Ian's Ale Adventures: Aussie Ale Tales

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6 weeks in Australia and only one cask ale! They haven't quite caught up with their American cousins where cask, whilst still very niche, provides a certain amount of kudos to outlets which can offer it alongside the usual variety of keg ales.

Still no movement either on re-filling growlers - the H & S lobby still prevails Down Under. Again, the Americans have no such qualms, with umpteen outlets more than happy to re-fill growlers.

But did we have a good time discovering new brews and brewpubs? You bet we did. Just a short walk from our daughter's house in Semaphore, SA, a new retail outlet - West Side Massive - has been opened by Big Shed Brewing. This was a fairly typical selection:

My one taste of cask ale came at our favourite Adelaide pub - the Wheatsheaf Hotel, who hosted an event while we were there that we would love to have attended but hadn't heard about beforehand - a blind tasting - https://thecraftbeerking.com/2017/01/16/blind-tasting-analysed/.

We again celebrated Australia Day on 26th January. That's the day when Triple-J, the Australian radio station roughly equivalent to our Radio One, reveals the votes for the Hottest 100 tracks of 2016. This long-standing tradition has now been replicated by the Great Australasian Beer SpecTAPular (GABS), who had set up online voting for the Hottest 100 Aussie Craft Beers. Naturally, I took part too. The full results can be viewed here - https://www.gabsfestival.com/aussie-hottest-100/#hottest-100-aussie-craft-beers.

We took a trip to the Red Centre - Uluru/Alice Springs etc - where we discovered that it's not only cask ale that's hard to find - any kind of draught beer was in short supply.

Back in Adelaide, we finally made it through to the relatively new tap room at BrewBoys. It had just opened the day before we came home last year, so we missed out on that occasion, but it was good to finally make it. Their beer selection and some interesting beer-y lightshades follow:

I was delighted to spot that most of their beers were also sold in large 650 ml bottles. I was getting rather fed up of paying high prices for so-called craft beers in tiny little 330 ml bottles - what a scam the whole craft beer sector is - and no wonder many brewers are jumping on the bandwagon - but, beware - a backlash will surely follow when the public wise up. Rant over.

We also paid return visits to a couple of our favourite brewpubs - Lady Burra in Adelaide city centre and Smiling Samoyed in Myponga, 40 minutes south of the city.

Our local craft beer cafe, Sweet Amber Brew, which had only opened just over a year ago, seems to be going from strength to strength and our daughter's partner, Chris, held his 40th birthday party there.

Probably the most interesting part of our trip from a beer point of view came on the last 5 days of our holiday when we travelled over to the Gold Coast - previously uncharted territory for us. As you can see from some of the photos above, one of my great joys is going to a brewpub I've never been to before and tasting their range from a sampler paddle, and we found 4 good ones - 2 of them crackers.

We took a drive down to Byron Bay and the Cape Byron lighthouse in NSW. The town is a former hippy hang-out that has since been gentrified somewhat, although there are still some remnants of the way things were.

There are, in fact, two brewpubs in the town, but I was driving and could only afford a visit to one of them. The tourist information office gave us directions and advised us that the real local one was Stone & Wood, but I'd tried a few of their bottled beers back in Adelaide and wasn't greatly impressed, so we plumped for Byron Bay Brewery, which we subsequently discovered had been taken over by Lion, a large PLC who control a lot of the Aussie breweries. Don't be deterred, however - it's a super place to chill out and the beers and food were excellent:

In a corner of the outdoor seated area, there is a small stage for the local bands and, occasionally, plays are held.

Our resort was in Surfer's Paradise - no brewpubs there, but we found the House of Brews, which had a good selection of beers and they were happy to indulge my fetish for sampler paddles:

(Our selection noted in the top right corner)

Another day we drove up to the rainforest at Tamborine Mountain - lots of nice walks and falls etc to view. Also, another great microbrewery - Fortitude, which has a cheese factory and bistro adjacent:

Our very last day was spent in Brisbane. We took one of the tourist hop-on, hop-off buses and got off at the South Bank, where it all seems to happen. A short walk from there took us to not one, but two brewpubs, less than 100 yards apart. We were aware of Brisbane Brewing, having Googled it, but the fairly new Catchment Brewing took us by surprise. Although it had been a fairly short walk, it was very hot and steamy and we were in urgent need of refreshment when we finally got there: