Beer - July Events - Women of Beer brew day & Festival of the Stone

A quick shout-out here for two upcoming beer events that will hit Melbourne this month. Both will showcase the wonderful craft of beer, wrapped up in a bunch of good fun, good people and more (like food & music!).

First up, on Saturday 23rd July is the Woman of Beer brew day:

Following the success of the Beer Diva's Women of Beer show and the launch of the Barley's Angels Australia earlier this year, the good women behind these events have decided to brew a beer together. Awesome!

Initiated by Sam Füss, Head Brewer at True South Brewery, this will be the first known all-female collaboration beer brewed in the Southern Hemisphere. Under the Barley's Angels banner, they have chosen to brew a 9% spicy Belgian style tripel, inspired by the likes of La Fin du Monde, Chimay White and Westmalle Tripel. Eventually this Women of Beer brew will be bottled and sold with all profits going to charity.

The gang of female brewers and brewery owners from Victoria will be joined by the Beer Diva and Barley's Angels for a day of fun and feasting whilst brewing this big beer. Members of Barley's Angels are invited to participate in the brewing process, such as helping with hop additions.

There will be a special long lunch as well, an Argentinian BBQ held upstairs on True Souths function space, Mawson's Landing (booking required).

All are welcome to attend the brew day and lunch (male & female)...but don't expect to see any males touching the brewing ingredients or equipment.

The Women of Beer line up will be:

• Sam Füss - Head Brewer at True South Brewery
• Jayne Lewis - Co-founder and Head Brewer of Two Birds Brewing
• Aine O'Hora – Brewer with Matilda Bay Brewing Company
• Karen Golding – Co-founder of Red Hill Brewery
• Beth Williams – Co-founder Hargreaves Hill Brewing Company
• Kirrily Waldhorn – The Beer Diva

Closing the month is the Stone & Wood Festival of the Stone event on Sunday 31st July.

Stone Beer is a rich amber ale with a big caramel malt profile. It was my first experience of a beer from Stone & Wood Brewing and remains my favourite brew from the company, despite the intense love discovered for their Pacific Ale over last summer's bbqs. Stone is brewed once a year, during winter, in small batch and with flaming hot rocks added to the boil. The Festival of the Stone has previously just been held at the brewery in Byron Bay and helps showcase the Stone Beer release each year.

This year, the Stone & Wood crew and bringing a bit of the Byron Bay vibe to cold old Melbourne by holding a mini-festival party at The Workers Club in Fitzroy. The Sunday afternoon event will feature music from Jumpin' Jack, The Galaxy Folk and Tehachapi. It will also include a preview of the surf film El Mar Mi Alma (My Sea My Soul), which premiered at the Byron Bay Film Festival earlier this year. Of course, Stone Beer will be pouring a'plenty!

Both events should be a bundle of fun and another fantastic opportunity to mix and mingle with the local craft beer industry and supporters. I hope to see you there...

Event: Barley's Angels presents the Women of Beer Brew Day
Time & Date: 11am - 4pm. Saturday 23rd July, 2011
Where: True South, 298 Beach Road Black Rock VIC
Cost: Free to visit True South and watching the brewing action.
Lunch: $55 per person for an Argentinian BBQ with a True South beer
Lunch Bookings: Call True South on 1300 878 360 or email bookings@truesouth.com.au
More info:

• Visit: http://www.truesouth.com.au/ and http://www.barleysangels.com.au/
• Read The Crafty Pint article at: http://craftypint.com/news/post/the-beer-of-women/
• Check out the Barley's Angels Facebook event page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=18649853807054

Event: Stone & Wood Festival of the Stone
Time & Date: 4pm - 7pm, Sunday 31st July, 2011
Where: The Workers Club, 51 Brunswick Street Fitzroy VIC
Cost: $12
Tickets: Available at the door or order online via Stone & Wood Facebook Shop
More info:

• Visit: www.stoneandwood.com.au/ and http://theworkersclub.com.au/festival-of-the-stone/
• Read The Crafty Pint article at: http://craftypint.com/news/post/the-beer-of-women/
• Check out the Stone & Wood Facebook event page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=113508615408960

Beer - Beer Breakfast & Beer Expo

Last Saturday, 22 May, was choc full of beeriffic beer-tasting-sensation, as I (somewhat foolishly) combined two excellent beer events in one day.

