Category Archives: craft beer goodness

it began in Transylvania

Thanks to that quartet of books by that lady who loves Muse, vampire literature has seen quite the resurgence in popularity. Indeed, according to a Paris Review interview with Stephen King conducted in 2006, vampires have never really gone out of fashion.

It was of course Irish writer Bram Stoker who showed us how this vampire stuff was done, initially (poor John Polidori!). Bleeding legend, historical persons and a good ol’ dash of Victorian sexual repression into each other (no pun intended), his novel Dracula continues to entertain and inspire supernatural media even today. But please don’t mention Keanu Reeves in Francis Ford Coppola’s film – it’s still a sore spot.

So basically, to get their kicks off, Victorian audiences were entertained by tales of aberrant sexuality…in Eastern Europe.

These were the things I was thinking about when I first learnt about the origins of the name Naked For Satan, a new pintxos bar in Fitzroy. Leon Satanovich, the man who partially lends his name to the venue, was actually from Russia. ‘Naked For Satan’ actually refers to getting near-naked to work on the stills, creating moonshine for Satan, as the Aussies christened him, given that Satanovich is apparently too much of a mouthful.

You lot probably want me to shut up now, so here is a fab pic of the interior.

naked for satan interior

By the time I took one of my closest friends L to Naked For Satan for lunch, I’d already been a few times (pretty rare for me!). I figured it would impress her, as she is from Sydney. I’d never heard of pintxos before this gorgeous bar opened up so numerous ‘research’ trips were imperative for educating: pintxos being the Basque version of tapas. Save your toothpicks and you pay $2 for each morsel you devour at the end of your session, and order drinks along the way. Be careful who you go out with as they will most likely repeat the word ‘pintxos’ in the most annoying manner possible (Tristan and Alex, I’m looking at you).

pintxos receptacle

Make sure you leave room (in your belly and on your plate!) for the hot ones that are served personally by the staff who make a round of the bar to bring them to you.

There is a good array of vegetarian ones, and even some desserty ones – miniature profiterole-type whatsits and *cue zomg here* prunes soaked in armagnac.

prunes soaked in armagnac & profiterole-type pastries

My only criticism is that some of the cream cheese-based ones are a little heavy on the cheese.

Here’s one of my favourite ones – Tom Cooper smoked salmon. Pretty simple combination but I love it so.

smoked salmon and preserved lemon

Another fave is the chilli mussels with capers.

chilli mussels and capers

If you’d like to see more photos of the delectable deliciousness, please go to Tristan’s Flickr set. I want to talk about the drinks now! For example, their Naked For Satan ale is brewed especially for the venue by Matilda Bay’s garage. It’s a wheat beer, and a pretty approachable one at that, which subtle banana esters (so you can get a whiff of banana) and hints of clove. These are pretty standard in wheat beers. It’s a very chuggable drop – should be more so in the extreme heat of summer. Word is it’s also modelled on Matilda Bay’s retired Redback.

naked for satan wheat beer (brewed by matilda bay garage)

Oh yes, then there’s the infused vodkas, that which they use in their cocktails. L and I shared an Opiumtini – their take on the vodka martini which has opium-infused vodka softened with rose. It’s like drinking liquid Turkish delight! Heavenly. On a toothpick, there are three teensy rosebuds floating in the cocktail.

Opiumtini

Or a take on their Bloody Mary? Silly Tristan doesn’t like Bloody Marys (‘Maries’ sounds wrong!) because they remind him of V8 juice! Ha. I can understand that.

Bloody Mary

Each time I’ve been here, it’s never failed to impress me and I’ve tested the array of pintxos available quite extensively. Despite how swanky it is, I’m surprised by how wonderfully friendly and informative the staff are. And how beautiful the space is! Judging from the entrance, you wouldn’t think it to be as roomy as it is and every inch is decked out in style. I hope the visit impressed my Sydneysider bestie!

Naked For Satan on Urbanspoon

not quite the pub with no beer

Tuesday night last week saw Murray’s Brewing head brewer Shawn Sherlock come to the monthly Ale Stars meet-up at The Local Taphouse. I have to say that I feel Shawn (pictured below, left) was expecting a crowd that would be more…divided in its love over the beer he makes. Not so! He was indeed preaching to the converted.

While Murray himself is not a brewer, he had something of a beer epiphany when he tried a Sierra Nevada pale ale for the first time. Interestingly enough, despite being initially and continually inspired by the US craft brewing scene, the brewery does not use any US ingredients.

