Did your heart grow fonder?

Wow, I have been quiet, haven't I? There's been a whole bunch of stuff happening and I just haven't had any time to blog or write.

What kind of stuff, you ask? Well, I guess the big thing is that I recently turned thirty. (Woo! Congrats to me for not dying so far!) I had, without a shadow of doubt, the best party of my thirty years. It was at a little place you may have heard of called The Local Taphouse. Everyone really enjoyed themselves, plenty non-beer-drinkers were trying things – the aunties especially found a friend in the Bridge Road Chevalier Saison – the food was great, of course, and I'd just like to thank the Taphouse publicly, even though they made away with a fair amount of my money and that's probably all the thanks they were looking for. Ha!

Scored some amazing beer-related gifts, one in particular I will have to write all about in the coming month and a half.

I would be remiss if I didn't throw in an almighty plug for the The Beer Lover's Guide to Australia 2011. As well as being the only reference to Australia's breweries and venues you'll surely ever need – until next year's edition – it features a piece by yours-truly! It's also nicely designed and looks pretty. You like things that look pretty, right? It's the result of a lot of hard work by people who are not me, and I'm very proud to be published in it. I'd be very keen to hear what anyone thinks of my piece if you care to spend the time.

Oh, and please excuse my photo on the contributors page. There was actually a Little Creatures Pale in that photo somewhere. I promise from now on I'll use this one. I always wanted a photo of me with a beer, leaning on somethingorother. Oh yeah.

Actual blog soon.

Ring, meet hat.

He of the intimidating surname, Matt Kirkegaard, editor-in-chief of Australian Brews News, earlier this year posed the question, What is ‘craft’ beer? He has also recently dedicated an episode of Radio Brews News to the question.

It—the question—was prompted by the U.S. Brewers Association, who had decided to provide a strict definition of what craft beer is.

Except that they didn’t. What the U.S. Brewers Association answered is, What is a ‘craft’ brewer? and offered three high-level descriptors—small, independent, traditional—with some lower-level detail for each.

So here’s why the U.S. Brewers Association is a little bit full of crap.

I’ll begin by defining craft beer.

craft beer n. Any beer brewed with an emphasis on craft (i.e. quality, and with skill), with or without the use of traditional methods of brewing, where profit is not an overriding motive of the brewer.

Now that’s a pretty loose definition. If one were to stoop to using dots to distill the essential impacts of this definition, it would look like and mean that:

• It’s all about intention; thus
• A massive, commercial powerhouse brewery is perfectly capable of brewing a craft beer;
• A brewery need only attempt to skillfully craft a beer of high quality, regardless of the end result;
• A brewery need not have to meet any old-school standards when attempting to skillfully craft their skillfully-crafted beer of high skill-level; and
• Although profit is obviously required of all breweries to remain viable, a craft beer is not brewed with a fundamental goal of being as accessible to the masses as possible in order for market penetration to lead to buckets of money.

Now I know dot number two comes as quite a shock to all of us, but it certainly doesn’t mean that said powerhouse breweries are craft breweries, only that they can, if they wake up one morning and feel like making the world a better place, decide to brew a craft beer alongside their regular mass-produced and mass-marketed offerings. For example, Carlsberg has their yearly Jacobsen Vintage, a barrel-aged Barley Wine that, while admittedly massively overpriced, fits the definition.

To define a craft brewery then, I would say:

craft brewery n. A commercial brewery whose output is predominantly craft beer.

Dammit, I went and done did a loose definition again! Prepare for incoming dots!

• A craft brewery should be a registered business with commercial output; and
• A craft brewery’s output should, for the most part—or if you want to get technical, >50%—be beer that fits the earlier definition of craft beer.

I’m not so rigid on that second dot. We can haggle on the percentage, but I know that it has to be more than fifty percent.

But now we have a problem. What happens when a craft beer starts to see true market penetration and starts appearing in mainstream pubs and bars and the brewery is now dedicated to outputting a certain volume of the exact same recipe to satisfy their monetary requirements through growth and the expectation of regular drinkers? Is that beer still a craft beer?

Anyway, I too may be a bit full of crap. I welcome any and all forms of discussion and disagreement.

Warehouse 28 (Kooinda Boutique Brewery)

Kooinda Boutique Brewery is branching out, growing even. Known best for their only "wide" release up 'til now, Kooinda Pale Ale – an American Pale Ale with some bite – the lads at Kooinda have moved into a new warehouse brewery and are adding a couple of brews to their arsenal.

