So the guests of honour were supposed to be the North Coast Brewing Company…but they never came.
Bummer.
Not to worry as a cute rockabilly 50s dolled up gal turned up to represent ACME Brewing to serve us beer.
After pulling the appalling starving-artist-girlfriend-damsel-in-distress card, I found myself at Beer Deluxe to sample a few of the brewery’s beers nevertheless for a mere $20. I even got to choose a pretty glass as a souvenir. Previously, I marvelled at The Forum’s beauty, before hiding my pecuniary shame in Federation Square’s Atrium.
Here’s my not so golden ticket – due to yet another bad-workman-blames-his-tools incident, Tristan was not cameraless, but without a functioning one. Thus, my Smartphone of Evil™ came to the rescue.
Man, how good were the staff herding quite the crowd of eager beer samplers, both male and female. In fact, me and fellow #beergirlrage chum @tifdownunder tried to explain to an eager ‘trade’ professional that we did know what we were doing beer-wise and that we were quite happy with the notion of drinking stout (is it not the best weather for it ever at present?!). Alas, he could not be swayed – even when I gently…pressed him for his definition of a masculine and feminine beer, he could provide example of neither.
Come on dude, even in my greenhorn days, I would have said hoppy beers are ‘manly’. He did also seek to educate me upon the supposedly fairer sex having a larger fancy for chocolate. James from Josie Bones outright warned the fellow in question to proceed with caution in relation to us beery gals but he could not be swayed from his quest.
Give me cheese over chocolate any day and you will have me as a friend for life (I understand this may or may not be desirable).
Fellow ABWGer Rick (check out his beer-related writing here) actually did provide me with a better gameplan in regards to my tasting ticket and what order to proceed with sampling the liquid breads, as my best friend calls them.
The samples are small, responsible amounts, and patrons were welcome to purchase larger serves of whatever beer they wanted more of except for a shortage of a few. Rick got me started with the Scrimshaw (pilsner) and the Blue Star (wheat beer). I quite liked the pilsner – immediately conjured up sweltering summer’s day refreshment though Rick and Chris said it was an example of a ‘dirty’ pilsner. Boy, do I have a lot to learn as I didn’t quite get what they meant. Beer swotting time for me.
The Blue Star wheat beer was a pretty dull interpretation of a wheat beer: not much of the aromatics I’m used to (clove, banana, coriander and similar such suspects). Just not thrilling.
Things warmed up though – next up, the Le Merle, a saison. Smelt a bit reminiscent of lambic but was everything you want your traditional farmhouse ale to be. Then I moved onto the Red Seal Ale, a deeply satisfying pale ale: not much to say beer-wankster-wise, really, just that it hit the spot. Pranqster, the golden ale, I suspect I should have tried before the Red Seal? Like I said, I struggled with the order of tasting the samples. Because of the Belgian style heritage that Pranqster claimed, I hopped onto Brother Theolonious – a Belgian style abbey ale.
Still labouring over the existential nausea that was my tasting ticket choice, I had the ACME California pale ale and then their IPA in the wrong order because the cute ACME girl misheard me. I rather enjoyed their IPA.
Left for last were the stouts and what cracking weather for them it was – the Old No. 38 stout and Old Rasputin, the latter being the clear winner. Sadly, we ran out of time and it was not appreciated in its ideal conditions – the stouts were served a tad too cold and couldn’t wait for Old Rasputin to warm up though he was a sexy Russian indeed. No. 38 was pretty unremarkable, incidentally. Surprising but then it did seem like cardboard compared to Old Rasputin, the winner of the session for me.
After advising Tiffany to at least get some of said sexy Russian, it was a mad dash to the train station, alighting at another then hopping onto a tram to get us to the Terminus. Damn, for an American, she sure is transport-savvy, more so than our dear native Tristan.
Some of the best classical music composers reuse their best material and not often due to lack of originality. Have you heard how repetitive works like Ravel’s ‘Bolero’ or Allegri’s ‘Miserere’ is?
And so I repeat a claim previously made, not due to any inkling of genius but because that is what this poetaster does best, and that is to recycle. Lambics taste like ladies. Some lambics/ladies taste better than others. Imagine my horror when my father, knowing I was excited to be back in the beery-foodie game said that I could bring back any beery leftovers to share. Shudder. No Dad, you can’t have my ladies and also, lambics are an acquired taste. Dad’s not a big beer drinker at all (he prefers wine) so my concern wasn’t prompted by snobbery but by my own first experience with sour beers.
