Sunday mornings at the markets are an awesome thing in Melbourne. They’re actually sufficiently awesome to get my nocturnal self out of bed for the occasion, occasionally. When I lived in the Melb, I was nearer the Victoria Markets, so I’m not sure if this stall existed while I lived in town, but I was glad I visited them when I was over for my friends’ wedding.
Named ‘Swords’ for no immediately-apparent reason, they specialised in Australian microbreweries and some moderately-obscure European stuff. Toby was off shopping for food — about which I know basically nothing — so I busied myself here. I picked out a few promising-looking beers, plonked them on the counter and then (assuming that they established my bona fides as a Beer Nerd) asked the very-helpful guy behind the counter to pick me out two more to add to my stash; things I hadn’t picked, but should’ve.
I wound up with, from left to right:
- Knappstein Reserve Lager
- Pepperjack Ale
- Malt Shovel Abbey Ale
- Jamieson ‘Beast’ IPA
- Little Creatures Rogers Beer
- Sweetwater Golden Bitter
- Red Hill Scotch Ale
- Emerson’s ‘JP’ 2008
- 3 Ravens ’55 APA
As you can see from the lack of a link, the Sweetwater doesn’t later show up in the Diary. I have literally no idea why not. Maybe I never drank it; maybe I just never noted it down; maybe Toby had it.
you know what. I did drink that beer. And have bought it again since. I think it found it’s way into the back of the fridge, and I didn’t find it for a few weeks. I’m not altogether surprised by this, as your trip here resulted in a few hazy nights. Nevermind, it was tasty enought to buy again – particularly when you want something summery and refreshing.
Excellent. Glad it was put to good use, and glad it was worth a repeat. And hell yeah there were some blurry nights; that was a surpassingly excellent holiday. So I totally owed you at least a good beer as rent on the spare room — and the nice shirt and cufflinks for the wedding.