An interesting contrast against their ‘Jaipur’ IPA (and a worthy thing in itself), ‘Halcyon’ is a fresh-hopped IPA of higher strength but lighter body than usual.
Its Best Before date had been set quite conservatively, to encourage people to drink up and enjoy it while that madly-fresh hoppy aroma was still good to go. With ‘proper beer’, it has to be said that Best Before dates become a bit of a joke — well-made beers, especially bottle conditioned ones don’t really go bad in the way that the relevant regulations seem to expect. Hop notes will fade over time, though, so these brews really are best enjoyed sooner rather than later. Save your Delayed Gratification energies for the malty ones.
Diary II entry #22, Thornbridge 'Halcyon' Green-hopped IPA '09
Verbatim: Thornbridge ‘Halcyon’ Green-Hopped IPA ’09 5/10/10 7.7% 500ml ÷ 2 w/ Amanda, who was shouted it at work. We’re flogging them like crazy since their official Best Before is fast approaching, but we all know what nonsense those things are. Lovely hazy pale golden straw with peachy highlights. So fruity and lush, even this far away from its Harvest season.
This entry from Diary II is unique (so far), in that it contains absolutely no tasting notes. Coopers bloody-lovely Pale is something I’ve had umpteen times before, but had never given its own entry; the Diaries were never about recommendations for other people, originally, and I knew this well enough that I didn’t need to write about it.
And then, Dr. Tim Cooper himself — the latest heir to take the reins of the brewery — paid our little country, our little town, and our little pub a visit. My first proper bar-tender geek-out was when Richard Emerson — another heir to another eponymous brewery — visited the Malthouse on one of my first few shifts. I’ve had a few such borderline-fanboy reactions to meeting other beer industry folk since, but none as acute as this, for a while.1
Tim was in town for a bit of a shindig to celebrate the new-ish mass-importing of his beers into the Little Country; we’ve had several kegs of Sparkling, Vintage and Stout on tap already. And he seems to be an utterly lovely chap. A semi-regular customer — a Suit who is occasionally-bothersome, but harmless enough — insisted on shouting a round, and Dr. Cooper elected for a Pale (apparently his favourite go-to of their range), so I joined him, and then revelled in my unashamed nerdery by asking him to sign the bottle.
Diary II entry #14, Coopers Original Pale Ale
Verbatim: Coopers Original Pale Ale 23/9/10 at work, bought by the same random occasionally-bothersome suit who shouted the above. (And I do mean ‘shouted’.) This round was precipitated by the appearance of Dr. Tim Cooper himself. There was a bit of a do for the new imports and such. And he seems like an utterly lovely chap. He picked one of these for his in this round, so I joined him, then wrote this, obviously. And just as I was thinking a photo would be lame, I got him to sign my bottle. Now that makes for a photo opportunity. [Heh; no tasting notes.]
1: The pairing is really rather apt. Emerson’s Bookbinder was probably my first proper local microbrew; Coopers Sparkling was my first Australian — and both are members of my All Time Favourites and were therefore written-up together for my contribution to the Malthouse Beer Blog. Coopers & Emerson’s would also have to be acknowledged as leading the proper-brewing trends in their respective countries — though the former takes the gong by a hundred years, and the latter makes up for tardiness by being much more experimental.
Twisted Hop IPA, in the Hopinator with whole mandarins
People do get confused when they spot our Hopinator gizmo, they really do. Most often, they mistake it for a trophy of some sort, sitting rather-randomly on the bar. You have to sympathise, admittedly. But you do have to wonder what the trophy was for, when they saw it like this.
Twisted Hop’s IPA is bloody lovely. I’ve had a fair amount of it — and have certainly had it to excess, on one memorable occasion — and it definitely has a bitter, fruity snap to it. So hell, why not pile the Hopinator full of mandarins, and bam that up a notch? The result was really interesting; the familiar Cascade hops have a distinct citrussy bitterness, but here’s that flavour coming from actual fruit, too, so you get this nice moment of clarity about how the one really does taste like the other, but also are reminded of how different they are. If that makes any sense. This is a stonking great big beer; it is difficult to continue to make much sense when standing in its blast radius.
Diary II entry #13, Twisted Hop IPA and mandarins
Verbatim: Twisted Hop IPA & Mandarins 23/9/10 Hopinated @ MH on fresh — whole! — mandarins. 6.4%? Seems slightly mad at first, but the Hopinator looks awesome with weirdly-distorted fruit in it, and it does work. The IPA is weighty enough to not be overwhelmed, and the pithy fruity bitterness that is leeched off the fruit nicely highlights the similar flavours that were already in there. Pretty damn full-on, but good.
So, goatsucker. Really. That’s what “Chupacabras” literally means. Chupar is “to suck”, and cabra is “goat”. Strange name for a beer, you might think.
Wait; it gets stranger. The Chupacabra is a piece of South American cryptozoology, like an Australian Bunyip, or a North American Bigfoot. But unlike those, this one doesn’t have the ‘virtue’ of being old-timey nonsense; these are a pretty recent popular delusion — quite-possibly wholly derived from the awesomely-awful movie Species, which the original ‘eyewitness’ apparently thought depicted real events taking place in Peurto Rico.
But anyway, the beer. I write about beer, right? Well, first things first, it doesn’t suck (at least, not goats). It’s billed as American Pale Ale, but isn’t a typical one, if it’s one at all. The colour tends to the reddish end, there’s not a whole lot of aroma going on, and the fruity flavours are in the sweeter modes than the usual bitter-citrussy ones. Style aside, though, those factors combine into something not inherently bad and the bigger body does bury some of the familiar Cucapá metal flavour.
Diary II entry #9, Cupaca 'Chupacabras' Pale Ale
Verbatim: Cucapa ‘Chupacabras’ APA 18/9/10 5.8% 355ml $4 from Reg. Very reddish ruddy amber. Attractive, but atypical for style, I’d have thought. Not massively aromatic, and with quite a nice big rounded sweet fruity middle bit. Apricotty, perhaps. Very much like something I’ve had, but I’m struggling to recall. Amelia says there’s a not-in-a-bad-way burnt grass aspect; as if she were a really classy cow. How strange. Hints of the metal, but more buried.
I’m still kicking myself that me and my friends didn’t know about the Brew Moon Cafe when we were on our South Island roadtrip a few years ago. They’re in the charming-enough little town of Amberly, in North Canterbury, and we stopped there (we stop a lot, on our roadtrips) to see the statue of Double-VC soldier Charles Upham, who once farmed nearby. Now that I do know about this place and their beers, I really must go back.
‘Hophead’ is a lovely beer; it’s not a crazypants kind of over-done / attention-grabbing IPA, it’s just a solid bottle of yum. And I can’t help but notice this Diary entry’s place in the timing of this blogthing; I’d just reached frustration-point with the fact I wasn’t carrying Diary I with me and so couldn’t remember which note-worthy beers already had been appropriately noted. So there’s a weird sort of particular satisfaction in putting this note up, I must say.
Diary II entry #6, Brew Moon 'Hophead' IPA
Verbatim: Brew Moon ‘Hophead’ IPA 16/9/10 500ml÷3 with Scotty & Peter. $9ish from Rumbles, 5%. We randomly had this a while ago, but I can’t remember if I Booked it, I really must get these online. And it’s pretty tasty all over again. Good orangey-coloured body, fruity hops and just general good-drinkin’ yumness. Not a mucked-with loopy IPA; just a perfectly-solid one.
You do meet some choice people, in a job like mine. (You meet some intolerable ones, too, but I prefer not to write about them, here.)
Three people wandered into our pub the day before Beervana, and when I commented on the Mussel Inn shirt one of them was wearing, it turned out that they all actually worked there. Coincidentally, we’d just taken delivery of a few cases each of three of their beers, so I had to show them the write-up I’d done to introduce them in the Book. (I also like how it makes for a nice example of how my writing style gets quite a bit more ‘loose’ as the small hours creep on and the feeling of “I should really finish this” creeps in.)
