Drink Local - Local beer showcases coming soon!

Just a quick post to let the google robots that read my site know that I am planning a few posts aimed at local breweries and their core range of beers.

I drink a lot of beer but it's not always local or Australian. There is nothing wrong with this as I've never been shy about the fact that for me the beer journey is about unique beer from anywhere but I would like to show off some more local beer both from Brisbane and other parts of Australia, especially those with core ranges to entice new drinkers.

So sometime in the next couple of weeks I will be starting a new feature for these local beers, starting with Mt Tamborine's Fortitude Brewing \ Noisy Minor .

Fortitude's current core range consists of Pacer (2.8% abv), Golden Ale (4.3% abv.), Anzus IPA (6% abv.) and Admiral Ackbar (8.5% abv).

I will be doing a review of each beer and also offering some food recommendations and possibly a recipe.

This idea will continue with Newstead Brewing Co. and later Green Beacon and I may try and get my hands on some other local bottled beer to review or move on to core ranges of Australian craft beer.

First Impressions: PawPaw @ Wollongabba

I often drag my girlfriend along to all the craft beer places I go and although a lot of the time it's to eat delicious food as well, my motives are usually to have a couple of beers with lunch. So it makes sense that I should go somewhere she wants to go right?

This is case with PawPaw in Wollongabba but it's not like she had to drag me kicking and screaming to a place that serves relatively healthy fare because it's honestly pretty darn tasty!

We've been once before for Cocowhip which is super popular because it's basically healthy 'ice-cream' as it's made from coconut water and a coco probiotic, kinda like a frozen coconut yoghurt.

But more recently we returned for lunch in which I didn't stray too far from my norm, ordering a braised beef cheese burger and the gf ordered the Avocado Plate with eggs which she enjoyed!

My burger was impressive looking with chunks of beef falling out and plenty of sauce and mustard and a big chunk of tomato which worked surprisngly well to carry the flavour of everything.



The chips were awesome, who doesn't love huge chunky chips? Would have preferred aioli over tomato sauce but it was all still delicious!

PawPaw is a decent spot and now that they've taken over a bigger space in the same complex there is a bit more room but it still gets super busy at peak times and can be a bit warm inside but it's a like-able place to go for a decently healthy feed.

First Impressions: Donut Boyz (West End + Petrie Terrace)

It's really been the year of the doughnut in Brisbane with several new vendors popping up offering hand crafted goodies all with different and in some cases unique toppings.

Unfortunately for me my experiences with some of the other franchises hasn't been that positive with large doughnuts being basically just that dough in the shape of a nut and not much else going on.

The newest player on the doughnut field is Donut Boyz from the minds behind Hello Harry on the Sunshine Coast which for me has the best tasting beef burgers I've had to date.

Fortunately for me and everyone else in Brisbane, they are also making some of the best Doughnuts going around with some of the most unique flavours and to top it off they are priced fairly.

The first store was opened on the Sunshine Coast at the Big Top but there is now a store in Mooloolaba as well as two in Brisbane at West End and Petrie Terrace.

We visited the West End store recently, well if you can call a shipping container outside Boundary Street Markets a store but it is open 7 days a week!

We picked up 2 doughnuts, chocolate filled and lemon meringue along with a blueberry filled cronut.

The pick for me is the lemon meringue which is odd because I don't like meringue on it's own but it's really soft having only been blow torched not baked and the doughnut is filled with a perfectly made lemon curd that tastes incredible.

It cost $15 for 3 doughnuts which may sound like a bit but it would cost you $20 for 2 doughnuts and a cronut from one of the other places in Brisbane.

If you like doughnuts you should check it out, I know I'll be back!

First Impressions: Taps @ The Valley

Taps isn't a new concept for Queensland and the Mooloolaba venue has been going strong for a few years now but we are finally graced with the idea in Brisbane, smack bang in the middle of the Valley mall!

If you are unfamiliar with the concept though, it's pretty simple! Taps is a venue where you pour your own beer from a solid selection of craft taps at both a wall and at each individual indoor table.

What this means is at anyone time there might be anywhere from 10-20+ brews on offer and you can go from table to table and pour from the taps if you wish to try something different each time or simply stick to your favorite.

But how does this work, it's not just a free for all right? Correct, that would be insane and totally not responsible.. (but kind of fun..). You are required to purchase a token that you touch to the taps to pour which measures your pour and tells you how much you have left on your token.

You can purchase up to around $50 at a time and then have to return to the bar to get more if you aren't done by that point! You can also take the token home with you until the next you come back, its all part of the $5 token price, so even if you leave money on it you can use it next time.

The couple of times I've been at Taps since it opened they have had a good selection of Australian beer from Holgate to Six String as well as some local Brisbane breweries (which is great!), along with a couple of American beers too.

The food consists of pub grub and share food like sliders, calamari, chips and other perfectly matched beer food including one of my favourite things, Fried Mozzarella sticks which are just delicious and go great with an IPA!

Taps is a solid addition to the craft scene on the mall side of the valley and hopefully they can have some rare craft on and not just some mainstream stuff but it's a far cry from the pubs full of macro lager that existed in the valley even just a few years ago.

Suburban @ West End

West End is fast becoming an excellent spot for drinking a few brews or enjoying some delicious eats and I'm really loving the vibe it has now, possibly more than any other part of the City.

I've said it before but breakfast food is an absolute winner in my books and if you make it an all day affair like Suburban do then it's a double win for me!

