First Impressions: Miss Kay's - Brisbane CBD

With the trend of American style food and craft beer continuing to explode in Australia with very little end in sight it makes sense that Brisbane's city centre would start to get more of these venues and Miss Kay's is a continuation of that trend.

However rather than being on the Riverside where almost every other trendy food place is, Miss Kay's is located at the Casino end of Queen Street mall which puts it in a great spot for a week day lunch for me with it being less than a 10 min walk from work.

Having been open just over a week I figured I'd waited long enough before heading down to check it out, it's a nice spot with some out door seating, indoor seating and even a loft area with exposed brick, tiles, wood and a clever use books and book shelves.

Upon entering there is a nice diner style vibe to the place with red neon signs, a big long wooden bar and a vibrant and large menu to read from.

The menu has fries, onion rings and even chicken wings but what everyone wants is the burgers and there are some great sounding food here and all fairly decently priced.

Burger's range from Cheeseburger's ($10) to a food challenge that consists of a 5 patty burger and a pile of fries for $35 although if you eat it in 15 mins you get a $30 return voucher and a photo on the wall of fame.

All week I knew I wanted the Mac Daddy, a burger with beef patty, mac n cheese, fries, bbq sauce, mayonaise and a lettuce leaf but I did also add maple bacon.

extreme closeup!

The burger was super more-ish and totally smash-able with the mac n cheese gushing out everywhere and fries getting stuck in the cheese, oddly enough the piece of lettuce on it offers up just enough crunch to balance out the creaminess and adding bacon just amps up the meaty goodness and adds some smokey sweetness from the maple.

This burger is a meal on it's own, you don't need a side of anything and if you wanted to eat it that way add another patty for an extra $4 and you have a mega burger to keep you full for hours.

The buffalo wings I had were pretty tasty, a tiny bit of spice but I didn't get any bite from a vinegar or a citrus in there but enjoyable enough and it's great to see a portion size like 6 wings as an option as many places either give too few or too many for insane prices (wings really aren't expensive, come on!).

My work colleague had the pulled pork and seemed to very much enjoy it, we both however agreed that whilst the chips have a special seasoning they aren't that tasty but they do compliment rather than over power the burgers.

As for the drinks there is plenty of options, soft drink, cock tails, as well as a fairly good amount of taps just unfortunately none of them are local craft but don't be disappointed because there is some great local Brisbane beer in bottles which is a win as far as I'm concerned.

Hopefully as time goes on some of the ample tap room can be taken over by local and national craft beers.

So the food is pretty damn tasty, the drinks aren't too bad but there is one issue..

There is only 1 entrance, enough room for 2 people to get through but unfortunately to order your food you line up at a counter that forces the line out the one entrance and down the street which inadvertently blocks the foot traffic and causes some confusion from people just trying to get by.


This is also the same entrance staff have to bring food out so it does need to be fixed.

I witnessed this at 11:45am on a Friday so I can't imagine what it's like at 5:30pm at night, hopefully a solution can be found, possibly having 2 ordering stations could negate the issue somewhat.

For a business that has barely been open a week, Miss Kay's seems to be kicking ass and punters are enjoying themselves and I look forward to going back for another tasty burger.

Putia - Pure Food @ Banyo

I love breakfast, possibly more than any other meal with my mind conjuring images of bacon, eggs, french toast, sausages and other delicious treats when I stop to think about it.

However I don't often venture out for breakfast and sometimes don't want breakfast at breakfast time! (brunch, brinner, I'm looking at you!)

So a cafe serving breakfast nearly all day (until 2:30pm) is pretty appealing to me and that's where Putia comes in!

Chef Dominique Rizzo and her team have created a lovely venue with a very large tree taking centre stage in the outdoor deck area and ample seating both inside and on the front sidewalk there always seems to be room for somewhere to sit even when busy.



The menu is a mix of breakfast classics like Bacon and Eggs and avocado toast but with some some more modern takes on breakfast like the pulled pork with fried eggs and pumpkin waffle with salted caramel.

