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.