Beer - How good is it?

Beer. It’s good right? All beer is good … right? Right?

These days, just saying beer is good, to poorly paraphrase the great linguist Homer Simpson, is not good enough. With the explosion of craft beer, initially imported from the USA and Europe, and now with some of the best increasingly brewed right here, you need to know a bit more than ordering “a schooner of VB please!” or “geez, those copper tanks with Carlton Draught say Brewery Fresh so it must be good!”. The tap heads at pubs can be a brightly coloured, shitload of confusion.

There are more styles on offer than at Melbourne Fashion Week, and hops, well, don’t get me started. There’s no way to keep up with the hop types and new hop products available, Fresh? Pellets? Extract? Experimental? In the old days of swilling down Carlton Draught, VB, and, on those celebratory occasions, a Crown Lager, you only had to know one hop. That hop was Vic Secret, and let’s face it, in the hands of the macro brewers of this fine country (yes, I’m looking at you CUB and Tooheys) it made a lot of beer taste, and smell, like a damp sock that has been at the back of your cupboard for a week!

So how to cut through all the new stuff? Well, you’ll like this advice, just drink it. Just have a goddam crack! Sure, you will find styles, and hops, and methods you will absolutely hate but you will also find things you keep returning to, again and again. Don’t tell anyone, but the secret to developing your palate is to drink more. Once you start doing that you will start to pick subtle differences. Those beers will taste better than the macro lager in the Green Hand Grenade you’re currently holding. I’ve had a mate tell me I’m a “beer snob” because I drink craft beer. But that’s far from the truth. I’m a beer lover. I’ll try any style; I’ll mix them through the night. The beer snob is the person that won’t drink anything but one style or brand and refuses to challenge their taste.

I’m lucky. Living in Sydney I’m spoiled for choice with craft breweries, producing beer of high quality across several styles in either walking distance, a bus ride or a short train trip. I’m happy to visit any of these or try brews from them as part of this series on booze and venues so just let me know in the comments if you are looking at a review of a particular style, brewery or venue and I’ll see what I can do to get around it (oh, the sacrifices we make).

To whet your whistle, so to speak, I’m going to kick things off with some very common and popular styles from breweries a little further afield. I purchased all of these through The Beer Barrel in Camperdown (www.thebeerbarrel.com.au) and I’d recommend getting down and saying g’day to Roman as he has a large selection, and you can buy individual cans for tasting. Roman will even fill growler bottles for you if that is more to your liking.

This is not going to be super technical. I’m no Cicerone, yes, that’s the title of the beer equivalent of a Sommelier, as the course and time involved is intense, and who has time for that when you could just drink beer? This is about trying stuff out. Get it in your mouth and see what you taste. If you like it great, if you don’t, there’s plenty more to get through.

Brewery: Garage Project

Origin: Wellington, New Zealand

Beer: Fuzz Box Pale Ale 5.8% ABV

The first thing to like about this beer is that it was first brewed in collaboration with the legends at Frankie’s Pizza (RIP, sad face). The second is that it one of the most popular styles in the world right now, the Pale Ale. This one is packed with Galaxy, Mosaic, and Nelson Sauvin (an absolute favourite hop of the Kiwi brewers). Those hops provide those typical modern pale ale tropical fruit flavours and

that clean bitterness to finish. It’s a great session beer (just watch those VB drinkers though as they will find the ABV a bit higher than they are used to

and there is a risk of an early night if they go a bit hard to soon), brilliant on a hot day, and could well be described as a ‘lawnmower beer’. That’s a beer you want to smash after sweating it out doing, well anything really, it doesn’t have to be lawn! This beer was an absolute cracker.

Brewery: Garage Project

Origin: Wellington, New Zealand

Beer: La La California IPA ABV 6%

IPA is the next step up in flavour. Short for India Pale Ale or Imperial Pale Ale. Without boring you too much it basically means a shit ton (it’s a technical hop measuring term, trust me)

more hops are added as back in the day the extra hops stopped the beer from going off on long sea journeys from, say, England to India (hence the ‘India’). This one has Citra, Mosaic (same as the Pale), and a weird new thing called Flex Extract, which is just a liquid hop extract so that brewers can say they are doing scientist stuff when, in fact, they are just getting drunk. I’m getting peach and floral flavours and aromas so think sweet and fruity, but that Flex extract gives a decent bitterness kick that you would expect in an IPA over the Pale. All up, maybe a little light on flavour and bitterness, but again a corker on a hot day.

Brewery: Range Brewing

Origin, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Beer: DDH Everything IPA ABV 6.4%

What’s DDH you say? It stands for ‘double dry hopping’. Without too much technical garbage, hops are added to the boil, which is where you get bitterness, hops added after the boil and fermentation add to the aroma and is referred to as dry hopping. DDH can mean they dry hopped in 2 batches or they simply added double the amount of hops at the dry hopping stage. Those hops can sit in the beer for varying amount of time. Enough of that. How does it taste?

Well, this beer is a single hop brew, using the hop Strata. It’s got a very tropical fruit taste, but the dry hopping with Strata brings grapefruit and cannabis. Hang on, stop getting excited, while related to the cannabis plant these hops won’t get you high, but you do get that grassy and dank aroma from the beer. This is a beauty. It has a lot more flavour that the La La and the extra hopping and ABV really make this IPA a step up in flavour and alcohol than the Pale. Maybe move to a few of these after you have quenched your initial parched throat with the Pales.

Brewery: Range Brewing

Origin, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Beer: DDH Everything West Coast IPA ABV 7.0%

Double dry hopped again. This one though is a single hop brew using El Dorado. El Dorado as a dry hop should reek of tropical fruits, like pineapple and mango

but I’m not getting this. I think, maybe, the hop addition at the boil has overpowered the dry hop process. I get whacked by big pine and resin flavours, dank to an extent, and a pretty high level of bitterness, compared to the other beers tasted here. That would fit the overall West Coast IPA style which essentially slaps you in the face with pine and bitterness. I think because of the DDH process I was expecting more in the aroma department. Slightly disappointed, but in terms of a West Coast IPA it ticks all those boxes.

I’ll be making my way through a bunch of venues and beers, some close to home, some as I travel about, but always happy to check out a particular style for those curious. If you are after my thoughts on a particular beer or style let me know in the comments. If it’s a style I’ll try and get a few examples from different breweries, and, if possible, sample what is considered the pinnacle of that style. Like having the Saison Dupont from Brasserie Dupont up against some local Saison styles for example.