Barossa and beyond

From http://iansaleadventures.blogspot.com/

The local big brewery in Adelaide is Cooper's - their bottles are often seen in the UK. I've been drinking their Original IPA in both draught and bottles over here - it's OK, but I wouldn't get too excited about it - like most Aussie beers I've tasted so far, they seem to be made to be drunk extra cold. As in USA, the glasses are usually handed to you straight from the freezer - I usually have to leave the glass and the beer in the sun for a few minutes before tasting. A waitress spotted me doing this the other day and said I should in future ask for my beer to be served "Kimberley cold" - apparently it's a place up north where the temperatures reach staggering heights.

The labels on the Cooper's bottles proudly state "Family Brewed" and "Bottle Fermented". They describe a "unique method of top fermentation and natural bottle conditioning" and that they are "famous for this process". I was at an outdoor gig on Wednesday (Australia Day) and they only had tins of beer for sale. I tried Cooper's Dr Tim's - it was pretty vile, but I noticed on the can a similar reference to what they put on the bottles:

Can conditioned Cooper's Dr Tim's

That's something I've never seen before.

On our way to the gig in the Barossa Valley, we stopped off at a place called Greenock - that's pronounced Gre-nock by the locals with the accent on the second syllable and the long "ee" shortened in the first. The Barossa Brewing Company is based there, but, being a National holiday, it was closed unfortunately. However, their traditional old wagon was placed outside so it was time to pose for another photo:

Fortunately, the local tavern was open and they were serving 2 of the local beers - "The Miller's Lager" and the truly excellent "Wheat Store Ale". It was a lovely, quiet spot for a couple of beers to start the day:

Not so successful last night. We discovered another brewpub in Port Adelaide, a former industrial area now being gentrified. The Port Dock Brewery Hotel (http://www.portdockbreweryhotel.com.au/) is straight from the USA model, but they haven't got it right yet. The service was appalling and the ales just passable with care. As usual we tried the sampler paddle and it arrived with the following list of preferred drinking order, based on International Bittering Units (IBU's):

As I said, the service was so bad, we're still waiting to try the Ginja beer! We eventually walked out without ordering any more. The Hopfield Lager wasn't too bad and the Old Preacher (7.5% dark ale) was OK, but otherwise the whole experience was poor.

As a final comment for today, relevant to recent CAMRA discussions on the possible introduction of schooner measures in the UK, I've noticed that it seems to vary from pub to pub over here how they serve their beers - sometimes it's in schooners and sometimes Imperial pints (despite the fact that everything's metric here) - a little confusing at first, but we're trying our best to get used to it - practice makes perfect!