Initially, it was not an experience I was particularly keen on replicating. It should be embarrassing (and they tease me mercilessly about it) but looking back, I’m actually pretty proud of how far my palate has come. Me and lambics are now truly friends. To continue with the overtly sexual conceit (fuck yeah lit nerdery), I can now hide my rude robbed-of-virginity face, though now everyone knows what my (beery…) orgasm face looks like.
Most of the folks at this evening were pretty well informed about sour beers, so this did allow Shandy to get into some more beer-nerd-tech aspects of lambic and its genesis. They are old, and according to our excruciating trivia questions, ‘lambic’ derives from Lembeek, assumed to have given this beer style its name. It also apparently means ‘lime creek’. It would have made my day if it actually meant ‘lemon’ creek given my predilection for the ladies (I can’t believe no one remembers this as slang for lesbian in primary school: showing my age, you say?).
First up, and probably my favourite of the evening was the Cantillon Bruocsella Grand Cru, brewed in Nov 2005 and bottled in Nov 2008 — because I know some of the more…pedantic among us were concerned.
My photographer was off-duty (read: a disorganised whatsit) so I had to resort to the Smartphone of Evil™ for my photos. The light wasn’t great so yes, the using of flash sin was committed this evening, and committed often. However, I had previously enjoyed this beer so have a better photo of it on my Flickr account.
Revisiting this lambic was a remarkably different experience to my first trial of it at the Slowbeer Cantillon showcase: it was smooth, not at all that sour and wine-like, which was actually one of the reasons I enjoyed it so much. The beer was kept in a sherry cask hence its less blonde colour and its vinous aromatics. Virtually no carbonation and no head.
For our second beer, we had the privilege of Scott, the main brewer of Bright Brewery introduce his ‘Pinky Framboise’. My beer briefing sheet is absolutely covered in notes about this beer: it’s made with raspberries from a farm local to the brewery and they’d experimented with making a similar one based on wild blackberries! Mmm, wild blackberries…takes me back to visiting my lovely uncle who lived in Hertfordshire and used to let us pick blackberries from his garden to eat. Ah British childhood memories!
Argh, the beer! It wasn’t that tart, with a hint of bitterness that I did not initially attribute to hops, but the hop bitterness become more evident when the beer warmed. The beer was made when raspberries were in season and the one we had on the evening was, by the brewer’s admission, still a little young. Gorgeously fragrant in the best way possible, I think this is a beer to ride cider’s coattails. I really wish it had’ve been the sour beer to break my sour beer virginity.
Back to hearing our fave beery Scot talk, the third beer on our list was Brouwerij Boon’s Oude Gueuze.
I added the above image to illustrate how one measures levels of acidity and alkaline/basic substances. Water (roughly) has a pH of 7.
The Oude Gueuze has a pH of 2. That, my friends, makes it a really fucking sour beer and oh boy was it felt! Easily the beer my palate struggled with the most. It was pretty ‘rude’ on the nose and extremely lively on the palate. Ale Stars folks had some great tasting notes for this one: dry concrete, wet cardboard (oxidation), pineapple, sherbet. Beautiful, cream-foam head. Apparently aged in two hundred year old wine barrels (and these dudes have making it since the sixteenth century). Reprazent.
Lastly, a nice bookend to my personal lambic journey — started with a Cantillon I’d had before and ended with another: the Iris. Again, before the sour beer pedants get up in my grill, first things first: Iris’ maturation year is 2007 and any matured in 2007 were bottled in 2009. It’s one of the few unblended lambics that uses fresh hops. Funny that this seemed such shock to the tastebuds (again, at Slowbeer’s Cantillon showcase) but seemed quite, well, natural at this stage. It has a white foamy cottonwool-like head, a very carbonated mouthfeel, with antiseptic and metallic notes – none of those notes being unpleasant. A tad bitter initially not seeming to be hop-driven, but like the Pinky Framboise, once it warms up the bitterness is more evidently hop-related. Still, it’s mouth-puckering but a solid, smooth flavoured sour beer.
