Beers and Bars - Footy Pub Crawl FAIL

After a five day weekend over Easter, it is a rather sad experience to return to the standard two day weekend. Therefore, I planned to make the most of my May Day Sunday.

First I had to complete my healthy-life obligation of a 10km run (...in preparation for next Sunday's Mothers Day Classic 8km run) followed by domestic duties of ironing, cleaning, lunch & dishes. Yes...hardly blog worthy, but such is my life.

Mmm...beer time!

May Day...celebration of the Harvest with a Red Hill Hop Harvest Ale!

Over lunch, complimented by the brilliant autumnal Red Hill Brewery Hop Harvest Ale, I followed online the AFL team I barrack for - Essendon Bombers - as they kicked the HELL out of newcomers, the Gold Coast Suns. Ok, no mean feat here. In only their sixth game ever The Suns do not have the build or experience to provide quality competition yet (unless they are playing the worst team in the 2011 AFL competition - Port Adelaide Power). So I should not be overly excited...but a decade suffering Essendon supporter will take anything they can get right now!

I watched the online scorecard tick over and over, goal after goal after goal, as my Bombers finished the 1st Quarter with 15 goals and 4 behinds (94 points!!) to 1 behind (1 point!). Unheard of in AFL history!

So, with this Aussie Rules footy slaughter providing a rare high for my team, I fast-tracked my plan to watch the 2nd Half telecast and quickly headed down to my local - The Skinny Dog Hotel - to watch the rest of the game live via the Pay TV feed (I don't have Foxtel at home...it's an expense that I can not reasonably justify).

FAIL #1 - Arriving at The 'Flog (The Skinny Dog), I found a bunch of fit 20something Corona drinking guys & gals crowded around the plasmas watching silly UFC. I'm sorry...but UFC is baseless and entertainmentless for me. To see all 7 TVs in the pub tuned into the UFC was...disappointing.

I quickly left that scene and jumped down to Local Option Number 2 - The Hotel Kew. Thankfully, Hotel Kew (a Sports betting pub...very much not my scene) was showing the footy (with audio!) and it was relatively quiet and free of knobs that are commonly attracted to such a pub. Unfortunately, the ONLY beer available in this pub that is not a macro adjunct lager was James Squire Golden Ale. It was enough to suffice for a quarter...but I wanted to enjoy this fun footy watching experience with good beer...craft beer! The Hotel Kew is a good beer wasteland.

At half time I jumped on a tram and headed down to Richmond, making tracks for my favourite Melbourne pub of all...The Royston Hotel.

FAIL #2 - Unfortunately, when I arrived at The Royston I discovered that the pub does not open until 3pm on a Sunday. Boo!

So, I jogged back to Bridge Road, home of many pubs. After quickly noting that The Bridge Hotel was also closed, very closed, I trammed up another two stops and headed into The Spread Eagle...as classic pub with a big central rectangle bar, which needs better beers on tap. Thankfully, they at least have Little Creatures Pale Ale on tap...HOWEVER...it was Sunday afternoon trivia. So, whilst the footy way playing on 2 big screen TVs, there was no audio...replaced by the Trivia host's voice... FAIL #3. I do like the Spread Eagle...but I was saddened even further when I heard that one of the trivia teams was named "The Cider Men". Ug...boys...drink good craft beer! It will impress you like no cider can!

At 3pm I made my way back to The Royston...only to discover that my favourite pub does not have Foxtel and therefore were unable to show the footy. FAIL #4

This failure was made up for by a pint of draught Bridge Road Brewers The Harvest Ale (2011 release). A beautiful beer, easy drinking with a long lingering taste that is hoppy fresh and balanced with excellence. This is the type of beer I hope will one day be regularly be on tap at the majority of Australian pubs. One day...!

(A full blog post of three Australian hop harvest ales in pending...so I will go into the full tasting notes then.)

My beloved Bombers were picking up the pace again in the 3rd Quarter of the game...and I was still keen to witness the live vision. Hence, I ditched my esteemed Royston and slow trammed back to...*sigh*...Hotel Kew to catch the final minutes of the game. Over another pot of James Squire Golden Ale, a fair but uninspiringly thick English Pale/Golden Ale, I celebrated a massive win by the lowly Bombers over the uber lowly Suns...which I mostly missed, because I do not have a subscription to Foxtel.

To complete the symmetry of my day's fail pub crawl, I went back to the start...returning to the Skinny Dog Hotel. I would have been happy to spend my Sunday afternoon at the Skinny Dog watching the footy, which I have done many times in the past, thanks to the supply of Colonial and Little Creatures beers. However, UFC cancelled that option for me...and through my failed hunt for beer and footy, I discovered how little good beer and/or craft beer mixes with sport in my local area. Despite living so close to Melbourne city...the craft beer capital of Australia...we are still a long way from penetrating the mainstream beer market.

Anyway...with the pub now relatively empty, I watched the post game wrap-up over a pot of White Rabbit Dark Ale, a welcome tasty relief in Melbourne pub-land. (side note: on Friday night I went through the "in-house" crafty Colonial beers on tap at The Skinny Dog - Kolsch, Witbier, Pale Ale and Porter - and enjoyed their balance...but more on that to come...)

Excellent lacing.

In the current local landscape of craft beer, the White Rabbit Dark is definitely a quality beer (as shown by its #7 ranking in the recent book - The Critic's Choice: Australia's Best Beers). However, on this occasion it did not satisfy me. FAIL #4.3 (yeah...not really a full fail...just a third...). I was in need of something with a fuller body and fruitier flavour.

