Beer Radar
By John Krüger
Beer Interviews #2 (First published in Wine Business Magazine in 2010)
This month we continue our insightful series of interviews with people we admire and respect about “The beer that changed my life.” We’ve chosen these two people because of their respected palates and award winning contributions to the wonderful world of food and beverages in the Barossa.
Mark McNamara is Executive Chef at Appellation restaurant.
I can guarantee that the beer that changed my life wasn’t the first beer – getting smashed with friends as a young teenager in the early 70’s on longnecks of Southwark “Green Death” as it was then known. In fact this (and my dad insisting I have a beer with him the next day –and I thought at the time he was unaware of the night before) pretty much put me off of beer for many years – a kind of aversion therapy.
In fact it wasn’t until I moved to the UK to work about 10 years later that I discovered what I think beer is all about, micro breweries, cask conditioned real ale, hand drawn beer engines, real beer stored in cool cellars and dispensed unrefrigerated at 8ºc, in pints on cold nights, in front of an open fire in small free houses,. The key to this door was a small brewery called Rayments in a village called Furneux Pelham on the Herts- Essex border near Bishops Stortford. Unfortunately the brand owner “Greene King” closed the brewery in 1987.
The beer I was introduced to was Rayments BBA (variously referred to as Best Bitter Ale or Best Burton Ale) and I spent a very cold winter trekking around the nearly 30 independent pubs, located in tiny local villages (as these were the only stockists – no bottles only draught) . It was a revelation that beer could be savoured and flavourfull not frozen and bland, that hops were fragrant and floral, that beer doesn’t have to be gassy yet this was certainly not ever flat.
And the beauty was that each pub was responsible for cask conditioning their own beer, it was always hand drawn, no gas or temprite or superchillers anywhere near it. Because of this there was a slight variance in pint from pub to pub with the best batches being enjoyed closest to the brewery, but the beer didn’t travel much wider than a 30 mile radius anyway. Over the years other British Beers have come close but nothing has ever equaled it.
Maybe it is simply a romantic memory or the fact I can never again compare this beer with any other but Rayments converted me and I have been seeking out great beers ever since.
Darryl Trinnie is owner and brewer of the Barossa Brewing Company.
The eyes were opened when German decorative iron worker/brewer Harry Hennig introduced me to full grain mashing, however the lights came on when visiting Sydney for an engineering conference in the mid nineties.
Gaye and I were aimlessly wandering around the Rocks precinct looking for a decent bar, when we stumbled upon The Australian Hotel. Gourmet pizzas, a fantastic old pub, pretty much unmolested, and only two beers on tap, Scharer’s Lager, and Scharer’s Bock. Absolutely fanfuckingtastic. Both beers clean, unfiltered, free of preservatives and flavoursome. We stayed for the duration and taxied back to our digs.
I ditched the engineering conference to return to the Australian.
We traced the beer back to its source, Geoff Scharer’s George IV Inn at Picton. The copper clad brew house was on display in the front bar, and only two beers on tap.
We made regular trips to Picton to meet with Geoff and enjoy the beer.
He wouldn’t ship as he was afraid of spoil. So we would fly to Sydney from Adelaide, hire a car, drive to Picton, fill the vehicle with Scharers’, and drive back to the Barossa. I believe this was the best Lager and Bock in the country at the time.
