4 Pines - The Bastards @ Bitter Suite
On Wednesday evening 4 Pines launched their new box of 6 hoppy beers with the Brisbane launch being at Bitter Suite in New Farm and whilst I did not attend that event I did visit on Thursday afternoon to try them all out!
4 Pines have a pretty good reputation in Australia as a value for money, well flavoured craft beer producer and whilst I don't personally enjoy every beer they produce there is a couple of stand outs from this release that I'm glad to have tried.
The beers are..
A Bastard No More - Pale Ale (4pines original pale ale)
The First Bastard - English IPA (malt driven)
The Second Bastard - American IPA (hop driven)
The Third Bastard - New Zealand Pale Ale (Fruitier)
The Fourth Bastard - Aussie Pale Ale (Lighter flavour)
The Fifth Bastard - Belgian Pale Ale (Slight Funkiness)
My top choices..
The Third Bastard - NZ Pale
This light, fruity and refreshing pale ale had a great aroma and a smooth full flavoured finish and for me was the better of the four pales.
The Second Bastard - American IPA
This seemingly aggressively hopped IPA has a huge nose that is just full of resinous aroma and floral notes and had a bitter but slightly fruity finish and was easy my favourite of the pack.
The box of 6 bottles is out there in the wilds of craft bottle-shops around Brisbane and the beers are still on at Bitter Suite in New Farm so if you are wanting to try them, get to it!
Well Tapped @ Tomahawk
12 beers all on tap from local brewers around Brisbane most of whom have no commercial setup and have to gypsy brew all vying for a trophy and the opportunity to get there beer out there and impress the local craft community.
Initially expected to start at 6 pm with 13 beers but that ended up being 12 beers with paddles available from midday.
This was a good idea as there was plenty of other events on and some were ticketed but people want to try all the unique beers, this way they could!
The 12 brewers & beers were..
Croft - Ashton Kombucha's Funk'D
Duck & Cover - Berlinerweisse
Beard & Brau - Ephemere Farmhouse
Brisbane Brewhouse - Belgian Brown
Beans Brew - Sucker Saison
4 Hearts - Bremer Brown Ale
Brewtal - West Coast Thrash IPA
Black Hops - Code Red - Red IPA
Newstead - Red Orb - Red IPA
Semi Pro - Rye Mosiac IPA
Noisy Minor - Ba Winston Old Ale
Bacchus - Choc Vanilla Stout on Nitro
They ranged in alcohol from 1% (Funk'D) to 10.6% (Bacchus) and the arrangement of the taps was such that it basically went from lowest abv and sour styles to highest abv. and hoppy styles closing with the darker beers. This was really well planned out and made it easy for the staff to pour the paddles and easy for punters to know what they were getting.
We were able to take a voting sheet and a pen to write notes as it did get slightly confusing as we went so it was nice to have something to refer back to, with the end goal being to pick your winner and cast your vote for them to be tallied up at the end of the night.
There was some very good beers and there was a couple that made it hard to choose just one winner but I'll just mention my pick which was Beard & Brau's Ephemere Farmhouse Saison as it was just so beautiful, light and fruity (apples!) and hid the 7.4% abv extremely well.
Even though there was a line there was certainly some excitement from most people in attendance so chatting in the line about the beers was very easy to do and made waiting go that much faster.
Shortly after 9 PM the winner was announced as Duck & Cover's Berliner Weisse which was a pretty good example of the style but I'm still not 100% sold on sour beers but Congratulations all the same!
If I had done nothing else this week but the Cheese event at Tippler's and this event at Tomahawk I'd be happy with my Brewsvegas ending there.
Tomahawk still have the beers on so get down there and try them and decide on your own favourite!
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