Incidentally, even repetitive music when performed consummately is still hair-on-back-of-neck amazing. The same goes with beer, and these beers too. While I’ve had the pleasure of having had both the Cantillons offered at this night before, repeat performances remind you why you fell in love with them in the first place, or give you a chance to have them grow on you. The lambic love groweth and this was reflected by fellow Ale Star members, though given the aceness of Ale Stars in general (no, not myself, I’m a miscreant lapsed member now), it’s not a jot surprising.
I like to think that Melbourne’s good beer scene is progressive enough to know that the so-called fairer sex are just as capable as the lads of enjoying a damn fine beer. Thinking of the beery venues I frequent (The Local Taphouse, Biero Bar, Slowbeer), my gender has never really been an issue. The folks there talk to me as just another beer-lover who can benefit from their knowledge.
So when I do head into a specialist beer venue and attention is drawn to the fact that yes, I am indeed female, it’s unusual. One such evening, two of my favourite beery chums Jourdan & K headed out with me and Tristan to the fairly newly opened Josie Bones, an establishment set up by Chris Badenoch (oddly enough, I knew him as the blogger who cooks with beer, not as the hat dude on Masterchef) and partner Julia Jenkins, also Masterchef alumnus. Josie Bones brags a fantastic beer selection and accompanying nosh reliant upon the nose-to-tail philosophy. If you weren’t convinced of that, then the painting of the headless carcass above the bar would indeed make that obvious!
The first beer I ordered was the Burleigh Brewing Black Giraffe. The fellow serving who no doubt thought he was being helpful asked me if I was sure and didn’t I want to know what it was first. Um, okay, I said, a bit puzzled. He told me it was a black coffee lager and I immediately replied that yes I did still want it.
The glasses with their bone emblem are just gorgeous, but look at the beer! Frothy head and a smooth beer with hints of roastiness. If you let it warm up a bit, you can taste the coffee too. Thankfully, this beautiful drop is available in longneck bottles at most good beer stockists – I saw it at Slowbeer and Purvis Beer in Richmond along with Burleigh’s My Wife’s Bitter.
Sadly, the fellow serving didn’t seem interested when I tried to explain that the schwarzbier style is something I really enjoy (though this is strictly not a schwarzbier, so says Oz Brews News here). Apparently, girls don’t like dark lagers. I tried to engage in conversation by explaining that I did also like hoppy beers and was told that there is more to beer than the hops! Really?! No wai!
Ouch. Being talked down to when I’m trying to engage with a supposedly passionate like-minded individual.
The patronising attitude wasn’t just gender-specific as we all later learnt upon ordering a bottle of BrewDog Tokyo stout. The staff checked with us to make sure we knew that we were requesting to share a 330mL bottle (I’m not sure why when Tokyo’s ABV is 18% or so. We were basically sharing a fortified wine equivalent amongst four people). We were then asked if it was okay to be served Tokyo in wine glasses because apparently beer has aroma, didn’t you know?! By now the four of us were a tad put off.
When said ‘helpful’ waiter actually walked past all four of us having our dessert of kriek sorbet and honey ice cream Bombe Alaska with the Tokyo and said “Interesting pairing there…” at least one of us was hysterical with anger and one with mirth. The meringue looked picture-perfect on the outside but was a little melted. I think they could have used more kriek in the sorbet too, which was more like granita as it was grainy, slushy and watery, rather than being smooth and fruity like sorbet normally is. Of course, using more kriek depending on its alcohol content might not allow the sorbet mixture to freeze properly – I learnt this when making my annual ‘summer survival’ batch of lemon vodka granita (which due to vodka content was really more of a slushie). The honey ice cream was glorious – creamy and very sticky-sweet. I don’t care how daggy this dessert is: I love it.
But back to the beer: Tokyo paired with the dessert in question isn’t that ‘interesting’. If anything, I learnt at the most recent Ale Stars session I attended that kriek and stout blended together is a a sublime drink, akin to liquid Black Forest cake. Plus, it’s way more adventurous than the usual chocolate mud cake with stout pairing.
I have to admit that for most of the week when this story was related to friends, I was livid at its mention. Now I’m feeling more reasonable and one friend pointed out that the attitude of this self-styled beer sommelier (you have to get accreditation to become a cicerone – believe me, I checked) needs to be nipped in the bud because he’s likely to pass it on to the staff he trains.
In any case, it’ll be interesting to see if he tries talking down to me at the next Australian Beer Writers’ Guild meeting, which will be held at Josie Bones. In fact, we’ve booked out this stunning communal table for it (photo taken by the multi-talented Jourdan).