Golden Bay’s legendary Mussel Inn has been brewing and serving craft beer forever. Or at least since very shortly after time itself began — if there is a God, and if he rested on the seventh day, he was probably there, enjoying a well-earned pint. If they’re at all able, beer geeks should all make pilgrimage at least once in their lives[…].
They were chuffed, and we had a good old-fashioned geek-out for a while, and the next day at the beer festival, they brought over a little swag-bag of unlabelled bottles — a few beers that aren’t usually available other than at the pub itself. Bloody lovely of them. The beer, itself, was lovely and straightforward. The name comes from a nice little joke that a whale is a big body and a long tail, and the beer does live up to it.
Verbatim: Mussel Inn ‘Pale Whale Ale’ 7/9/10, gift from Mussel Inn people @ Beervana, after we met at my pub and they saw my write-up. 500ml shared with Neil. 6%. Hazy light apricotty brown. Slightly sweet + muted-fruity nose. Body is decently big + smooth. Quite a good length on the flavour; “big body, long tail” = whale, they say. Cute. Not perfect, maybe a rough travel, but very tasty. Must visit…
Mussel Inn introductory blurb, Malthouse Beer Book
Another Italian beer, and one I’d had before, with an altogether brilliant dinner at La Casa here in town, a while back. It’s an appealing bright orangey colour, and definitely has appropriately citrussy twangs in the nose and the taste. It’s a bit boozy, at 6.3%, and has a slightly metallic zing to it which just comes across as refreshing, not irritating.
Afterthoughts, February 2011:Metal is such a weird flavour to pick up, but it is pretty distinctive. Usually, it’s bad, bad news — my usual citation is Beck’s, which (when had on tap in Melbourne occasionally) just tasted, to me, like biting down hard on a wet stainless steel butterknife. But here’s me singling it out as a “not in a bad way” thing. Which does weird me out, in hindsight.
This beer in particular probably did get a lot of Circumstantial Points, given the awesomeness of the dinner it originally accompanied. But beer is like that, and there’s no reason it shouldn’t be.
Diary entry #82, Theresianer Pale Ale
Verbatim: Theresianer Pale Ale 24/3/09 @ home, Mt Vic. 330ml 6.5% Had another La Rossa the other day, so more Italian. I had this at La Casa with Kylee a while back, too. Nice amber, grunty, floral, slightly metallic, but refreshingly. Citrussy and fun. Good stuff.
I’ve said some nasty things about Epic in the past, so in credit-where-due spirit, Mayhem is awesome. It’s one of a few variant editions of the Epic Pale, and addresses all of that beer’s shortcomings nicely. It’s vastly maltier and ‘beerier’ in the body (and a bit boozier too, as a result) and is thereby much better balanced. But it’s still astonishingly hoppy and aromatic, with New Zealand-developed Riwaka hops in there alongside the usual American Cascade — so the big hop notes aren’t just striking in one place like they do in the Pale. To re-purpose Epic’s particularly-stupid marketing phrase, this really Just Tastes Bigger, in all directions, and is vastly better for it. But more importantly than merely being “better” than the Pale Ale, this is, on its own merits, bloody lovely.
Afterthoughts, February 2011: I remember liking liking this, if you follow what I mean. I really grumped about the Pale Ale, partially because it was so absurdly popular — hailed as the best-ever by any number of otherwise-plausible people, when I thought the most you could say in its favour was that it was a well-made example of that intentionally off-kilter hop-nonsensed sort of beer. Stunt beer. Boy racer beer, as my colleague Ben used to say. It wasn’t badly made, it was just boringly flashy and it mystified me that so many people had it as their standby everday ‘session’ beer. I like those beers sometimes, but worried about how, if you drank it all the time, your tastebuds must resemble an apocalyptic wasteland — and whether that was the cause of the Epic-sessioning, or its effect.