The sweet spot for eating at Putia for me is anytime after 11am because you have both the breakfast and lunch menu's available too you which opens some nice extra options.

There is also a cabinet of sweet treats all made in house daily in case you want something extra or something to take away with cheese cakes, sweet potato cake with cream cheese frosting and other goodies being on offer.

From the few times we've been to Putia we've had nothing but a great experience, even when busy the friendly staff remain calm and answer any questions you have about the menu and have no problem with changes like leaving toast off or swapping to gluten free bread etc. 

We've liked it so much that we went twice in one weekend and brought some friends the second time with plans to go back again! It can be difficult to find a place that caters to everyone's dietary requirements and desires for what makes up a good meal but Putia seems to be very close to being able to do all that!

This is a strange thing but I also really enjoy the large coffee mugs, wide brimmed and easy to drink from although a bit heavy when totally full but the width of the mug makes for the best cappuccino with heaps of tasty chocolate on top!

On Friday and Saturday nights Putia is also open for dinner and you can have a beer or wine with your meals, I imagine the out door area looks very nice when all lit up.

If you live on the North side and are looking for a relatively well spaced out and comfortable venue to enjoy a tasty breakfast, a good coffee or even a quiet dinner on a Saturday night then Putia is for you.

Brewsvegas 2015 - Re-cap and After Thoughts

Well after a launch party and a solid 8 days of events the second Brewsvegas has come to an end,it's safe to say that it was largely successful both in being bigger than last year and in having even more interesting events to attend.

I attended events on 5 of the 8 days (including the launch party) and have learnt a valuable lesson that you really can bite off more than you can chew and that if you want to attends events every day you need to pull a Cinderella act to get enough sleep and be sober enough to enjoy the next day.

That said, everything I did was well worth it so here is a list of my other posts..

Saturday 21st:
Launch Party

Sunday 22nd: 
Beerkary @ Hoo Ha Bar
Wicked Witch and Groove in the Brew @ BBco. 
Big Bold Bizarre Bacchus @ The Burrow

Tuesday 24th:
Barrel of Laughs @ Newstead Brewing Co.
Fromage with Fortitude @ Tippler's Tap

Wednesday 25th:
Pint of Origin @ Newstead

Thursday 26th:
4 Pines Bastards @ Bitter Suite
Well Tapped @ Tomahawk

Friday 27th:
Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves @ Newstead
Holgate Mystery Beer Hunt @ SuperWhatNot

Overall I am very happy having attended as much as I did and whilst it seemed weird taking a week off work to attend a week of craft beer events it was totally needed, the extra rest makes all the difference.

Improvements:
Look from what I attended there isn't a lot that needs to change but I'm already sure that the Brewsvegas Team have learnt again this year and will improve things again next year but I will talk about one thing.

The Launch Party.. It was fantastic to have $5 beers and food trucks but thanks in large part to social media it was not a real pleasant event just due to the small venue and massive turn out and whilst a big turn out is a positive the position of the beer lines and entrances meant trying to get out or get food was a mission in it self but in essence this was the first time they had done a party like this so it too will improve next year.

I would say don't get rid of the $5 local beers, it was a good start to the week and helped to get non-craft drinkers involved or people to try beer they wouldn't normally, just get a bigger venue with more seating.

The only other thing I'll mention is an event is ticketed try to have the tickets and venue staff ready and knowledgeable before people buy tickets because an average person might only try once to get tickets, having to try 2 or 3 times is only for the persistent.

In most cases it was the first year for a lot of these events so natural improvements of them for next year are expected.

Final Thoughts:
To all of those involved in organising Brewsvegas, all those staff that worked during the week and all the brewers, breweries and rep's involved.

And to all the people I met, a lot of you for the first time, you were all friendly and happy to have a beer and talk about the festivities and that made it that much better to be part of Brisbane's great craft beer community.

You all did a great job and made for a very enjoyable week that didn't really have any serious under tones, people were able to attend events and for the most part enjoy themselves and have fun and laugh and this is an important part of it.

