Alas! Damn-Good Down-Under Beers

Okay, okay. I lied. I lied last-last time, in my post about Australian Ales, that the very next post would be about better ales--no, about Aussie porters. Instead, I spent a fortnight in the beautiful aquamarine mist of the Blue Mountains. But if it's any consolation, I spent every evening on a seductively silent porch, losing myself in the view of pristine landscape and taste of finely crafted Australian beers.

Hard to believe it, but I did indeed find some amazing beer in Australia. Though, I had to search long and hard for it, and it damn near wiped my wallet clean. But they're out there. Here are two. And these two are heavy hitters the whole craft-beer world over.

Moon Dog Brewery's Love Tap Double Lager

Holy Piss* A Lager I Actually LIKE!

Not just like, but love. Dear friends, it may come as a surprise to you, but I fell head over foam for this lager. For those of you who know me, who know me as the lauder of anti-lagers (i.e. Double IPAs and Imperial Stouts), I apologise if you weren't sitting down. 

I love Love Tap because it looks, smells, tastes, feels, kicks like an IPA. An upfront citrus bouquet accompanies a bold and noticeable aroma of hops--followed by a bold and noticeable taste of hops. Slight but appreciated chocolate malts (yep, chocolate in an IPA-ish lager!) bear recognition to the beer's complexity, which is manifested in the hop-malt-yeast list on the label. From the citrusy taste, thick mouthfeel, and cloudy orange colour, only the finish is remotely like a lager; that is, it's a bit on the weak side. Which is fine; it's characteristic of the style. Still, you'd have a hard time convincing me it wasn't an IPA.

* "Piss" is Australian for beer. No shit.**
** "Shit" is unanimously a derogate word anywhere in the world.

Barossa Valley Brewing's Bee Sting

After a five-hour hike, few things are as nice as cold beer in the afternoon. Bee Sting suduced me with its honey wheat lovin'. It's an excellent, refreshing, superbly balanced Belgian-style wheat ale. The flavours of the yeast are quite noticeable on the palate, which substantiates its refreshing Belgian taste. But it's the distinct aroma and flavour of the orange blossom and honey marriage that stands out best, lightly sweetening the beer. Subsequently the mouthfeel is sweet, but not sticky. A plus in my books, and something Oscar Blues could take note of. Styrian Gold is the hop of choice, though providing a low level of bitterness. Nice, light spices provide a touch of complexity. This was the first Australian beer that actually impressed me. 

Good alternatives to both, you ask?

Both Love Tap (if you can find it) and Bee Sting are going to cost you a pretty penny. 2,000 of them ($20) per four-pack, more precisely. $5 by the bottle. But if--nay, when-- you find yourself in the Land Down Under, keep your eye out for these alternatives. They're easier to find, and a whole $0.50-$1.00 cheaper!

Little Creatures is the brewery behind this solid, standard Imperial Pale Ale. At a only 6.4% ABV, it's not a knock-you-over IPA, but its hops are well balanced and flavourful.


White Rabbit Brewery crafts two easily-found ales: A dark and a white. Its witbier (the white) was a pleasant surprise, with a rich crispness and a slightly fuller body than you'd expect.





Now. To bestow some understanding as to why Australians err on the side of quantity over quality when it comes to beer, and to get you in the Australian-beer drinking mood:

Drinking You (Down)Under the Table

A Comparison of Three Australian Ales

I can't with honesty say it's my search for fine craft beer that's landed me in Australia; but in finding myself in Sydney, it's my love of suds that has me searching for fine Aussie craft brews. As if trying to find a new job and support myself in the most expensive city in the world weren't hard enough, finding Australian pale ales that don't pale in comparison to their American counterparts is dampening my Down Under spirits. Today, I'd like to review three craft pale ales from three emerging breweries here in Australia. Admittedly, these are the more accessible ales, but for any Australian brew-newcomers, let this serve as a welcome guide.

There are a few things to remember about beer in Australia...

