5 courses + 11 beers

November 15, 2012

Here’s a quick run down of how I spent Wednesday 7th November:

9am: Drive up to Perth

11.30am: Change clothes (having realising I had managed to drop sauce down my top whilst eating and driving and yes, it was most certainly servo food)

2pm: Ditch car and hop onto train to Fremantle

3pm: Go to Sail & Anchor for launch of their new beers

6pm: Stay at Sail & Anchor for Beer and Brewer Magazine’s 5th Birthday Beer Degustation Dinner

… Yup, it was a tough day.

The dinner was kicked off by David Lipman from Beer and Brewer Magazine who welcomed everyone, as you would have expected, and also drew our attention to the door prize gift basket kindly donated by a well known adult shop, this was less expected. Before you ask, I didn’t win.  The vast majority of the guests were men so I had quite the laugh at the idea of a man arriving home late, jovial from an appropriate amount of beer, holding a basket of assorted vibrating and battery operated goods and trying to assure his wife that he was, in-fact, at a beer event.

This entree was my favourite dish of the night. It’s hard to go past pork belly and this was beautifully cooked. The grilled tiger prawn took up most of the plate and, again, beautifully cooked. As far as matching goes the Mash Pale Ale was my pick of the bunch as it complimented all aspects of the dish. The beer itself was super fresh with an aroma much like sticking your head into a bag of hops. The Matsos Mango Beer matched elements of the dish, such as the apple sauce and the prawn, but was a little too sweet for the pork belly whilst the Rogers’, though drinking beautifully, dominated the food for me.

This beer is insanely good, delicate coconut and chocolate and just one of those beers that is hard to put down, and it’s also a limited release so head straight to Freo before this runs out! The highlight of this dish was The Monk Brewer Steve Brockman’s introduction as he told the crowd of brewers, writers and other beery professionals that the The Bounty had been fermented in 400 individual coconuts … with many initially believing him …

The Artison Saison by Brian Fitzgerald was stunning, using two yeast strains – Belgian and French – with no added spices, the different flavours and aromas was overwhelming. I’d been chatting with Brian earlier who’d admited to being a little nervous, hoping the crowd would enjoy the beer, but was very much looking forward to the match with Blue Cheese. I’d not normally pair a Saison with Blue Cheese, assuming it would find itself at the hopeless mercy of overpowering blue however on this occasion it was a gorgeous match. At 7.2% abv with rich spices, fresh fruit and a bit of funk this Saison stood it’s ground well.