More Aussie beers

Two more excellent Australian beers to look out for....

• Monteith's Summer Ale: this is a really tasty and refreshingly spiced golden beer. It's made with four different malts and then spiced and finished off with rata honey. It comes in at 5% volume. (Monteith is actually a New Zealand brewery but it's close enough)
  
  
• Little Creatures Pale Ale: hop flowers, some selected malts, two yeasts and a six week brewing period make for an excellent beer from the Little Creatures brewery. Again finished off with some honey it's slightly bitter on the aftertaste and comes in at 4.9% volume. If you find a bottle anywhere make sure you roll it first to spread the yeast before pouring.

Aussie beers (2)

Was about to do another blog on Aussie beers and then came across this news story. Darwin resident Michael Leary was spending $1,100 a week on beer, supposedly equivalent to 27 'slabs' per week. (A slab is a case of 24 beers, so that would be over 600 beers a week. Clearly something wrong with the maths here, probably a bit of exageration and him drinking at bars rather than by 4-caseload at home every night. Still, impresive.)

The absolute best bit, however, is the quote from the magistrate:

''(That is) poor judgement on two counts there - drinking that much and drinking Melbourne Bitter''.

I'll try to source some for review in the next beer blog...

Beer o'clock

The sun has gone down and it's now beer o'clock. I've three Australian beers in my fridge to choose from.

First up is XXXX Gold from Queensland. It's actually a lot better than the Fosters or Carling type beers it usually gets lumped together with. It's rather light at 3.5%, but that makes it an ideal thirst quencher at the start of the evening in a hot climate. On the down side though there's little taste to it, and it's a tad too fizzy to drink more than a few of. Overall verdict = 6/10.

Second is Tooheys Draught from New South Wales. It's a fuller strength beer at 4.6% and is lightly hopped with a balanced malt flavour. It's got a really nice fruity and bitter aftertaste and is a great all rounder. Overall verdict = 8/10.

Third is Coopers Original Pale Ale from South Australia. It's certainly a pale ale but has decent strength at 4.5%. It's got a heavy yeast residue so the bottle needs rolling first to get a decent pour. Coopers has an ideal blend of fruit flavour and bitter aftertaste. Overall verdict = 9/10.

On reflection I think I'll go for a Coopers...