Tag Archives: The Local Taphouse

Lad(ies) Love LL Cool Lambics

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.

Both Professor Pilsner and humble Ale Star Tsar Shandy still remember the scrunched-up face of distaste that was lambic virginal Gem. I said to Tris prior to this session that tasting lambics for the first time felt like someone forcibly holding me down and squeezing an entire lemon’s contents into my mouth, wrenched open.

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.

(image is not mine and comes from UC Davis ChemWiki site)

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.

Though there are about one hundred different bacteria to be found in lambics, the three main suspects for making lambics the special whatsits that they are are Brettanomyces, Lactobacillus and acetic acid bacteria. Erm, don’t read the lacto’s Wiki page too thoroughly…it’s present in some rather yonic places, it would appear. So yes, ‘bad’ bacteria can yield some good things. Unrelated to beer, I learnt just before going to this Ale Stars that sometimes really, really bad bacteria can save lives. In other cases, it can cause mirth within the Australian craft beer community, particularly when an uninvited bacterium gatecrashes. I’m sure Corey Worthington wouldn’t have minded…

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.

not quite the pub with no beer

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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.

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.