First, I headed to Beer DeLuxe for the BeermenTV "Hair of the Dog" Breakfast.

On arrival at Beer DeLuxe there was short wait outside in the cold, whilst the staff finalised last minute details, but once inside it was comfortably warm and we were severed a full glass of Mountain Goat Steam Ale to start the experience (a fine choice as Beer #1 at 10:00am). The venue was beautifully laid out with a number of massive long bench tables ready to serve 110 people breakfast. The room quickly filled to capacity and all in attendance seemed to be in very good spirits.

Todd, Mark and Damien were excellent hosts, with their light and fun commentaries, they kept the event moving and interesting. A placemat providing descriptions and tasting notes of all 8 beers that would be sampled during the event had been prepared for each patron, along with funky BeermenTV coasters. It was evident that significant effort had been put into this event.

During the introduction by Mark and Todd the food began arriving, along with the bottles of the local craft beers to match. All present had two tasting glasses available and shared a bottle of each of the beers between every three people (which seemed to end up closer to 1 bottle between every 1.5 people).

The Breakfast and Beer menu consisted of:

1. Bright Brewery Razor Witbier with Crepes stuffed with Mandarin, Ricotta and Sultanas. (I have not been a fan of Witbiers and even actively avoided them in the last year.  However, being reintroduced to the style at this event...as a "breakfast beer" and matched with the crepes, I was instantly a convert to the potential of witbiers, perfectly suited to this situation!)
2. Murray's Whale Ale from Murray’s Brewing with a mini Spanish omelette, served with leek and prosciutto. (My first taste of Murray’s Whale Ale. This is a fantastic beer! I expect to be enjoying several Whale Ale sessions once the bottles hit Melbourne.)
3. Bridge Road Brewers Hans Klopek's Hefe Weizen and Red Hill Brewery Wheat Beer with mild bratwurst, served on toasted rye bread and a fruit chutney. (Cound not split these two beautiful Hefeweizens...both so delicious.)
4. Stone & Wood Stone Ale with tomato and caramalised onion Baked Lima Beans.
5. White Rabbit Dark Ale with Sable Breton, served with crème fraiche and a fig molasses.
6. Ending the meal with Holgate's Temptress chocolate porter matched with Belgian waffles dipped in thick chocolate sauce was simply divine.

The order the beers were presented in was faultless, following the traditional light-to-dark tasting method. More importantly though was that each beer tasted was indeed a highly suitable breakfast beer in their own right, especially thanks to their perfect food matching. Ultimately, I was most impressed by the concept of a Witbier for breakfast, simply because it was so unexpected for me. Congratulations to all the brewers involved.

If anything was at fault during the event, it was only the pace it moved at, causing a minor overload of beer and food, which may have somewhat diminished the "slow food/beer" experience required to fully appreciate the meal combinations on all levels.

However, with only an hour actually scheduled for the event (which ended up being two hours), the staff and BeermenTV boys did a remarkable job.

All praise to the wonderful Beer DeLuxe for hosting and supporting the event to the utmost of value and quality. For the $20 we paid, the beer and food supplied was top quality, very generous and the service was sensational.  I was impressed and very appreciative. THANK YOU!

For video highlights of the event, keep your eye on http://beermen.tv/

Next it was onto the 2010 Beer & Brewer Expo.

At the point I should have gone for a walk, enjoyed the fresh and cool Melbourne air and consumed much water to recover my senses a little, after such unexpected large consumption of luscious beers. (Further compounded by the fact that I had just completed 3 completely dry weeks to keep my personal health and fitness in check!)