Now, in no way am I saying that people shouldn’t go. In fact, there are several reasons you should. The bar itself is just gorgeous and the tables sit a quartet. It’s quite intimate and the light directly overhead on each of the side tables assists in creating a booth-like feel when you’re seated. The wait staff are lovely and then there is the food. Oh yes, the food. And make sure you go with non-squeamish foodies! More food loveliness to share.
I absolutely insisted upon oysters which came topped with guanciale and Dubel jelly. We’re all still not sure if they meant ‘Duvel’ jelly? Or dubbel jelly? Duvel being an actual beer and dubbel being a Trappist ale. In any case, you could actually taste the beery bitterness in the jelly! Pretty cool.
One of the other waiters politely twisted our arms into ordering a special cherry tomato salad.
Jourdan was pretty excited about the notion of having trotters, so we got that too. They are fritters with romesco sauce though reminded me more of croquettes. I think I’m all croquetted out this year so wasn’t too excited about these but still ate my share.
The octopus and bone marrow ‘cigar’ with a side of green mango salad and nam jim was freaking fantastic. You could see the cubes of bone marrow spilling out of the cigar – an excellent contrast to the zestiness of the salad. I’d probably order this again next time I go!
Next time, I might try to make sure that I have some of the Red Duck Bengal IPA to drink with the above dish. It’s an approachable, satisfying malt-driven IPA.
Let’s continue: how about a serve of black pudding, white sausage, peas pudding and madeira jus? The black pudding was a tad salty but the white sausage was heavenly. The serve is too damn small, oh yes.
Jourdan and Tristan had tried it the day before, so I pretty much got an extra portion of the rolled pig’s head sauce gribiche with crackling served on top. Definitely not as confronting as it sounds, it was delicious and richly flavoured.
We did bulk up our meaty selections with some vegetably sides. I love enoki mushrooms and barley, so insisted upon the pearl barley, enoki and cucumber salad with walnut dressing. A palate-cleansing accompaniment to our rich morsels.
K liked the sound of the pink fur apple potatoes with grilled Swiss raclette cheese. I personally think our table could have done with two serves of this, it was very moreish. You can’t really go wrong with good potatoes and cheese together, can you?
As mentioned above, all four of us fatties ended with the Bombe Alaska coupled with a tipple of the Tokyo stout by BrewDog.
The beer list is extensive and fully supports the national craft beer industry which is excellent to see. It is pricy: this will ensure that Josie Bones remains a place to get some excellent bar food with equally high-calibre beer but might it also discourage would-be beer neophytes?
Regardless, Smith Street in Collingwood is becoming quite the foodie street. Despite the experience with the head beer sommelier, I’m still keen to revisit. Hopefully the man will have learnt some manners by then and I can retire the #beergirlrage hashtag on Twitter. Besides, when Duplo cow wants your money, your money s/he must have.
Update:we’ve heard back from James, the beer manager at Josie Bones. He’s kindly given us permission to publish correspondence sent to us as follows:
Hi Gem,
I’m James, the beer manager at Josie Bones. Let me start by apologising if I came across as gender biased or patronising in any way. I’m here to assist on the customer’s beer journey and unfortunately there are many people who don’t possess your knowledge and are very shy about sharing what they do know. I fear for people ordering by name or label and finding themselves challenged beyond their tastes and thereby spoiling what could be a beautiful beer relationship. I have had this happen in previous roles and it breaks my heart to see anyone become excluded from the magical world of beer.
Secondly, I do not call myself a beer sommelier. As you mentioned, this is a title that must be earned and I’m very conscious of how far I am from wearing this title. I was hired just as much for my ability to discuss beer with a wide range of people as for my ability to source and arrange a list such as ours. We have had endless conversations regarding an appropriate title and so far “Beer Guy” and “Beer Manager” are the ones that seem to suit. Believe me, I’m no beer sommelier and to call myself such is doing no favours for anyone.
Whether the customer is male, female, educated or naive, from Collingwood or Taylor’s Lakes, I am here to assist them on their beer journey. My passion for beer, food and good times is boundless and I appreciate any constructive criticism that will help me to help others. Perhaps next time you’re in you could introduce yourself as it seems we share many common passions and we could both benefit from a drink and a yarn. And maybe a pig head or two.
Thanks you for the great review and I look forward to making your acquaintance.