We now find them in Heidelberg West, in an industrial estate, in an unassuming warehouse. If you're lucky and eagle-eyed you might notice their decal, no larger than a landscape sheet of A4 paper, on the glass door. Inside, a freshly-painted branded wall and a bar of corrugated iron against a large expanse of concrete floor with newly-stamped kegs stacked at its perimeter. There's a bottling and labeling station near the back, there's of course the brewery itself behind a large sliding door, and in this room, most tellingly, the old brewery. The reminder. Against the southern wall of Kooinda's new brew room, facing a series of shining new fermentation vessels, the old, worn kit. And seeing this certainly informs their new adventure. These guys are really taking the next step.

The name Kooinda, to me, seems to equally belie and befit the brewery's output. Although tending towards purposefully high-hopped and/or roasted-malt bitterness, such as with their new Full Nelson Black IPA, which one might describe as anti-establishment, there's also a very Earth-like quality to their beer. Sticking your nose into one of their brews – by which I mean the glass, obviously – the strength and quality of the aroma from dry-hopping evoked for me the feeling of holding freshly plucked hops in the palm of my hand.

This event was definitely more of a private family-and-friends occasion, so in that spirit, I won't comment too specifically on the taste of the beers on offer; to do so I feel would betray the continued process of refinement and exploration in their new home. But I will say that among those poured were of course the Kooinda Pale, as well as another release being bottled, a Belgian Witbier. (With a Kooinda twist, of course.) There were a couple of trials, including their Valhalla Golden Ale, and my favourite, a Porter that I forget the exact name of. More balanced and seasoned than their other offerings, the Porter was a classic alternative to their established theme, and a good one. There might be a little more work to go to keep it consistent – the second keg had a more pronounced bubblegum flavour – but it's something I quite enjoyed and I hope they'll think about releasing it at some point.

Good luck, guys. I'm sure this'll be a success for you, and I sure hope you don't mind me talking about the day.

(Thanks, Kim, for the lend of the camera.)

I Found the Brewer's Secret Stash (Red Hill Brewery)

Nestled neatly into a southern-central section of Victoria's Mornington Peninsula is David and Karen Golding's Red Hill Brewery, which has now been operating for six and change years. This weekend gone, they hosted a Brewer's Choice Weekend, where their three mainstays, the Golden Ale, Wheat Beer and Scotch Ale, were taken off the taps and replaced with the "brewer's stash," a selection of seasonal and single batches. And not only that, they saw fit to regale visitors with their brand-spanking India Black Ale and a selection of tasting plates for the occasion. As I had been one to remark on more than a few occasions that I had driven past the Red Hill exit on Mornington Peninsula Freeway, not taken said exit and then regretted the decision, what better opportunity?

Walking from the car and past the hop vines, I was struck by how much it felt like a winery more than other breweries I had visited. Nestled almost like a hideaway amidst trees spread just a little too thin to be forest is their charming, modern-rustic eatery and bar, with the brewery immediately adjacent. It's a lovely, calm place.

So, I hear you asking, how is this India Black Ale, and what's the difference between an IBA and a Black IPA? To the former, it's a great-tasting almost-Porter with a perfect – some might say subdued – roasted malt level, characteristic Red Hill softness without any loss of flavour, and a fantastic thick, creamy head. (The hand-pump was the perfect way to go.) Very drinkable. To the latter, I expect the choice to refer to it as an "India Black Ale" as opposed to a "Black India Pale Ale" was twofold. Firstly that it probably makes more sense considering you can't really have an ale that is both black and pale, and secondly to possibly differentiate it from the hoppier versions of the style, but I must stress I neglected to ask.

Other beers on offer were the Bohemian Pilsner, Belgian Blonde, Temptation Belgian Golden Ale, Weizenbock, Christmas Ale, Imperial Stout and barrel-aged versions of the Imperial Stout and Christmas Ale. For not a one do I have a bad word, but I will single out the Weizenbock with its fruity notes and the Imperial Stout as favourites. I only had the opportunity to have the Double Barrel Christmas Ale of the two barrel-aged offerings. To my tastebuds, I was getting sweeter characteristics of a white wine, but was then informed the barrels had housed Shiraz, so what do I know.