A few days ago via The Local Taphouse blog, there was a most tantalising blog post on the 3 Beer Beef Burger. Yes yes, I know it’s not new but I hadn’t had it and had decided I had to eat it before Ale Stars. Peak-hour traffic of course had its own ideas so I was furiously stuffing it down when Shawn was up on the podium. I have to a big-up to Burger Adventure for further encouraging my inner ravening carnivore.

Behold, the 3 Beer Beef Burger in all its glory. A juicy medium-rare pattie with a subtle smokiness and perfect grill lines. Dear god, this thing has battered onion rings in it! Being a teensy lass, I had to eat mine with a knife and fork, incurring the ridicule of Tristan and my dear beer chum Jourdan. And the chips and mayo! Yeah, it’s a rad burger. The only gripe I had was I did have to discreetly spit out a few chunks of gristle but I can forgive. It’s worth taking your non-beer nerd mates to The Local for this burger, as well as many other delish items on the menu.

murray's ale stars

It was fab to see The Crafty Pint in attendance and if you don’t know who he is or what is site is about and you’re a beer-lover, you have your head under a…keg! I may never recover from having him introduce me to Die Antwoord and their ‘Evil Boy’ video clip (please note: not for prudes or those in the workplace). It has to be the most…inventive protest on African tribal circumcision I’ve ever seen.

Did I mention ‘Crafty’ (as he is affectionately called and also because there are many Jameses in the world) was kind enough to interview me for his site? There’s only a few days left, but it was pretty cool to be nominated October’s blog of the month!

I haven’t forgotten about the beer, promise. I’m taking a cue out of our beloved beer stalwart (I did say I’d quit with the ‘old man’ digs!) Prof Pilsner’s book and keep the beer nerdiness out of my Ale Stars posts from now on. Let’s see if I can keep my impressions on the beers brief, shall we?

Murray’s Punch & Judy ale – is this really 3.9%?!?!? Made in the style of an English bitter (though Murray’s Brewing is very clear that they brew to taste and use style as a guideline), this is an amazingly flavoursome beer. Sadly a seasonal – great shame given that it screams to be drunk by the multiple pint. There were whispers it may become permanent which would be freaking fantastic.

Murray’s Angry Man – who is the angry man in question (it was hinted at, but never uttered)? Don’t we all have an angry man within? Well yes, we do, as soon as we’ve imbibed this American brown ale (again, just a guide, not brewed to the letter). Shawn named this as his personal session beer. It’s late hopped and the crystal malts give it its brown colour along with the malty caramel flavour. Yum!

This is Jourdan’s Tristan-please-stop-taking-multiple-shots-it’s-hard-work-looking-fabulous face. With a glass of beer, natch.

Murray’s Grand Cru – a Belgian-style tripel/golden strong ale hybrid. I found this one very hard to define in terms of taste, but it was my least favourite. Not at all a criticism on the brewers or the brewery: it’s just not a style I really get excited about, probably because of the sweetness. It looks beautiful though – clear, gold colour with a thin to medium body. Fairly hefty too at 8.8% ABV. Shawn said it’s one of his favourites.

Murray’s Icon 2IPA – good god, if you want hops, you got hops with this beer. Some notes of citrus and pepper cut through the bitterness. The thing I am really beginning to appreciate is that an intensely hopped beer does not necessarily equal the sort of bitterness that makes you screw up your face. Shame that the brewery can only brew half batches of this.

Despite it not being available, there was considerable discussion about their Heart of Darkness stout. I confess I may have heckled Shawn a bit (not being able to let go of an opportunity to unite my new-found love of craft beer with an older love for modernist literature). I really do wish they had’ve put ‘the horror, the horror’ on the labels! Sorry about the heckling, Shawn! And no, you’re not really a dickhead if you don’t like it. The owner Murray said that for the lolz. A few of us Ale Stars mentioned that we felt it had got smoother and a tad sweeter a month after being in the keg. It was pretty bold when fresh, but I’ve discussed this all before at a previous Ale Stars session.

One last beer! The Murray’s crew were super-kind and aside from giving us extra Grand Cru, we were treated to Spartacus imperial IPA! I’d previously paid an exorbitant sum (I felt) for a goblet of it at Beer Deluxe but it was nice to revisit – it seemed more floral and less sweet than on initial tasting.

Before I shut up, I’d just like to add that this was probably one of my favourite Ale Stars sessions in terms of beers offered. It was ridiculously difficult to choose which beer I preferred overall – they all cater for different sorts of beer-drinking sessions. In some ways it would be like choosing which child you love more.