Therefore, to end this fail day with some extra win...I enjoyed a dessert of the Trappistes Rochefort 8. Recently, I've had a craving for something full-bodied, dark and fruity...so I picked up this popular Belgian at Slowbeer. In the past I have muchly enjoyed the highly regarded Trappistes Rochefort 10 but had yet to taste the 8 on my beer journal. Now I have...and it is good...damn good...

Essentially a lower gravity and ABV version of the Trappistes Rochefort 10 (which is still my favourite from the Rochefort range), Trappistes Rochefort 8 provides a wonderfully deep and fruity aroma that is a pleasure to just sit and inhale. In the mouth I tasted plenty of dark cherry, chocolate, yeast and something a little nutty. With a warming finish from the 9.2% ABV, it is suprisingly easy to drink and hence did not last long between the wife and I as we ended our Sunday.

Win.

Beers and Bars - Weekend Catchup

Last weekend was a fairly quiet one for me, in terms of enjoying and exploring Melbourne's beers, bars and bands.

On Friday evening there was a brief visit to The Skinny Dog Hotel in Kew, which is technically my "local". After being closed since the start of January for a major refurbishment, followed by many weeks of delays with the reopening, I was keen to discover what had caused such an extended closure.

I have spent many nights in The Skinny Dog, primarily to catch on tv the Essendon AFL footy games that are only shown on Foxtel. Also, it was the end-of-week-drinks pub for my former workplace. The Skinny Dog has always been decent and relaxed pub, previously famous for their massive chicken parmas. The crowd there was always very random and the place had started to become a little tired, but was always the best pub in Kew, by far.

The pub has had a fairly significant interior design makeover and it is clear they are now looking to join the fashionable gastro-pub market. Gone are the pool tables, arcade-game machines and sports memorabilia on the walls in favour for more dining space, minimalist "decoration" and a cleaner and more open front-bar with tall tables. The carpet in the front bar has also been removed, with polished floor-boards certainly improving the look, but will this increase the noise levels? The place looks shiny and fresh, but definitely feels more uptight and less relaxed. I hope that's just a "newness" thing, because I'm never too comfortable in fine-dining "pubs" or surrounded by overly-serious business-suit types when just after a drink at the bar.

The "new" Skinny Dog Hotel front bar.

Pool table and arcade games - out, plenty of mingle space - in.

The number of beer taps and the range of beers has definitely improved. However, the overall prices have increased somewhat (again), making it an expensive place to drink now. Previously the taps were all macro breweries. Now, in addition to a number of Lion Nathan macro draught taps, there is a selection of semi-microbrewery beers, including James Squire (which is still Lion Nathan) and White Rabbit, plus three Colonial Brewing Co taps – Pale Ale, Kölsch and Witbier.

The Colonial name was brand new to me. I knew nothing of this beer and, unfortunately, the bar staff also knew nothing about the origins or styles of the Colonial beers. When, when I was back at home, I did my own online research to learn that this Western Australian brewery is owned by the same parent company that now owns the Skinny Dog Hotel (Colonial Leisure Group). I had a pot of the Pale Ale, which I enjoyed, definitely a quality pale ale...but at $6 pot, I think I shall pass on the Colonial beers in future.

A pot of the Colonial Pale Ale

Anyway, I'm still happy to call the Skinny Dog my local (it's just too conveniently located not to be!) and I will be keen to try out their new menu sometime soon. However, if I'm looking for beer and footy...I think I'll be heading down to Richmond, Abbotsford or over to the city.

Sunday afternoon, after catching a movie at Victoria Gardens, we popped into the glorious Royston Hotel in Richmond to catch some of St Kilda vs Fremantle game on Foxtel. However, the tvs were showing the other/wrong game, so we did not stay long. Nonetheless, I had time to enjoy a quick pot the Hargraves Hill ESB, whilst staring joyfully at their superb beer menu...

(click the image for a closer look)

The Hargraves Hill ESB was the only on-tap beer that I hadn't tried before, therefore it was an easy choice. And I have no problem seeing a single macro beer choice on the list (Carlton Draught), because craft beer isn't always for everyone. All credit to The Royston for fully supporting the true microbreweries, yet being smart enough to cater for the traditional Melbourne crowd and the non-risk takers.

If I may take a paragraph to rant about one of my pet peeves (price)...this is what I don't get...The Royston charge less than $9 for a pint of high-quality, local microbrews...but over at the Skinny Dog, $9 is the price for a pint of the base macro beers and then they charge $10 for their own "in-house product" (well, it produced by the same parent company as the Hotel owner). It may seem a matter of cents to some, but it makes a very big difference to me that such the widely available and average products, produced by massive and rich companies, could cost more than a independent boutique product. Does this not concern the majority?

Anyway, The Royston Hotel is a beautiful beer pub that ticks pretty much all the boxes for me - very relaxed, excellent staff, delicious food, perfect beer choices, very fair prices, pool table, never too crowded... it's just missing a music streetpress stash. I love it.

On Sunday night I treated myself to a bottle of the Matilda Bay Sebastian Reserve. Pouring extremely dark with a thick beige head (but almost no rention or lacing), this dunkelweizen gave a rich coffee and malt aroma. It was very light in the mouth and provided a full malt taste, with cocoa and some lemony fruit. A little sour at times maybe and not overly complex, but an enjoyable drinking experience.