Brewsvegas 2015 - Day 4 - Pint of Origin @ Newstead

Day 4 of Events and I had planned to go to Tippler's for their Ribs and New England Brewing special but it turns out that was so popular the place was packed and the ribs sold out so I stayed at Newstead which was my first stop anyway and just enjoyed a quiet meal and several brews!

Newstead were running an all day event with a tape take over of collaboration beers brewed between Newstead and 7 quality breweries with 6 from Australia and 1 from New Zealand with each region being represented by a brewery..

Moo Brew (TAS) - Huonwise was a hefeweizen which should be no surprise because Moo's normal Hef is pretty popular around Oz but this had some smoked wheat in it which gave a slight twist but still the familiar banana and clove flavours were the star and made for a solid Hef.

image by Newstead Brewing Co.

Ekim (NSW) - Crash & Brunette a Red IPL went down a treat and as with most of Ekim's beers it had a set of biggy hoppy balls but with just enough malt to balance it out.

Good George (NZ) - Semi Hard, a brewery that I personally hadn't heard much of but they made a tasty session IPA that sat at 4% abv and had a light fruitiness to it that was perfect for a hot and humid day.


Killer Sprocket (VIC) - Eureka Stoutade was a golden stout with coffee and cacao nibs which created a really interesting beer and obviously looking at it you expect it to be a pale or golden ale.

Big Shed (SA) - BruChoc was an attempt to bring peach, apricot and chocolate into a beer and it largely succeeded although it was not my favourite beer of the day but as I hadn't had anything from Big Shed before I will be trying some of their other beers.

Colonial (WA) - Indian Pacific Middle was a heavily malted, low abv (3.5%) english style ale with a good bunch of hops thrown in but really it was all about making a really malty beer (I got a shit load of toffee from it) that was low in alcohol and full flavoured.

Burleigh Brewing (QLD) - 8 in a Row was an amber\red ale, I honestly bombarded my palate with all 7 beers and don't remember this one too well so I won't describe it.

If you were there last night you had every chance of running into one of the brewers with most of them being in attendance, overall it was pretty fun and a fairly easy night for me after a busy week so far and an even busier couple of days to come!

I'd expect the beers to still be on tap today so if you can get down there, get to it and try some great beer from one of Brisbane's brewers and some of Australia and the NZ's top breweries.

Feral Offcuts @ Brewski

Some pre-event brews!

Having recently shown interest in the launch of Feral's Watermelon Warhead sour beer I had heard that a keg was making the journey from the Swan Valley to Brisbane. I however did not expect an entire event dedicated to Feral and it's special release beers to make it to Brisbane but it did and has delivered a very enjoyable Thursday evening.

Feral Offcut's was hosted by the guys and gals at the excellent Brewski along with BeerMatt's Matt Kirkegaard.

Featuring four unique beers in Barrique Okarma (Black IPA), Barrel Aged Hop Hog (IPA), Hopfen Fahrt (German IPA) and Watermelon Warhead (Sour).

Tasting paddles in hand we made our way to the bar and received our generously sized samples. After making our way back Matt Kirkegaard walked us through the beers providing his unique insight along with some great background on Feral and these unique beers.

Collecting tasting paddles!

I attended for the Warhead but I fell in love with the Hopfen Fahrt IPA which uses all new world hop varieties grown in Germany. The Hopfen can only be described as a flavour bomb as you are instantly hit with a big fruity/hoppy punch with smooth bitter finish. I can only hope that Feral bottle this at some point so I can get my hands on more of it!
 

The Barrel Aged Hop Hog had some great woody flavour which changed what many consider to be Australia's best IPA style beer quite dramatically. Barrique Okarma which I have had bottled, is as you'd imagine even better off-tap. So much so that I enjoyed a large glass of it later in the night with it's unique smokey, fruity flavour.

The Watermelon Warhead is absolutely one of the best sour beers I have tried and really does hark back to childhood days of sour lollies and the inevitable screwed up face that came with eating them. Our table was divided on wether the Warhead was something they enjoyed but we did agree that it is something unique and worth trying.

Brewski's chef created a pulled pork pizza for the event which was dubbed "Will Feral" with a great thin base, tasty sauce and a good amount of pork and cheese. I unfortunately was so distracted by the conversation (and beer) that I failed to take a good photo of the pizza but I can assure you it looked as delicious as it tasted.

There was a good atmosphere with 24 people sitting together on Brewski's recently updated balcony area conversing and enjoying the food and beer. There seemed to be a good mix of beer nerds as well as some people that weren't that familiar with feral or its brews.

A big thank you to Brewski for organizing the event, Matt Kirkegaard for hosting and Daniel from Calibre Craft for supplying the beer! Looking forward to future events as both at Brewski and around Brisbane as our Craft scene continues to grow!