Friday 24th May – Day 7 into Good Beer Week …
Still standing and still wanting more beers, day seven consisted of multiple GBW events, starting just before lunch at Pint of Origin Tasmania venue The Gertrude Hotel and ending at PoO Western Australia, The Royston about ten hours later.
My partner and I started at The Gertrude, ticking off another Pint of Origin venue, before lunch at Brother Burger then a short walk to The Tramway for the South Australian PoO. From there it was time to get to Slowbeer for the Birds del Borgo event and when that finished there was The Royston just a short stumble away.
For such a big day/night it’s a good thing we got a big feed in for lunch at Brother Burger and the Marvellous Brew; oh and what a mouthful of a name by the way! As a part of Good Beer Week Brother Burger were playing host to a tap takeover of New Zealand brewers.
The week-long event was called Marvellous Liberty, presumably a call out to both their venue and New Zealand’s Liberty Brewing to whom half the taps were dedicated. The other half were pouring Croucher Brewing beers.
We had two beers from each brewery. From Liberty we had the XPA Extra Pale Ale and Yakima Scarlet, a hoppy red ale. From Croucher we had their Pilsner, a Czech style done with Kiwi hops, and The Patriot, a black IPA.
Liberty Brewing
When I read the words “pale pacific ale” on the Liberty XPA my mind immediately went to Stone & Wood. Their Pacific Ale is just gorgeous and seems to be universally loved. Unintentionally this may have put some pretty high standards in my head.
Liberty XPA had some stone fruit, citrus and a little cereal-ness with a good solid bitter finish. It’s a pretty good drop but when we had their hoppy red ale, the Yakima Scarlet, it quickly became a favourite for the day. Spicy, hoppy, fruity and just really damn good.
Croucher Brewing
The pilsner was a good little beer and did exactly it says on the box – a Czech inspired pilsner with generous Kiwi hops giving the otherwise bitter, floral and crisp style a fruity New Zealand edge.
Having had a lot of hops in our weekly beer diet and encountering some big hop monster beers during Good beer Week we were a little reluctant to go down the path of a black IPA. Reluctant but not against and since it was highly recommended by the guy serving us we ordered it.
Thank god we did.
What a great black IPA! Certainly full of fruity hops but equally boasting fantastic malt characters like coffee, burnt toast and chocolate.
It was great to discover two more New Zealand breweries which I’ll definitely keep an eye out for their beers in WA.
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