Beer

Aug 06, 2009 | Post by: Phil Lees 2 Comments

Monteith’s Doppelbock Winter Ale

It’s probably no great surprise that I’m a sucker for seasonal beers: they’re a key diversion for the neophiliac drinker. They give brewers the chance to bring their wilder experiments to market without the threat of destroying the good name of a brewery. If they’re a disastrous mistake, at least

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Dec 22, 2008 | Post by: Phil Lees 2 Comments

ACA goes after faux import beer

Guess what? Blogging can change the food system. A few months back I wrote about faux import beer: the beer that looks imported but is actually brewed locally or by some third party. Yesterday, in The Age: The Australian Consumers Association is demanding clearer, more prominent labels on bottles of

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Sep 08, 2008 | Post by: Phil Lees No Comments

Fremantle microbreweries

In 1871, the Australian state of Victoria contained 126 breweries. By 1987, there was effectively one. For all the new micro-brewed beer that has lubricated the gullets of Australians in the subsequent twenty years from 1987, at present two breweries control 90% of the Australian beer market. There are microbreweries

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Aug 30, 2008 | Post by: Phil Lees 8 Comments

Little Creatures Brewery, Fremantle

Had I forgotten something from the menu at Little Creatures Dining Hall in Fitzroy? Had I made an unfair comparison to its Western Australian brewery progenitor? In the interests of factual accuracy, I flew across the country to Perth to find out. Click the image to see full panoramic glory

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Aug 04, 2008 | Post by: Phil Lees 4 Comments

Little Creatures, Fitzroy: Invasion from the West

There is only one thing that can turn me off the citrus-y and floral pale ales of Little Creatures Brewery and that is the music of Collette Roberts. Her ode to campanology was blaring across the industrial Viking beer hall that brewery Little Creatures have infested in Fitzroy in Melbourne

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Jul 02, 2008 | Post by: Phil Lees 1 Comments

Taieri George

Spiced beers generally fit alongside those other joke beers like chili beer or a perfectly-skunked Corona. In the official judging guidelines, they’re relegated to the category of “Spice, Herb, or Vegetable Beer” to languish amongst the beers that simply don’t work elsewhere. At best, they get passed off as a

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Jun 15, 2008 | Post by: Phil Lees 5 Comments

Beer Flaw Tasting

“T” is for Taint If there is one thing that evaluating beer in Cambodia has primed my tastebuds for, it is tasting bad beer. I never particularly dwelt upon the reasons behind their badness because I was too busy trying to find synonyms for “watery”. I had never approached badness

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Dec 12, 2007 | Post by: Phil Lees 4 Comments

Jolly Shandy

“Brewer”: Carlsberg Before people had the option of deadening their palate while getting their booze on with a premixed wine cooler, there was shandy, half beer mixed with half lemonade. It is one of those drinks manages to ruin two otherwise perfect drinks when you make it. I’d first heard

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