Beer Radar
By John Krüger
A cidery start and a hidden beer finish.
(First published by Wine Business Magazine in 2011)
It doesn’t take a short fuzzy mandolin player to tell you that cider is a big thing at the moment. Even Perry is making its way back onto the shelves. We’ve braved the meagre 4 days of heat during the recent summer and have downed a few great ciders including Adelaide Hills Cider on tap which has been a revelation. It’s all that we love about artisan cider; a hint of natural spontaneous ferment sourness, real apple flavour, and no nasty saccharine or other artificial flavours. Lobo Cider from Lobethal, also in the Adelaide Hills was a bridge-too-far for my sister-in-law who pronounced “this is off!” and left the rest for us to down faster than a dog eats dropped snags at a BBQ. Some people prefer their cider without the rustic charm and a little more 20th century. One cider we’ve sampled recently from our other favourite spot in the world, the Yarra Valley, is Coldstream Cider. It’s made by brewers so it doesn’t have any funk, but it does taste like real apples and is a damn site better than the artificial ciders popular with the alcho-pop brigade. It’s also thankfully lacking in the massive hit of sulpher that’s prominent in some of the imported ciders and sits somewhere between sweet and dry on the residual sugar. We copped a lot of flak from the UK expats about adding ice to our cider but we’re not in cardigan and long socks country anymore are we? We’re that impressed with the cider, we’re keen to try what else Coldstream are doing.
Our favourite surfy brewers from Byron Bay, Stone and Wood, have intelligently renamed their deliciously fruity ale. Previously called Draught Ale (Draught means “drawn from the tap” a fresh beer) certainly makes sense on tap, but the term “draught” in relation to packaged beer has always irritated us. It’s like bottled water, but in a can. Anyway, their beer is still great fresh from the tap or bottle as we’ve reported before, but now to avoid more confusion (we’re looking at you West End and Carlton) Stone and Wood have renamed their excellent beer “Pacific Ale”. Why “Pacific”? Buggered if we know but it makes more sense.
As the nights cool down, it’s time to work out which sock drawer you’ve stashed the Coopers Vintage Ale. Initially we couldn’t stand the previous vintage fresh from the brewery. It seemed all marshmallow weed and cheap lollies, but given time to mature the 2009 has really come up a treat. We’ve even stashed bottles in various locations so we don’t knock them off all in one go. Young and foolish beer nerds dismiss the ale quoting the term “oxidised” and go back to their Fat Yacks, but hey “dudes”, great matured bevvies that have a bit of oxygen under their belts flourish with new and complex flavours. Don’t ask us for proof, ask Seppelts 100 year old port for example. The 2009 Coopers Vintage Ale will be our sneaky brandy balloon tipple during the coming colder months until we stop finding all of the hidden stubbies.