As always, you can read an account of this fabulous Ale Stars session on The Local Taphouse’s blog with Jimmy’s pretty pictures. Included therein is a link to Prof’s post – he’s a speedy man and always gets his posts up before me.

The Local Taphouse on Urbanspoon

spring hops and curd you say…

It’s pretty much a match made in heaven: I know that when I’ve had a bit too much beer to drink, I start to crave cheese pretty badly. So when I read about North Melbourne’s Court House Hotel having some sort of beer and cheese matching called ‘Spring Hops and Curd’, I asked a fellow beer nerd @injerarufus, if she’d like to check it out with me.

I’d been to The Court House before for a beer dinner and decided not to do a post about it because…well, it was pretty damn average. Three courses of croquettes (one course errantly called a fritter) does not a degustation make. The best thing about the whole evening was unexpectedly bumping into my good friend Colin and getting to chat personally with the head brewer Jamie of Stone & Wood Brewing from Byron Bay. Even if it did mean having to suffer through the meal thanks to some old bird’s rudeness. Apparently some people don’t like food bloggers or new media. AYHSMB.

Before beer and cheese, we had meals off the front bar menu. This was some freaking fab pub grub. Oh, and we were in food blogger friendly company! Mr Rufus got a steak and didn’t mind T taking a snap.

T-dawg and Ms Rufus got the corned beef with mash. I nearly went for this myself! I was quite surprised when T said he wasn’t overly impressed by the corned beef. I think he found it…wanting.

I had no such complaints with my lamb, rosemary, honey and feta sausages with mash. Yeah, feta in a sausage, weird eh? But it freaking worked. As did the honey! Seriously, I could have done with an extra sausage. Generally speaking, the serves were a little on the small side.

The time came to fork over $25 for three cheeses matched with three beers. I’d been chatting to Ben Kraus, head brewer of Bridge Road Brewery on Twitter and he had informed me that their saison would be one of the beers served so I was fairly excited.

When we got there, no one could really tell us what beers were going to be served…till they were served. We ended up with glasses of Stone & Wood draught ale, the Little Creatures pale ale and the Bridge Road B2 Bomber. I’ve waxed lyrical about the B2 Bomber before: it’s a damn fine drop and was easily the most suited to cheese pairing.

While the Stone & Wood draught ale is a good session beer, I don’t think it was really a suitable candidate for any of the three cheeses we were given. I will happily drink pints of it come summertime – the passionfruit note in the beer screams summer! – but this was a disappointing beer choice.

The Little Creatures pale ale was more suited to the cheeses but still not fantastic. I have to confess that beer-wise I wasn’t confident the pub knew what it was doing.

This was further backed up by us being told that we were to taste all the cheeses and beers and ‘decide’ which beer went with what beer best. Erm…is that how it works? I certainly didn’t think so. This approach was a little too open-ended for my liking.

I spoke with someone in the beer industry who suggested that this might have been the pub’s way of getting rid of unwanted or excess stock (the beer, not the cheese). UGH.

Don’t get me wrong, the cheeses were delicious and the manager very kindly supplied me with full details of what we gorged ourselves on upon request.

From left to right: Locheilan Mundoona cow’s milk cheese from the Goulburn Valley; Shaw River Buffalino buffalo milk cheese from Yambuk; Strzelecki blue goat’s cheese from Gippsland. I used to love the stronger, more pungent cheeses but found that I finished the Locheilan Mundoona first then the buffalo. Don’t think I’ve forgotten that you nicked a good chunk of my blue, T!

Best pairing would be the Bridge Road B2 Bomber with the buffalo milk cheese – the B2 Bomber is a tad smoky and went a treat with the smoothness and occasional ‘bite’ of the buffalo.

Of course the night didn’t end without the new guy trying to charge $18 for a Mad Abbot tripel…poor kid wasn’t having an easy run (he’d managed to stuff up our orders quite a bit that evening).

Overall, I have mixed feelings about the Court House. I love the food, but I’m not convinced they know what they’re doing with beer (and believe me, it pains me to say that). I’d definitely go back for a meal though would steer clear of their beery events. Having said that, their beer dinners are excellent introductions for those who don’t have much craft beer exposure.

T wagered that the beer and cheese do would be a bit of a cock-up and sadly he was right. I was very stupid indeed to bet my sherbet fountain on it. Don’t you make the same mistake, y’hear?

In any case, all four of us did eat, drink and stagger. Kind of inevitable when one of your awesome dining companions sports the following badge.

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The Court House on Urbanspoon