The food, while pricey for the amount of food, was fantastic. Lamb koftas and the Gruyere and Caraway croquettes were sampled, as were a vegetable crumble and the Welsh Rarebit, the latter of which I would consider an essential upon any visit. Can't speak to the food more than that except to say again, y'know, tasty.

A tour of the brewery was also offered and gladly accepted. Dave did a very easy-going tour of the brewery's process from mashing in to fermentation to bottling or kegging, passing around some grain and hops for us to smell, and was very open to answering questions. He explained Red Hill's use of 90% rainwater, sourced from both the brewery and other local business – and there is a shared quality to their beer that I can only attribute to their great soft water – and of course the cultivation of their own hops. He explained their philosophy preferencing English, German and Belgian styles, as opposed to the hoppier American influence, and shared the journey of their new IBA from brewers Tim and Simon's home-brew experiments to finished product.

Final compliments go to the waiting and bar staff, who were honestly friendlier and more attentive than I've encountered. A great day, a great place, and I will be back.

Good Beer Week: Nathan's Good Beer Week Not-Awards, 2011

Were you to think this was a way for me to be lazy and not have to blog about each individual event, well then, you'd be-- SHUT UP.

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BEER NATHAN WOULDN'T SHUT UP ABOUT FOR TWENTY-FOUR HOURS

Morning Peninsula IPA

I've already expressed how great I think these guys and/or gals are doing for a new brewery, and I'd heard good things about the IPA, so when I saw it on tap at the Terminus, I launched myself at it and was not disappointed. T'is a fine, sessionable IPA to be sure, and I wouldn't stop yakking about it. And I see now it also got a Silver medal from the AIBA. Nice one.

BEER NATHAN WOULDN'T HAVE SHUT UP ABOUT FOR TWENTY-FOUR HOURS HAD HIS BRAIN NOT BEEN FRIED BY THIS POINT

TIE: Holgate Beelzebub's Jewels/Orkney Dark Island Reserve

On Friday evening, we went along to the Gold Medal Tasting at Purvis Beer in Richmond. Although the samples were smaller than previous tastings and some people just didn't know how to move out of the way once they'd had their latest poured, there were both interesting and fantastic beers on offer. Essentially, the idea was to have a previous Gold medal winner and then move to a worthy challenger, courtesy of the Purvis lads. As it happened, there were two tables. The left-hand had the lager and paler styles, and the right-hand had the darker styles, and it turned out to be an interesting contrast. Which is to say the left-hand table was mostly rather uninteresting, but as soon as you got to that second table...

And on that second table, two in particular really stood out for me. Beelzebub's Jewels is a barrel-aged Quadrupel/Abt that weighs in at 12%, and comes from local brewery Holgate, well-known for their ESB and Temptress Porter and who impressed the hell out of me with their Empress Imperial Porter at the previous SpecTAPular. It was, well, it was a Quad, but you were really getting some of that Pinot Noir from the barrel. The Dark Island Reserve is a 10% Barleywine, also aged in barrels, but this time whisky. (Apparently I have a "type".) The bad news about these beers would of course be the price.

BEER NATHAN DID THE BIGGEST DOUBLE-TAKE ON

Yeastie Boys Rex Attitude

My last SpecTAPular I found to have a really good range of interesting styles. Obviously this latest, a Kiwi SpecTAPular, wouldn't quite be the same as the beers weren't specifically brewed for the event. Somewhere in between the Pilseners and the Pales and the Renaissance Stonecutter Scotch ale was this, a "peat-smoked Strong Golden Ale" from the Yeastie Boys, they of the superb Pot Kettle Black (a Black IPA). This was the SpecTAPular beer. Peat-smoked, people, peat-smoked. Give it a shot. I dare you.

NATHAN'S BIGGEST MISTAKE

TIE: Straddling the inflatable palm tree at Mrs. Parma's/Not taking notes!

Sigh. If only that photo didn't exist, and if only those notes did.

NATHAN'S BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT

Why no current single batch at Little Creatures?

Seriously. The best part of going to Little Creatures for me recently has been their single batches. I enjoyed their IPA a few times, and then most recently their Märzen, which was more than drinkable, so, to my dismay, when we decided to give Little Creatures a shot... no single batch. During Good Beer Week! Come on!