Again, to everyone involved.
Thank you

Brewsvegas 2015 - Day 6 - Gypsie Tramps & Thieves @ Newstead Brewing Co. & Holgate Mystery Beer Hunt @ Super Whatnot

Now that I'm no longer feeling like just laying on a cold tiled surface I can write about last night's events and there was some fun to be had, so read on!

Gypsies Tramps & Thieves @ Newstead

Back at Newstead for the 4th time in a row and it's starting to feel like a second home and is almost solely responsible for the over 50 unique beers I've poured down my gullet this week and Friday was no different as I sampled 5 of the gypsy brews on offer!

But wait, what is a gypsy brewer? good question. Essentially there are some very lovely and very talented brewers out there that don't have their own commercial facility to brew at so they pimp themselves out to those that do so that we can enjoy the end product in a licensed venue.

image by Newstead Brewing Co.

Gypsie Brewers and Beers on tap..

Croft Brewing - Biscuit Blast Brown Ale & Wet Hop Harvest Ale

Black Hops - ABC Black IPA

Beans Brew (?that decal..) - Saison

Duck & Cover - Secret Galaxy APA

Brewtal - West Coast Thrash IPA

Toybox - Belgian Blonde

a little afternoon paddle

Black Hops - Black IPA was one of my favourites of this lot with a very peppery finish and great stone fruit aroma resulting in a solid BIPA, but there was enough variation with this lot that there was really something for everyone on tap.

There was a tap change somewhere in here too as I remember Croft's Wolf Scratch coming and my enjoying a pint of it with some chicken wings to line my stomach before the next event..

Today at Newstead is the Red Jockey event with Red beers all day and BYO vinyl record's from 3:30pm but as for the Gypsy beers expect to see some more of them around town after Brewsvegas is over.

Holgate Mystery Beer Hunt @ Super WhatNot

This event was a treasure hunt of sorts, following clues and drinking our way through the Holgate core range of beers.

Our team (arguably the best team!) consisted of a solid chunk of Brisbane's beer blogging scene with myself, Darren from 250Beers, Jason from Brews & Bacon with Mrs Bacon, Nick from Chasing Ale, Dave from @BeerFoodBrisbane and our (not so) secret 7th team member (by association only, we aren't rule breakers!) AM from The Beer Drinkers Table.

We started at Super WhatNot and were given our first Holgate beer, first clue and first five cards with the idea being that the team with the best hand at the end of the evening would win.

First clue led us to Sonny's House of Blues at the former spot where Rosie's used to be for a glass of Holgate ESB and after some chit chat and figuring out what cards we had in our hand we headed off to the third destination, The Gresham.

The Gresham is a heritage listed bar and is home to coffee, scotch and a tight range of craft beer and as we read over our third clue we enjoyed a Holgate - Temptress chocolate porter.

Third and final clue led us to The Embassy for a Mt Macedon Pale Ale but after that we spent some time chatting and enjoying Feral's Imperial IPA Tusk which happened to still be on when we were there (good timing really!).

At this point we were able to work out our hand of cards and we came up with a hopefully unbeatable straight flush but after making our way back to Super WhatNot we found we did not win but that didn't matter because it was all a bit of fun with many silly photos taken and hash-tags used.

Overall a really fun and enjoyable event and hopefully we something similar next year.

We ended the night by moving to West End's BOSC to enjoy one too many Riverside - 777 Double IPA's which has resulted in a slow start for me today and subsequent skipping of any events I was going to attend today but that's ok as it has been an epic week and I'm happy with succeeding defeat at this point.

Brewsvegas 2015 - Day 5 - 'The Bastards' @ Bitter Suite and Well Tapped @ Tomahawk

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.

It got very busy at Tomahawk around 6:30 - 8pm but the staff did such a good job especially given the fact that they were churning out cleaned glasses at a crazy speed to keep up with the paddles.

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!

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.

Brewsvegas 2015 - Day 3 - Barrel of Laughs @ Newstead Brewing Co. and Fromage with Fortitude @ Tippler's Tap

Yeah, so, I may have skipped Day 2 which was planned to be the Saison launch at Super WhatNot but after Sunday's longer than expected 4 events, I decided sleep and rest for the busy week to come.

