Beer Radar
By John Krüger
Endeavour Beers (First published in Wine Business Magazine in 2010)
Our first few points of contact with Endeavour beers were unusual. We spotted them on our Twitter feeds and checked them out. Their profile mentioned using fresh ingredients. Hallelujah! Someone making commercial beer is as keen about fresh hops as we are.
A while later someone from Endeavour contacted us to tell us they are keen followers of our blog. This got us worried, as we don’t have a blog. (Oh the irony! 2016) In our opinion blogs are somewhat like writing a very poorly edited directionless rant in lemon juice and hiding it in a pile of lemons and paper.
Then we saw their press release. At first we suspected a young PR lady with little or no knowledge of the brewing process had gotten a few points from Wiki arse-about-face and botched some crazy stuff together before her mid-morning soy decaf latte. We enquired but they insisted that they’d written it themselves even though some of their declarations just don’t make any sense.
Yeast added to the mash? It’d get killed during the boil.
Purifying rain water (which is essentially distilled) by adding minerals? Isn’t that adulteration, not purification?
Mentioning fresh bittering hops but nothing about the freshness of the finishing hops. Bittering hops get boiled to the shitter and are probably the only stage where you can get away with anything less than fresh hops.
These points made us worry further.
The third time we were worried was when we saw the tiny 330ml bottles. We hate tiny bottles, but it looks like they’re here to stay. More crazy statements on the labels, and the labels are brown. Not a nice reddish brown but public toilet surprise brown. Surely poo brown must be the least desirable colour on any food packaging.
Well, all of the worry was unfounded once we tried the beers. Sure, they might not be our holy grails of beers, but if we found these brews in a friend’s fridge we’d happily accept an Endeavour beer over the majority of mainstream beers hands down.
Here’s our thoughts on their two current 2010 beers:
Endeavour 2010 Reserve Amber Ale.
Beautiful rich golden colour with chocolate and sweet malt aromas.
Lovely balanced bitterness, not harsh or too resiny considering Pride of Ringwood hops are used. Certainly not the classic Aussie flavours associated with Pride of Ringwood. Restrained chocolate and toffee flavours. 5.2%abv so a good solid flavoursome beer yet still very easy to drink. Carbonation is spot on, which is where newcomers can get into strife, especially with a new range of bottle conditioned beers.
Endeavour 2010 Reserve Pale Ale.
Very pale with a green tinge. Smelling of American hops, old-lady perfume and tropical fruit. Musk lollies. 4.5%abv. Light and easy drinking. We wonder if a little more crystal or beefing up to a 5% beer would have given it just a little more oomph, but it’s very light and easy to drink. Still showing a persistent hop presence but a little low on bitterness for our tastes. Still a clean balanced beer that would be too easy to drink quite a few of. Still beats the pants off the latest offerings from XXXX and the like.
