect to graze on.  

Their website shows the advert as giving punters the chance to dry Asahi at its super cold best - and I would agree, it was awesome but... often Asahi here in Aus isn't at its best therefore after this promotion what's the plan to inform us punters where it will be served at its best (also where to get Asahi Black from!)? That's the tough part - how to keep us drinking the stuff?

If you are in and around the CBD in the next month or so, you should 'pop in' to the 'pop up' (hehe) for one after work (it's apparently dead on Saturdays like all of that end of town) and you should definitely try an Asahi Black. 

Daves brewery tour

So I was really lucky this year, for my birthday I was given tickets to Daves Inner West Brewery Tour - Hipsters and Hops.

You meet at Central Station and Dave is there to sign you in and Ben is in the van ready to drive you around the inner west. 

Dave and Ben are really nice, friendly and have incredible knowledge on the craft beer scene. They made me realise how little I knew about craft beer, which is actually exciting as their love of it all makes me want to know more.

We were a group of 8 - me and the wife, a group of 3 (2 brothers and sister), a couple and a girl from the US of A. The American girl knew her craft beers, and one of the girls was a micro biologist so knew in the ins and outs of making beer and the rest of us just liked beer which made it for a fun dynamic.

We started in Young Henrys where we had an in depth 'walk and talk' around the brewery and the techniques used by the team and got the privilage to sample a fair few of their beers - one thing I noticed is that this isn't your usual tiny pour. The sizes are good sized in every venue. The 'Newtowner' is just a great session beer and is almost a good enough reason just to come to Newtown for. 

Having a chat at Young Henrys

After there, we headed to the Henson for some food and to share a few jugs of Stone and Wood Pacific Ale. The food portions were massive and really tasty. We then had the privilege of been driven to Batch Brewery (I think the inner west light rail should get a stop outside of this place as it isn't the easiest place to get too). I like Batch (East Village Hotel in Balmain often have their beers) as they produce big American style Ales and I think their American Black Ale was my favourite beer of the day. I tried their summer farmhouse ale and I am starting to get a bit of a taste to Saison beer. The slightly bitter finish with the upfront typical summer ale floral tastes and light body gives it a really odd but nice and refreshing taste.

The Black Ale is brewed in an IPA style but with more malty hops through it. While I am not too much of a fan of malty beers, I liked the balance that Batch have produced - the upfront malty taste is nice while there is a sweetness to the beer to take the edge of the malty bittery finish that you normally find with malty beers. 

The owner is so American that he wears his cap backwards.

I thought the photo was in focus, maybe my focus was starting to blur!

Afterwards we met the guys behind Willy the Boatman but as they don't have a licence to brew / serve we couldn't try their beers. We were given one of their golden ales to take home and it was awesome, a bit like a James Squire in that it has a lot of flavour though it but more medium bodied and less hops through it - so we will be back to chat to these guys (they are really funny) and try more of their stuff once they have a licence. If you are in or around Marrickville, you have to pop into see these guys. 

We finished the trip in the Rocks Brewery. I think when you go to all these smaller, more local style breweries, the Rocks looks more like a mass scale production... Anyway, we had fun drinking the Hangman, the ISA and the Belgian Ale (a real crowd pleaser in our group) and chatting. Both the wife and I ranked the Belgian Ale as the top beer of the Rocks and a few in the group thought it was their favourite beer of the day.

Overall, this was a great day chatting to Ben and Dave and our group, meeting brewers, owners, craft beer nuts and the like. I have to say, if you like beer, this is a great day out. 

There are plenty of more photos here - https://www.facebook.com/davesbrewerytours