Mornington brewery (MP Brew)

So as I said a few weeks back, we were in Mornington Peninsular, and had a great time enjoying the range of local beers on offer, but we managed to actually pop into the MP brewery, on the last day for a few beers and share pizzas and stories before heading in different directions. 

Beautiful sunshine, but the outside was in shade...

Is it a bar, is it a brewery? No it's a brewery bar! or Yes! It's a brewery & a bar! whatever answer you prefer...

So, after a wander around downtown Mornington, we hopped in the car to the industrial estate that is home to MP Brew. It is worth the drive as I always love to see the breweries and get a feel for them as it is a little window into the operation and their aim - is it a tiny brewery like Batch  Brewery (Inner West Sydney) that is deliberately small and community focused? Or is it like Little Creatures (Fremantle, WA) which was always aiming to get good beer onto the big stage. Well MP Brew seems to be half way - it is still a small operation, but with potential to expand and be more and more as its presence expands (you can start to slowly find MP in Sydney for example).    

The Witbier

The wifey loved the Witbier as it was a true Belgian style beer - light body, little to no head, with a fruity and spicy combination that makes it an easy beer to drink. Interestingly, the local breweries here seem to be quite traditional in the beers - i.e. if it is a traditional style beer, they breweries are true to the tradition; unlike Sydney-sider / Melburnian brewers who experiment with everything. The acid test for the wife when drinking beer is, "would you order it again or would you go for a coopers?" and the answer was she would happily order this again...

The Sorachi

So while MP were true on the witbier, they really experimented with the Sorachi, a "Japanese hopped Kolsch". So as you can see, this is a light bodied beer, with a short head that stayed. It seems a number of brewers around the world is experimenting with Sorachi Ace Hop, and I can see why, it seems to give it a lighter and more lemony flavour to a kolsch, but I can't help think they were trying to make it like a light saison with the sweet upfront and refreshing fruit smells unfront that dies of to a slightly bitter finish. While I enjoyed it, and thought it was interesting to try, I can't say I hugely too bothered about it as a beer. Don't get me wrong, I will happily drink it, and I really wanted to try it as it is a new hop for me, it's just I am not sure what they were really going for here with the beer style.

While we drank we eat many good pizzas, and talked about our long weekend away, and I have to say it was the perfect relaxed atmosphere for a group of friends to chat away, hassle free. Good wood fire oven pizzas and brewery bars seems to be a winning combination, while all these carbs may not be ideal for the ladies (it was only them that raised this point), it sure worked for me... 

Before we all departed, the non drivers had one more beer and it had to be the MP Pale to finish the weekend off - an American Pale Ale which is just a cracker, really easy drinking beer, fruit driven upfront with a solid head and just enough malt backing up the beer to make it a great balanced beer. I am a little over Pale Ales, as the aussie market is flooded with them, but when you have a great Pale, you remember why the market is full of them, as it is just a great beer style. I reckon MP Brews Pale is a beer that can 'do the cross over to mainstream' as it is so well balanced. Don't be shocked if you see this appearing more and more in your local...

Overall, a great brewery to hang out with friends, and definitely to have a few MP Pales over a pizza and laughs... 

Mornington peninsula, the brewery tour!

Well everyone knows that Mornington Peninsula is a great area for a few days R&R and also a great place for wine tasting - what many may not know is that it also has a few great micro/breweries too! 

A group of us went for a long weekend and after a day of wine tasting, the boys would launch into a few beers to have a break from wine and it was a great pleasure buying local craft beer here! 

The main three are Hix, Red Hill and Mornington Peninsula Brewery. I think it would be tough to work out which was the best, but I think the overall favourite beer of the group was the Red Hill Pilsner - it was a little sweet, offset with a bit of malt and hops and a really light body, but had a little more flavour than a number of pilsners so it was absolutely perfect in between or after drinking wine.  

The Hix Pilsner was a perfect classic Pilsner, like you would find in central and eastern Europe - the guys haven't tried to make it into some ale / pilsner mix that you often find a lot of aussie breweries do, so if you a fan of classic Pilsener, check it out! The fact that that they call it "Pilsener" as the Czechs do is really all you need to know to gauge how it tastes!

The Red Hill Wheat Beer will be a  love it or hate it beer for Aussies - wheat beers over hear are more Witbiers in my opinion, which marries in with the pale ale tastes that Australia loves. I was a real fan of this beer - the fruit tastes and sweet fruit smell is lovely, it has that nice cloudy heavy body that I like in a wheat beer but the taste is more like a Hefewizen; i.e. unfiltered, solid with a hint of bitterness and a bit more lighter than say a Witbier.

Red Hill

Wheat cloudy beer

I have a separate review of MP Brew as we also managed to head along to the brewery for beer and pizza, but as a general note - the APA was amazeballs... 

4 pines

Is it a Microbrewery or is it a bar selling beer from a micro brewery? That is the question... Especially that 'big brother' has opened in Brookvale - http://4pinesbeer.com.au/venue/brookvale-brewery/ 

I suppose the question you will ask is, "what's the difference?" Well, I am glad you ask... The wife and I met some friends here on a Saturday night, and it was rammed! There was no way I could ask the bar staff questions, or really get a feel of the brewery part of 4 Pines, and I suppose that's the point of a brewery bar for me - it is the peeping window into the breweries philosophy and I think it is something that Batch Brewery really gets. 

4 Pines is a Micro Brewery apparently, and if you look close, there are 4 pine trees in the sign as well

The 4 Pines bar, right at Manly Wharf

Considering its small size, it is amazing it manages to fit in a brewery as well!

Pints of 4 Pines Pale Ale

As for the beer, the Pale Ale is a more golden colour, with a smooth taste and a slightly malty finish. The fruit masks the malt so the after taste is a bit of a surprise! It is a really good session beer. It was a lot better than I was expecting - Pale Ales seem to be the "anything beer" and as a result there are a lot of basic Pale Ales in the market in my opinion.

The Kolsch is full of wheat with little head and light body, just as it is traditionally made but for me, the first taste was a little too sweet for me (although it dried out on the finish). 

They had a Rye Ale as a cellar door tap and I tried to order a pint, but the waitress let me know the alcohol content - 8.4% so that was given a wide berth; on a night out, anything at 6%+ is out the window for me. I had a taster and it was nice, but as you would expect, you can really smell the alcohol on it. I was gutted as I really do like a Rye Ale to be honest, a really nice trend in the Craft Beer scene at the moment... 

The two girls had wine, and they both liked the range on offer, so it's a great place to go with friends or couples, opposed to a brew bar like the Lord Nelson, which lets be honest here, is a great pub for the boys...

So to sum it up, great bar to meet friends, but maybe go to the Brookvale site to get a flavour of the brewery opposed to this brew bar. If you local bottleshop has the Pale Ale, it's definitely worth a go...