Day 3 (or Day 4 as some may say, Launch was day 0 I swear!) was overall pretty fun and entertaining with..

Newstead Brewing - Barrel of Laughs & Black & Tan

Arguably, barrel aged beers can take some getting used to, so can barrel aged ciders but that was the entire point of this event with 3 barrel aged beers and 2 barrel aged ciders on offer.

Newstead was offering a tasting paddle of four beers and a meal of pork belly for $30 but I had other events on so I went with the paddle of 4 for $15 and it was well worth it to try these beers.

I tried the Sour Saison, a Baltic Porter, a Barley wine and a barrel aged Cider (although I don't recall which one, chardonnay I think) and sat down and started tasting.

The cider was super dry and not that fruity but was a decent start to a beery evening after wandering about in the Brisbane humidity.

The Saison had an odd taste that I didn't overly enjoy but the Barley wine was decent with a big boozy hit and a rum and raisin like finish.


I completed my paddle with the Barrel aged Porter which was not dissimilar to the already good Newstead Porter 21 feet 7 inches but with a slight boozy bump from the ageing, only minor though.

From there I moved onto the Tails and Heads collaboration between Newstead and Brisbane's James Squire pub the Charming Squire.

A Black and Tan is where one beer is dark and one is light but the two are mixed together in theory to create a layer with light on the bottom and dark on top although I clearly failed at pouring mine..

Newstead brewed Tails which is the Hefeweizen and Squire brewed the Heads which is a Dark Ale, both beers work as intended but the Hef for me wasn't as strong as I'd expected.

The Dark Ale from James Squire was a solid, malty and very moreish beer that I thoroughly enjoyed, I think this style is their strong suit.

Pouring the two together however just seemed to result in me making a mess of the table as I clumsily blended the two together with varying results.

Heads & Tails are on tap for the rest of Brewsvegas so give them a go at either Newstead or Charming Squire.

Fromage with Fortitude

So when I booked this event all I was thinking about was the cheese, I thought you know I've had most of Fortitude's great line of beers, this is all about the cheese.

You know what though? I underestimated two things, the Golden Ale which I'd never had and the effect the cheese would have on the beer.

There was no hand holding just a simple introduction for each beer by the entertaining Dan Rawling's from Fortitude with Witches Chase cheese maker Millsy giving a solid run down on each cheese as well as some of his pairing suggestions.

After this we were free to drink the beers and cheeses as we pleased making up our own minds on matching which cheese with which beer.

We had dried apple, apricots, sultanas, quince paste and some crackers and toasties to pair with 5 cheese, 2 Cheddar, a Red Leicester, a blue and a triple cream brie.




For the beers there was a full range from Fortitude/Noisy Minor with their Lager, Golden Ale, Anzus IPA, Admiral Ackbar Red IPA and Yasterbov Ukrainian Imperial Stout.

I'll admit that now days I really don't go for lager, I don't enjoy the aroma and usually don't enjoy the taste but the lager did match perfectly with the cheddar and the triple cream brie with a slight nuttiness adding to the flavour.

I've had all the beers before with the exception of the Golden Ale which was the stand out for me, not only because I hadn't tried it before but because it is so full flavoured with a lovely hoppy aroma and a great smooth malty finish.

For the cheeses I could eat the Triple Cream Brie all day, it was just so tasty but in all honesty each one had something great going on... With my favourite pairing being the Imperial Stout and the Blue as it out that slightly funky flavour all the more, which may be partly because there is a hint of Belgian yeast in the stout.

It seemed everyone enjoyed the night, it was quite intimate and there wasn't a large amount of noise so it was really easy to hear everything and asks questions comfortably, I know I went away feeling very happy and satisfied.

If you are interested in the cheeses or the beers you can now get the Lager, Golden Ale and Anzus IPA in bottles around Brisbane at selected craft beer bottle-shops (check my links on the right) and for the cheeses you will have to visit Witches Chase Cheeses on Mount Tamborine but it's worth the drive!