Just returned from what was only our second ever trip Down
Under and, although Jo and I, as good, card carrying CAMRA members, always try
and find real ale wherever we go, it’s obviously a bit more difficult overseas
and, although you occasionally come across hand pulled ale in USA –
particularly in the big cities – we didn’t expect to find much in Australia –
but we got a couple of pleasant surprises.
Like USA – and, it seems, the UK now – “craft beer” is the
big thing in the Southern Hemisphere. There are loads of little microbreweries
and brewpubs everywhere.
Our first stop was Sydney and we only had 24 hours there so we weren’t
going to experiment too much – we thought it safest to go back to the tried and
tested Lord
Nelson brewpub (http://www.lordnelsonbrewery.com/)
– Sydney’s oldest licensed hotel, established 1841 and located in the
attractive, and not too touristy, Rocks area of the city. Good range of beers here – and a great pub. We particularly
enjoyed their Three Sheets Pale Ale and we also stumbled across it in a nice
restaurant nearby – Phillips Foote.
Just as we were leaving Sydney we came across an
establishment in Darling Harbour named the King Street Brewery, but it was too early in
the morning to check it out – another time perhaps.
We flew over to Adelaide to meet up with our daughter and spent a few
days out at Glenelg, where we had stayed last year. We had checked out a couple
of local microbreweries then – the Holdfast (http://holdfasthotel.com.au/) and the
Port Dock Brewery (http://portdockbreweryhotel.com.au/),
neither of which were particularly inspiring, so we gave them a miss this time
and stuck mostly to drinking bottled beers in our apartment, which,
incidentally, you have to acquire from a separate liquor store, affectionately
known locally as a “bottle-o”, or “bottlo”.
Cooper’s Brewery (http://www.coopers.com.au/) is Adelaide
based and is pretty well known in the UK – their pale ale probably being their
best seller, but James
Squire (http://www.jamessquire.net.au/beer.html),
a NSW based outfit which seems to do particularly well in Victoria – Melbourne in
particular - and James
Boag (http://www.boags.com.au/)
of Tasmania, are two other mid-sized breweries whose beers are pretty much
available in most places now.
At the end of our first week, we flew across the continent
to Perth and
stayed in the Swan Valley, to the north east of the city. It’s really wine
country but a number of small microbreweries have sprung up there in recent
years, mostly catering to the tourist trade it seems.
Our first full day in Western Australia, however, was
already well planned in advance. We’d been advised to take the short trip down
just south of Perth to Fremantle. There are good train and bus connections from
most places in Perth and it’s an easy journey to what is still a major
container port, but also a huge tourist destination, both for overseas visitors
and also locals who often travel there over the weekend.
Like a lot of day trippers we were headed for the well-known
Little
Creatures (https://www.littlecreatures.com.au/)
brewpub on the harbour front. We got a bit waylaid on the way there when we
spied the Sail
and Anchor (http://www.sailandanchor.com.au/)
on the main street. It advertised 43 different beers – too good an offer to
pass up. Even better was the discovery inside of no less than three handpumps.
In all our travels to various brewpubs in different countries, I don’t think
I’d ever seen more than two in any other establishment – even in some of the
larger ones in the big American cities. I should have taken note of all the beers available in keg
but I was so smitten by the sight of three pumps that I forgot! Two of the
three in cask were pale ales and the third was intriguingly named Iron Brew –
but it had just gone off and we never got to try it, unfortunately. The Sail and Anchor is a classic pub in an old building
which still bears the name “Freemasons Hotel”:
They also seem to want to support local suppliers etc, as
evidenced by the banner outside:
Great place – a proper pub too – although I did spy an
article in one of the local papers talking about the fact that the pub’s
“corporate owners” (Foster’s allegedly) had recently got rid of their (female)
head brewer and she was now in the process of starting up a rival microbrewery
elsewhere.
Leaving the Sail and Anchor with the intention of going
straight to Little Creatures, we again
got waylaid and popped in to the Monk (http://www.themonk.com.au/), just across the street, described as a “Brewery
Kitchen”. It turned out to be the best place for food – and the beer was pretty
good too – and their frontage sits above the main street and is an excellent
place for people watching. Here’s Jo and I, sitting at the rough hewn high
tables, flanked by our daughter Kelly and her boyfriend Chris, enjoying the
beers in the sun:
Finally we wrenched ourselves away and walked down to the
harbour to Little Creatures. It’s quite a place – almost beyond microbrewery
and as big as any of the big city brewpubs in USA. The place was absolutely
packed to the rafters – indoors, outdoors, front, back, kiddies sand pit,
shop – they were all heaving. You’ll get
some idea of the scale of the operation by this view of some of the gear:
But don’t be put off – the beers are all pretty good, albeit
keg. It seems that, unlike a couple of other places, they haven’t quite yet
tapped in to the potential niche market of hand pulled beers.
Before catching the train back to Perth to connect with the
bus that would take us back to Swan Valley, we decided to complete the circuit
with return visits to the Sail and Anchor and the Monk. Freo is a great place
for a Saturday pub crawl!
The following day we took a trip in to the city centre of
Perth and had a picnic in picturesque King’s Park, sitting above the CBD
(Central Business District), overlooking the mouth of the Swan. Strolling
around the park later, we spotted the lovely old building of the Swan Brewery
– not normally one that would feature in any craft/real ale review, but an
iconic site nonetheless:
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