Epic Pale Ale changes notice
In fairness, Epic Pale has massively improved. There was one horror-batch as the malt in the recipe was changed around in Luke’s absence, but after that things stabilised nicely and the beer became considerably more drinkable, I thought. If anything, now the real irony is that Tuatara’s APA — designed fairly shamelessly as a bandwagoning local-sales-stealer — is just that bit better yet; it’s certainly less one-note and more balanced. Epic Pale was necessary to push people in this hoppy direction, but is now in danger of watching its students become its master, perhaps.
Diary entry #80, Epic 'Mayhem'
Verbatim: Epic Mayhem 19/2/09 380ml 6.5% $9 @ Malty. After nasty words about the Pale, this is great. Much maltier underneath and with the passionfruity Riwaka hop alongside the US Cascade. So deeper and wider. Actually balanced, still remarkably hoppy. Altogether very good.
My payment for helping George and Robyn (mostly Robyn, actually, since George was wounded) move their furniture around in readiness for renovations.
It’s basically a ruthlessly traditional IPA. Originally, IPA was what happened when the English over-hopped and strengthened up their ales, so they’d survive the commute out to the colonials in India. This one is oak barrel aged, to simulate some of that, and so despite being bottle conditioned, it pours flat as a pancake. It’s a nice muted reddy brown, and has a good apricotty hoppiness at the start and a citrusy zing in the tail. George and I thought it was great fun, and nicely quaffable — especially considering it’s actually 6.5%. I can easily imagine it’d be hated by many, even by many who consider themselves IPA fans. But I’ve long thought that you get extra points for being ballsy enough to be hated by some people, if it means doing a very-particular thing well. (See also, e.g., South coast Islay whisky.)
Verbatim: Peak Brewery Monkey Point IPA. 27/1/09 500ml 6.5%. Payment for lugging stuff. Understatedly organic. Seems hugely traditional. Oak aged IPA, which they would be, of course, in transit. Nearly flat, despite bottle conditioning. Apricotty and indeed oakey, it’s mild with a little fresh citrusy back end. Quite quaffable.
(Also, on Australia Day yesterday: a Creatures Pale, a Cooper’s Sparkling longneck and Pale. And a VB.)
Afterthoughts, November 2010: Here’s me, falling into the Captivating But Wrong Old Story about IPA. It turns out that IPA wasn’t at all “designed” to be shipped out to the colonies; the story is much more accidental and circumstantial than that. As you’d be right to expect, Martyn Cornell has nicely dealt with the topic on his blogthing.
I must also warn that this brewery, while capable of producing some lovely beers, does have a shockingly-bad occasional problem with infected batches / bottles. And when this one goes bad, as it too-often does, it goes horrid; full of a fizzy, strawberry-yoghurt flavour. Ranker than rank. Although one memorable customer at work one night did come in asking if we had the “strawberry-flavoured Peak beer” — he’d evidently had an infected bottle, and enjoyed it. To each their own, I suppose.
A reward-to-self for knocking my Christmas shopping off in one go (and with a whole day to spare). It’s awesome. A big apricotty, hop-filled nose to start off, and a similarly big, nicely bitter and full-on taste, faultlessly done. It also very much suits being on the hand-pulls, being flatter and that little bit warmer. It delivers in areas where things like Pink Elephant Golden Tusk and Epic Pale Ale prove to be only all talk, much to my recent annoyance. This makes for seriously-good medicine and reassurance, after those.
Verbatim: Twisted Hop IPA. 23/12/08 $8 @ Malty 6.4%. Shopping done. And this is on handpull. Awesome. Apricotty hop-filled nose, and big, nicely bitter feel. What Golden Tusk should’ve been. Goes very nicely flat + slightly warmer. Big full-on taste, but faultlessly done. Nice and rounded, unlike an Epic or summat.
Afterthoughts, November 2010: I should admit that two days later, on Christmas Day, I also had an astonishing hangover brought on by overindulgence in this stuff. I don’t mean to blame it, or anything / anyone other than myself, I’m just saying that it was that delicious; you kept going when you knew you shouldn’t.