NATHAN'S FAVOURITE VENUE

The Local Taphouse

What can you say? Even if it wasn't a fantastic venue anyway, for Good Beer Week they hosted the Barley's Angels event, the Brewer's & Chewers dinner and, of course, the Kiwi SpecTAPular. Way to bring it, guys.

NATHAN'S FAVOURITE DISCOVERY

Deco Wine Bar

I'd wandered past Deco with Sharika recently, after an unsuccessful attempt to eat at the Moroccan Soup Bar without a reservation. Looked like a pretty cool place décor-wise, so we filed it for later. Last Tuesday, when Josie and Ali led me there on the Crafty Crawl quest, queue my reaction, "Oh, this place!" So yes, it's a nice-looking quirky bar with that good ambient-light atmosphere and a pile of complimentary blankets near the bar that tells you a little more. There are no taps to speak of, but there is a fridge with a more-than-decent selection of beer, including some Australian crafts, some good overseas crafts like Hitachino Nest, and even the BrewDog Tactical Nuclear Penguin. And we had a great talk with the owner/bartender – I'm sorry, I didn't get your name; I do that a lot – who was full of suggestions and opinions.

NATHAN'S PRIZE TO THE MOST ENTHUSIASTIC CRAFTY CRAWL VENUE

The Rainbow Hotel

EXT. RAINBOW HOTEL BEER GARDEN ENTRANCE - NIGHT

BOUNCER

(bouncer tone)

Sorry, guys. It's one-in-one-out at the moment.

JOSIE

Is it okay if we just go in and come straight out? We're doing the Crafty Crawl and just wanna--

BOUNCER

(suddenly chipper)

Oh! Yeah! Hey! No worries, just pop on in and go up to the bar. They'll sort you out. Cool.

CUT TO:

INT. VERY CROWDED RAINBOW HOTEL BAR AREA - NIGHT (LATER)

BARTENDER

Oh, yeah! Awesome! Hang on, I'll just get it.

(retrieves treasure)

How cool is this? Such a great idea.

After being to a few places and asking bartenders who had no idea what we were talking about or were even a bit annoyed – and please do not take that to mean there weren't of course plenty of venues that were perfectly happy with it – going to the crowded Rainbow and being greeted with that was a great breath of fresh air and I thank them for it.

Good Beer Week: Brewers & Chewers

I'm going to skip ahead a little to talk about the undisputed highlight of Good Beer Week for me and probably everyone else who attended, the Brewers & Chewers dinner at The Local Taphouse in St. Kilda. I will, however, attempt to be brief.

What a fantastic fucking idea. Seriously. A dinner with brewers from interstate and overseas. You get great food, beer included – which I understand was donated by the brewers, which is really just amazing of them – and the "Beer Champions" are rotated, giving each table equal time to chat them up.

This was really a first for me. I don't know the who's-who of the Melbourne and Australia beer scene. I'm learning that the brewers are generally the ones in their brewery's t-shirt, but I'm a little lost about who Professor Pilsener and the Beer Diva are, and I don't know who Sam the Brewer is or why she's so awesome. So I guess for me it was an eye-opener as well as just a great event.

It was quite the circumstance, really. After being introduced with their own theme music, the Beer Champions – Søren Eriksen (8 Wired, New Zealand), Steve Grossman (Sierra Nevada, U.S.A.), Brad Rogers (Stone & Wood, N.S.W.), Brendan Varis (Feral, W.A.), Kirrily Waldhorn (Beer Diva), Richard Watkins (Wig & Pen, A.C.T.) and James Watt (BrewDog, Scotland) – were escorted to their first table, and upon the ringing of the twenty-minute bell, were escorted along with their drink and food, cover plate and all, to the next one. I definitely have to compliment the Taphouse here for their great treatment of both the Champions and the guests. It was treated as quite an occasion, which I found to be a welcome piece of humourous irony considering the rather casual and boisterous nature of the evening.

Our first visitor was BrewDog's James Watt, all the way from Scotland. Initially shy in mannerism, he quickly relaxed into the situation and started firing off questions of his own, keen as can be.

Steve Grossman from Sierra Nevada was quick to have us attend the tale of Sierra Nevada having been illegally imported into Australia up until very recently, which was both a fascinating and effective conversation starter. He was a truly nice guy and only happy to accept my feigned ignorance of the fantastic taste of the Sierra Nevada Tornado IPA with a laugh.