Beer and the Science of Sweetness and Spice

  

I Drank in College so I'd Avoid Science

It has since been heralded the Craft Beer Revolution – the cult following of microbrews blossoming, overflowing into the mainstream throughout the last decade. Its popularization comes along with that of gourmet gastropubs; incidentally, these new style eateries feature an array of craft beers, while some craft breweries offer an eclectic gourmet food menu.  With the climbing interest in flavorful beers nation wide, that beer pairs as richly and complexly with food as wine does is substantive, and restaurants, wholesalers, even roaming food trucks are capitalizing on this truth.

 

However, be it gastropub-hosted beer pairings or to-the-source Internet research, recommendations for honing your pairing palate may leave you baffled. Why does one gastropub pair its spicy curry chicken skewers with an IPA, while another opts for a porter? Fundamentally, the beers are completely different. Baffling, indeed. But the answer is simple, perhaps overly simple: food (and beer) is all about taste – your taste. And your taste preferences vary from the chef’s and the brewer’s and your date’s and your mates’. Not to mention, your tastes can change. There is, however one unchanging, invariable constant when it comes to pairing beer with food. Science.

While preferences vary between individuals, tastes and flavors – and the combinations thereof – don’t. Much of this has to do with chemical reactions (that science stuff I mentioned earlier). For instance, bitterness and alcohol both, individually and collaboratively, enhance the caustic quality of spices, while the sweetness of malts counters that heat. So, why would a chef pair a bitter IPA with a spicy curry dish? Either he’s a sadist, or he wants to accentuate the spices in his dish. Oppositely, the chef pairing her dish with a porter might worry about that enhancing the spiciness with an astringent and characteristically ABV-generous IPA may overpower the other, perhaps more subtle flavors in her recipe. It all depends on the characteristics you want to home your palate.

A Homerun Match*

The Dish: The Dubliner’s Beef Curry Stew. A simple, yet delicious, and definitively spicy curry featuring tender pieces of beef and flavorful vegetables.

The Beer: Breckenridge Vanilla Porter. I love curry, and I like it with a  kick. Anticipating just that, I ordered this dish with Breckenridge Brewery’s Vanilla Porter. The natural sweetnes of malts, accompanied with this porter’s light vanilla tones and low ABV (4.0%), balances and calms spiciness without detracting from the aromas and flavor of this curry. Additionally, the malts’ light roasted flavor harmonizes with the wholesomeness of the beef chunks, working with the fat to create a filling meal.

The Outcome: This turned out to be a great combo, perfect for that particular night: warm, with outside seating. Not ideal for a super-spice meal; I didn’t particularly want my forehead to start breaking out in sweat, tears to start pooling in my eyes, and mucus to conspicuously drip from my nose – in front of my girlfriend.   

The But: I’m a hophead; IPAs are my favorite. If there had been a refreshing chill in the air, an IPA would have been a stellar choice to heighten the heat of this stew. And still, I could have taken it two ways: a somewhat carbonated IPA with the fruitiness of cintra hops (like Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA) would have turned on the heat, while the carbonation would have cut through the beef fat. Alternatively, I could have got the same kick, but with the satiation of wholesome meal with a smoother IPA like Ballast Point’s Big Eye IPA, or a super-smooth nitro-infused brew.

Of course, there’s more to beer than just hops and malts, more to food than just spice and fat. There are a plethora of taste and flavor characteristics in both beer and food that work wonders (or plunders) with each other. But it all depends on your specific tastes. With all the scientific rules out there regarding beer and food pairings (Sweet increases Salt, Acid calms Salt, Roast counters Sweet… it’s like an elaborate, quasi-arbitrary game of rock-paper-scissors), the only rule you should definitely follow happens to be a rule both of science and of thumb: experiment. Enjoy both what you’re eating and what you’re drinking. If the combination works out, great. If not, just order another beer. That always does the trick.

* Homerun is the actual term designated for a truly great beer-food match.

No Wheat No Worries

"What does gluten-free mean?"
"It means it's good for you."