However, I pushed on straight to the expo, which was being staged metres away, along the River Terrace at Federation Square. Thankfully, I have enough memory and notes to report back on the following highlights of the afternoon, where not a bad beer was tasted!

My first sight on entering the Expo was the stand for an unfamiliar brewer – Thunder Road Brewery. After obtaining a free t-shirt from them after signing their mailing list, it was a little hard to obtain any real detail about their pending venue and product. However, I'm lead to believe that Thunder Road is being set up by Andrew Dunn, an ex-Matilda Bay brewer, in Brunswick. I'll be keeping an eye on its development and keen to visit the establishment once it opens.

I tired a few of the beers on offer from Blue Sky Brewery of Cairns, which I was particularly interested to learn more about because I plan to pop into their Brewery during my honeymoon later this year. Their Pilsner was quite good, fairly standard though, but very drinkable.

The Mountain Goat team never fail me with their small batch beers. Featuring at the Expo was Dunken, the delightfully malty Dunkelweisse with hints of chocolate and banana...beautiful.

My "international discovery" of the day came via the St-Ambroise range from McAuslan Brewing of Montréal, Canada. The St-Ambroise Oatmeal Stout was fantastically flavoursome and smooth, with a very good oatmeal taste (something I has so far found rare in Oatmeal stouts). It was a perfect match for the cool windy Autumn's day.

I also attended two of the Expo's workshop sessions (Home Brewing Demonstration with Jamil Zainasheff and then Beer and Food Matching with Chris Badenoch). Unfortunately, the sessions did not quite meet my expectations, as I felt they were designed for the complete beer-novice, yet the small crowd that did attend seemed well beyond the novice level.. Therefore, those sessions were somewhat underwhelming and a little...boring, compared to the excitment around the Expo's stalls where the brewers spruiked their product with passion.

I suspected that the pick of the day would have been Kirrily Waldhorn's Beer and Food Matching session. However, I missed this one for the sake of lunch (a burger at Burger DeLuxe with a pot of the Jamieson APA).

As the 5pm closure rolled in, my final tasting of the day was the superbly rich Double Barrel Christmas Ale from Red Hill Brewery. At 10.5% abv, this final drink probably pushed me over the limit in terms of reasonable consciousness...and the rest of the day is just a blur (a happy blur though!).

Nonetheless, I was able to somehow safely navigate my way to the tram and then home, without breaking the 6-pack of Red Hill Hop Harvest that I had purchased on my way out of the Expo. Top day.

Finally, congratulations to all the medal winners at the Australian International Beer Awards. You can read all the results at: http://www.beerawards.com/results.asp

Special mentions go to a couple of local Gold Medal winners and personal favourites on mine:

• Holgate Brewhouse for their ESB and Temptress
• Mountain Goat for the Surefoot Stout
• Temple Brewing’s Special Bitter
• Bridge Road Brewers’ Chevalier Saison
• Red Hill Brewery for their Christmas Ale (here’s an appalling festive snap of me enjoying an Red Hill Christmas Ale last year)

And also, the Red Hill Imperial Stout, which I am yet to drink, but with it’s pending 2010 seasonal release next week, I am definitely keen to enjoy several of this highly regarded local brew over winter.

CHEERS!

Ready for breakfast, with the tasting-notes placemat.

To start, a glass of Moutain Goat Steam Ale.

Spanish omelette with Murray's Whale Ale (and yes...I'm tweeting...)

Hefeweizen battle! Far too close to call! Both brilliant.

The deliciously unique Stone and Wood Stone Ale was a perfect match for the Baked Lima Beans

A happy crowd enjoys a BeermenTV breakfast.

White Rabbit Dark Ale with Sable Breton...just yum!

...just heaven.

And some Expo snaps...

Bar - Beer Deluxe, Melbourne City

Federation Square's Beer Deluxe truly is...deluxe! No false advertising here! It's just a shame that this bar is such an expensive place to drink (...but that is mostly understandable, I think).