My personal favourite was Richard Watkins from the Wig & Pen. The first words from his mouth as he sat down were, "I'm sorry, I'm not very good at these things." And yes, the man has an awkwardly shy streak a mile wide, but you get him going and he's incredibly engaging. Having only been to the Wig & Pen the week before, I was acutely aware of the current batches, which we talked about, and my dismay at the Big Ass Barleywine having run out upon my arrival seemed to spark a bit of pride. We talked briefly about the future of the Wig & Pen, styles he wanted to try, and even the excise. That twenty minutes was over far too quickly.

Kirrily Waldhorn was a great conversationalist. As one might expect, the topic floated along to Women in Beer. Personally, I'd had a bit of an issue with Professor Pilsener's earlier line of questioning, essentially, "What's it like being a woman in a man's beer world?" I bear no grudge or ill sentiment towards the man, to be absolutely clear, but I do think it's counter-productive to focus purely on that and reduce women in the beer world to that Issue rather than successes in their own right with their own expertise. Try asking the men about the role of women in the beer world, I say. Anyway, back on track. She was kind enough to talk personally about how she feels about such things, and humoured me by listening intently to my theory about beer culture being akin to geekdom, those of whom that geek generally and naturally being the kind of human being easy to acceptance.

I definitely feel like I've talked too much – especially since this post will have no photos – so to round things out, I will just say that Brad Rogers from Stone & Wood and Søren Eriksen from 8 Wired were both really fun guys. After the dinner, the girls pounced on Sam Füss from True South, who I will definitely admit was pretty darn awesome, but I'll let them speak to that. Oh, and I will need to sample this Black Saison of yours, Doctors Orders Brewing.

To the Taphouse, thank you. The food was the unsung hero of the evening. You're really onto something here. Please to have another.

Good Beer Week: North Coast Brewing Company Launch

Well, it's over. The inaugural Good Beer Week is over and detoxification begins. Nothing but veggies, sushi and water for the next two weeks! No, I don't think so, but I'm at least going to have lots of vegetables and lay off beer for a little while. We'll see how long that "little while" is.

Overall, I felt Good Beer Week was a definite success, and I hope many other punters, venues, brewers and international guests felt the same way. There were of course some things I hope the organisers will learn from, but it's all part of the process; it was the first one.

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Good Beer Week began for me on Monday, May 16 at Beer DeLuxe for the North Coast Brewing Company launch. Having never been to Beer DeLuxe on a Monday evening, I can't speak to how many customers were there for after-work drinks and how many were there for the launch, but there was certainly a decent amount of people and from what I could see, there were plenty with their North Coast postcard or shiny new glass in hand. It's nice to think that perhaps some of those people had no idea what Good Beer Week was, and just thought ten tastings and a free glass for $20 was a pretty sweet deal.

The tastings were served from bottles by the barstaff. The first few at the lighter end I was happy to have poured into my new Old Rasputin Imperial Stout glass – I was lucky enough to have been given a choice – while the later samplings I had poured into a proper tasting glass. I'm generally of the opinion that tasting from bottles isn't the ideal scenario, but we manage.

North Coast Brewing Company boasts "some of the best beers in this world... or any other" and has a pretty good average going on beer rating websites like Rate Beer and Beer Advocate. They'll have to forgive me for not finding any of their beers particularly memorable, save one. That said, some highlights for me were the Red Seal Ale, the ACME California IPA, and the Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout. Personally, I found the Scrimshaw Pilsener, which I started with, to not be as bad as some were commenting, but I definitely agreed with the consensus on the ACME California Pale Ale. I'd be tempted to give it another try from the tap, but for as long as it's available to me just in a bottle, I will avoid.

Now, the interesting sample of the night for me was the Brother Thelonius Belgian-style Abbey Ale. As someone relatively new to the whole beer tasting thing, this is the first beer I've had that I really felt a difference after giving it a swirl. At first, I got a rather unpleasant junkyard aroma as you get with some cheeses, but after oxygenating, it really opened up and possibly ended up as my favourite. But I am quite the sucker for Abbey and Trappist ales.

For those not content with a free glass, there was even a raffle of various items. A cap, a six-pack of the IPA... I could speak more positively about this, but I have that ever-present grudge you only get from being a consistent loser of raffles.

Anyway, that'll do. I will go and plot my revenge now.