Above: Probably the most incorrect statement you'll ever hear whilst wandering through Whole Foods. Gluten Free has transformed from dietary necessity to public paradigm. Gluten-free diets are a necessity and relief for those suffering from celiac disease, something comedian Kelly Maclean would call "a rich, white-person problem." Funny, but statistically accurate. As most of the monetary wealth in America is owned by the top 1%, only "about 1% of Americans have celiac disease," explains WebMD. Incidentally, because of the expanding social indifference between "gluten free" and "healthy" most purchasers of gluten-free products don't and won't have a sensitivity to wheat. "Unless people are very careful," Dr. Peter Green, director of Columbia University's Celiac Disease Center told WebMD, who told me, "a gluten-free diet can lack vitamins, minerals, and fiber." 

Essentially, unless toast gives you diarrhea, anemia, bone pains, and the severe rash known as dermatitis herpetiformis, abstaining from wheat products is not healthy, because, even though gluten isn't healthy for you in and of itself, whole grain products that contain gluten are rich in proteins, minerals, and B-Vitimens. But mainly, if you're gluten free for no good reason, you can't drink beer.

But if you are a sufferer of celiac disease, you still have options. Awareness over the disease has incited a call to action for brewers big and small, far and wide. While some gluten-free beers can hardly be considered beer – let alone palatable – some breweries are taking this pop-pandemic seriously. And for good reason. No one should have to eschew from brew, by choice or by chance. I recently tried Dogfish Head's Tweason'ale, and was pleasantly surprised. Here's what I have to say:

Image courtesy of lefthandhorrors.com

Wheat-beer color, sans the wheat! A sweet aroma, followed by distinct strawberry and honey tastes. Full up-front flavor that finishes nicely. Does a good job of hiding its gluten-freeness. A stiff 6%, difficult to quaff but easy to enjoy – if you don't mind a little (but not over-powering) sweetness in your beer. Regardless, quite nice on a sunny day. 

So, unlike Red Bridge, Budweiser's pathetic excuse for a GF beer (yes, I understand singling out any one variety by Bud and calling it bad is an oxymoron), Dogfish Head's is quite palatable. But, it definitely differs from your typical strong ale, which was the brewers' intent. "While there are a few well-made examples that mirror traditional beer styles, there arent [sic] any off-centered offerings," explains Sam Calagione, the brewery's founder. This was my first GF beer, and if you're likewise looking to explore, New Planet, Bards, and Lakefront Brewery's New Grist would each be a fine starting line. 

For The Betterment of Beer: The Best Beer Inventions (Besides, of course, Beer)

From beer cans with built-in shotgunning tabs on the side to those ridiculous funnel hats "that guy" dons at sports games, beer has kicked opened numerous doors to cheeky inventors since Ancient Egypt. And, while I'd stake my taste for 2XIPAs that Pharaoh never buckled up a beer belt, there have been at least a handful of inventions that have been for the beer-good, inventions that don't focus on consumption, ergonomics (who the hell needs an ergonomic beer can? Screw you, Miller Lite), or air-flow (that's you, Coors!). The best beer inventions either benefit the beer itself, benefit the social aspect of drinking beer, or benefit both. With that in mind, I've opined my favorite of the best recent beer inventions, though, deciding my personal favorites was nothing if not difficult, with hours of schizophrenic self-debate, choosing whether to include the revolutionary Hop Cannon, or the Dogfish Head-Sierra Nevada collab IPA pint glass, or a UK design team's Fight-Friendly beer glass (though benefitting man-kind, let's face it, pub brawls are as British as pubs themselves). So, with no further adieu, the best beer inventions: (plus, honorable mentions and inventions that should never have been):

Bitter Days Ahead

Learning the Craft (beer that is)

Before I Begin...

I bitch a lot on this blog - particularly about things I can't stand, flaws prevalent in the human condition. I was going to start this entry (about something I L-O-V-E love) expressing hatred. I was going to start it off like this: "One thing I can't stand is bad beer." Instead, I'm going to feign cornucopian. Here we go.

A small assembly of the massive tap line at J.P. Henley's, St. Augustine, FL (photo: me)

Let Me Begin...