The jewel and purpose of Beer Deluxe is clearly their extensive tap beer selection. With about 15 regularly rotated beer taps, pouring only craft and boutique beers, you are pretty much guarantied to find here not only the best in local craft beers, but also a new beer to try.

As is fairly common practice in specialist beer bars, the Beer Deluxe "beer bible" menu not only provides a full list of their available beers, categorised by beer-style and with brief tasting notes for each, but also provides a Glossary of beer terms and other beer facts. Plenty of thought has gone into the tasting notes, providing quite a sexy read for beer lovers!

Also a requirement for such a bar, the beers are all matched to the specific beer glassware appropriate for pouring and drinking the particular beer style, ehancing flavour and drinkability.

Catering for all, there is also a fair selection of spirits and wine...for those who dare to visit Beer Deluxe for something other than beer.

I love that Beer Deluxe is shiny and has an inner-city classiness, yet very relaxed and welcoming. The plentiful wooden seats and tables over the split-level space provides a cosy interior. Outside there are large long benches and tables providing a pseudo-beer-garden, as well as more couches and sitting space down the side in Fed Square's The Atrium (which also supports a secondary bar and cafe).

Indoors the space is well lit, with soft music playing, allowing for easy conversation. This is a place to enjoy and discuss beer. Therefore, the respectful music level helps encourage that. However, their kitchen can get fairly noisy from time to time. The indoor room temperature is also just right, exemplified by the sweet cool relief I experienced walking into Beer Deluxe on a very warm and humid March afternoon (...or was that just the refreshing Stone & Wood Draught Ale?).

The Beer Deluxe atmosphere is certainly enjoyable. I really like the open design and space layout. Although, I've never been in Beer Deluxe when it has been crowded.

The bar staff at Beer Deluxe can be a little hit and miss. Sometimes you will be served by a true beer expert, who is a fountain of knowledge and skill, and will really open up your beer drinking experience. Other times, you may suffer the lacking of lesser staff (possibly new/casual staff...?) that may take too much time finding an answer to your simple question (like, "how much is this tap beer?") or just trying to cleanly pour your beer, but that's employment for you...I guess!

The part the hurts me the most about Beer Deluxe is unfortunately their high prices. For many this may not be an issue. For those like me wanting to enjoy true quality but are living on a tight budget to get by, it's a little disheartening. I think that I mostly understand why such a bar charges so much for their product - because they must pay a serious premium for being situated in such an excellent location, very close to the heart of Melbourne city, in addition to being within the Federation Square complex. Further, the bar is often pouring beers from local craft brewers that you are unlikely to find on tap anywhere else.

For example, during my March visit I had the super flavoursome and deliciously hoppy Murray’s Shawn’s Fault (India Dark Ale) from Murray's Brewing.

When you can afford it, it's a joy to consider which beer you will drink next at Beer Deluxe. And I'm sure there’s probably more to the story…however, when it costs $12 for 385ml of a very local small-batch but readily available craft beer (in this case, Mountain Goat's Rapunzel), this is a tiny bit beyond me.

Finally, Beer Deluxe also has a generous online presence, with their website, a Facebook page and you can follow them on Twitter. Hence, it is easy to "prepare" for a visit to Beer Deluxe, as well as keeping up-to-date with what's on offer over their bar. I am thankful to any business that puts time and effort into keeping their internet content active and current. I am always more inclined to use a business when they are communicating regularly with the world.

Where to start? A joyful choice at the Beer Deluxe bar.

Classy but cosy inside.

Murray's Shawn's Fault - richly hoppy, an impressive and unquie beer. Loved it.

Stone and Wood Draught Ale - more delightful hops, very light and refreshing.

Here's some dates and events for local beer loves to mark in their diaries!

I am definitely excited to be returning to Beer Deluxe this weekend...potentially a number of times throughout the weekend because they are currently pouring the Temple Bier de Miel and Moo Brew Imperial Stout...but primarily for the previously mentioned Hair Of The Dog Breakfast on Saturday morning, courtesy of BeermenTV.

CHEERS!