I've dropped into Suburban a few times now both for an early breakfast and later for brunch and each time the service and food have been great with some really friendly staff providing table service.

So what sets it apart from everywhere else? Well apart from Breakfast being served all day they have a huge menu that caters for breakfast to lunch with drinks from standard coffee to giant mugs called Supernova's, fresh juice, Kombucha, milkshakes and even beer, wine and liquor.

Buttermilk Pancakes

The menu ranges from the huge King's Breakfast which as the name suggests is an indulgent, gluttonous delight with bacon, eggs, haloumi, sausages, thick-cut toast, tomato and a potato, feta and chive hash cake to Buttermilk Pancakes with chocolate ganache and house-made peanut butter.

This means there is almost guaranteed to be something on the menu to satisfying anyone!

On our most recent visit my girlfriend had Eggs Benedict which comes with a fluffy potato hash cake which is delicious!

I went with something different (for a change.) and chose the Baked Egg Shakshuka which is a middle eastern spiced tomato sauce with pulled pork, capsicum, beans, with an egg cracked over the top and served with thick cut sourdough.

It was amazing on a cold morning, (well as cold as Brisbane gets..) it went down a treat. There is just something about spicy tomato sauce with pork and eggs and some toast to sop it all up!

Baked Egg Shakshuka

If you like breakfast and you like it all day then check out Suburban, I'm looking forward to trying something different next time!

Perception and Mass Produced "Craft" Beer

Perception, we deal with it in our lives constantly, whether at work or in our personal lives with perceived opinions from the way we dress, do our hair or the way our friends and family think we live our lives.

This is not something new to craft beer either, but it has been grating my cheese lately with a solid chunk of the community adopting this absolutely steadfast resolve that if it's marketed or in anyway produced by a big corporation than the beer most certainly is awful.

But is it? I mean if you just drank something, not knowing where it came from, enjoyed it and were then told that it's owned by a giant global corporation do you then run to your fridge or recycling bin and destroy any remaining evidence that you consumed this product? Generally, no you wouldn't because who gives a shit? Right?

Well it seems that some people actually act like this, oh god, that's owned by Coke? fuck its awful I'm never drinking it again.. Wait, you just said 10 minutes ago it was good? YEAH but that was before I knew Coke were involved, god it's so bad...

Strong logic there buddy.

What in the actual fuck? Am I joking from the above? hell no, I've witnessed this behavior several times in the last couple of months, replace Coke with what ever mega-corp you want but the circumstances are the same.

If your best mates insult you because you drink beer from James Squire, Yenda, Matilda Bay or some other large Australian "Craft" brewery then you have to question "are these really my mates?" not "are you kidding?, that beers made by so and so?" because the reality is if you enjoyed a beer regardless of who it's made by and you'd drink it again then just do it.

If you happen to be fairly new to craft beer and your learned friends are insulting your choices, they are dicks. Not a single person that drinks the latest Double IPA Black Imperial Yolo Barleywine started on that because they'd have fucking spat it out if they did.

The point is that as your palate develops you may leave this type of beer behind or you might revisit it every now and then, this is the evolution of enjoying more and more unique beers and should not be seen as a negative as for the most part it is where a vast majority of craft drinkers started.

I personally drank my way through way hundreds of European beers from every lager and pilsner under the sun to Belgian Tripel's and Quads before Australian staples like Cooper's pale and sparkling and beers from James Squire.

It's all part of the journey, the company that created the beer should matter less than whether you enjoyed it. If your enjoyment is changed by finding out who made the beer then I suggest before you buy it, you go and google it so you can save us all the trouble of reading your bullshit crying about where the beer has come from because in reality if you cared so much you'd be doing this in the first place.

TLDR, If you liked it, just drink it.

*This post may or not be sponsored by Coca Cola Amatil, especially the Coke Life product which is amaze-balls. *This comment may or may not be a load of shit.

Brumalia Blogger's Beer - Help us name the beer!

Bacchus Brewing in Capalaba will be hosting an event on the Saturday and Sunday the 20th & 21st of June to coincide with the Winter solstice.

The Brumalia event will not just be an excuse to drink beer, well it is but it's also going to see 25 beers on tap that are largely all brewed in collaboration with other breweries from around Australia.

The list is extensive with a lot of popular and well known breweries getting involved including XXXX, Ekim, Green Beacon, Brewcult and way too many to list here.

Fortunately a few of Brisbane's beer bloggers were also invited to brew a beer which for someone like me was pretty exciting as I haven't had much exposure to brewing, home brew or otherwise.

So myself, Darren from 250 Beers, Judd from Brewed, Crude and Bitter, Darren from Craft Beerscapade, Jason from Brews & Bacon and Dave from BeerFoodBrisbane (Instagram) made our way out to Bacchus early one week day morning to brew.

The rules for Brumalia were pretty simple, pick any style but the beer has to be dark so we went with a Black Saison and used a new hop variety called Equinox which has some nice peppery, earthy notes that should pair well with the style chosen.

As the event gets closer we need to come up with a name for the beer and given how great the community is in Brisbane we wanted to involve everyone and give them a chance to come up with a name and potentially win a Brumalia shirt.

To participate all you need to do is send an email to Name Our Brumalia Beer with what you would call the beer.

Competition closes Saturday 6th June at Midnight so email ASAP to have a chance and help us name the Blogger's Black Saison..