As you may or may not know, the Sydney Craft Beer Week will be running from the 22nd until the 29th of October. For our part, we will be featuring all Sydney brewed beers and ciders on tap on Sunday the 23rd of October. Also, we will have a special menu for the day with every dish using only locally sourced produce. Finally, a few local acts will be playing all originals throughout the afternoon. It’s a casual affair so feel free to drop in anytime!

The much anticipated IPA from Badland’s has hit the taps and is proving to be very popular! It’s been one of our fastest selling beer specials and is the perfect late Autumn – early Winter drop. It has a little fruit hops on the nose, a nice and juicy malt middle and a reasonable amount of hop bitterness at the end which leads to a pretty lengthy pallet. All in all, it’s been going down a treat on the milder winter evenings.

We have been planning it for a while and now we’ve finally tapped the Mad Abbot Tripel! The Little Brewery crew up in Port Macquarie have been dragging home a swag of awards, all of which are more than deserved – particularly for this beer. It is a massive 9.5% and with each sip you feel a little warmer and slightly fuzzier… It tastes of stoned fruits, is on the sweeter side and has a palate that just goes on and on and keeps on changing. It is really worth trying, just make sure you leave the wheels at home if you do…

Soooooo tap beer news is this: we’ve decided to dedicate one beer tap to a Seasonal Ale. All this means is that we now have an excuse to change one tap really regularly and hopefully make these changes in line with the seasons.
Our first bash at it is the 4 Pines Dunkelweisen which is a dark, wheat beer (Dunkel = Dark, weisen = wheat). The crew at 4 Pines in Manly (great guys with a venue that is definitely worth checking out if you’re over that way) have done a pretty top notch job with this brew. It’s beautifully dark and cloudy with a rich malty flavour and a very soft bitterness. It’s definitely a beer for a cold and rainy winter night.

We have now tapped the Stone and Wood Pale Lager from Byron Bay and it is tasting fantastic. It’s just a beautifully balanced beer with enough complexity to keep the beer geek interested. It has replaced the Greenstar Lager which is back on deck in longnecks.
Also in is the Red Oak Irish Red Ale which has come on in place of the Red Oak Bitter. The Irish has been a bit of a favourite amongst the staff since day one; it’s rich and malty and the perfect companion for a cold Sydney evening.

As you may or may not have noticed, our specials board is actually a swinging door that leads to back of house. Along with food specials, the door will now be featuring an interstate beer along with a wine to suit the season. We will only be placing one order for these products so the plan is for them to rotate pretty quickly.
We have just revceived our first delivery and both the beer and the wine chosen reflect our desire to hang onto summer just a little longer…

The Beer
Mountain Goat Organic Steam Ale which I tried last night and was blown away. A steam ale is a beer that has had lager yeasts brewed at ale temperatures. The beer has a really nice balance meaning that just as the flavour is starting too grow, the hops kick in and cleanse your palate, leaving you feeling like you’ve had a beer with some depth but also refreshed.

The Wine
Taminick Cellars 1919 Series Alicante Rose - this wine is made from Alicante Bouchet grapes which actually have red flesh so the colour of the wine is not made from the juice sitting with the skins (which is the method used to colour roses). So strictly speaking is it a rose? In my eyes, who cares it’s all about how it drinks… Well, it’s a fantastic summer drop with an awesome balance of refreshing fruit combined with a nice crisp finish.

Hey all, we’ve tapped the Hunter Ginger Beer, replacing the Hunter Kolsch. It is much more savoury than a lot of the Ginger Beers on the market. The ginger is very strong on the nose but when you drink it, the ginger flavour comes through quite late and leaves a really cleansing and dry finish. All in all, very refreshing and easy drinking!

We have tapped a Hunter Kolsch and it’s great! It has a pale golden colour, very light carbonation and a clean dry finish with only very subtle biiterness (ie, not very bitter at all!). We have a keg and a bit left and we’re then going to put on the Hunter Ginger Beer. I will let you know when that happens!

Here is the promised post re the taste of Murray’s Pumpkin Ale. We tapped it last Thursday and have a little over a keg left. The response has been fantastic! You can really smell the pumpkin and when you drink it, there is a strong cinnamon flavour combined with a hint of nutmeg – so basically it tastes like pumpkin pie! The beer has a deep orange colour and a rich full head. We probably have enough left to last us until early next week.

We have just tapped a keg of Wicked Elf Pilsner which has replaced the Wicked Elf Pale. We have two kegs of it and will be switching to the WIcked Elf Witbier once they run out. So how does the Pilsner taste? Well, it’s crisp and fresh with a tasty creamy head. There is a little bit of bitterness but it is really nicely balanced with the malt – overall, the perfect beer for a hot afternoon!
In other news, we are going to slide on Murray’s Pumpkin Ale tomorrow (Thursday afternoon) to get into the haloween spirit. Personally, it will be my first crack at a pumpkin beer and I’m really looking forward to it. I will keep you posted on the taste!