It’s that most magical time of the year time of year when I review the Canvent Calendar from Carwyn. Will that first offering be something safe, accessible, popular, welcoming? Something easy to draw people in and start things off in a good place – a NEIPA or DIPA, perhaps? Who knows. The joy is in the anticipation and the daily unfolding. And to add to that, additional to the beers this year we have a Yours and Mine Advent Calendar from Koko Black . What that means is that each day I will have a chocolate to pair with the day’s brew. The review this time around will be broken into two parts, because fuck me, I do go on.
For the record, this may be the most decadent, bourgeois thing I’ve ever done. Every day, pairing specialty brewed craft beer with exquisitely crafted pralines and truffles. Jaysus. I’m not gonna say the kid I was would be ashamed of me – fat little bastard is probably proud of where I am, but still. I feel like some Roman emperor as I sample delicate nibbles of the finest examples of the chocolatier’s art even as I sip on custom brewed craft beers. Still. Someone has to take this bullet, do they not? And I volunteer myself as tribute. Hero? Well, your words not mine. Buckle up as we turn the page to…
Friday, December 1st – Fox Friday Surprise Imperial Pastry Stout, 10.5%
Little bit on the nose to place yourself front and centre, no? The first offering is from the new owners of Carwyn Cellars, Fox Friday Brewing, from across the strait. In previous years, I believe the Carwyn crew put themselves in an equally prominent place by closing things out with the Christmas Eve beer, but at least they had the good grace to wait their turn and allow all other comers to shine in their showcase. It’s like when Audioslave hosted Rage and I was so excited to see what sort of things they listened to, who they were influenced by. I was hoping to discover some new and awesome and weird stuff. But instead, a businesslike Tom Morello introduced every Audioslave clip in a row, then every Rage Against the Machine Clip in a row, then every clip from Soundgarden, Temple of the Dog etc. while Chris Cornell sat next to him wearing shades probably stoned out of his gourd. Bit disappointing. Usually, you’d have a little graciousness and put someone else forward rather than grandstanding and unashamedly self-aggrandizing all your previous projects, but there we go.
Anyway – Fox Friday, first cab off the rank. And how does that cab drive? It pours dark as pitch, oily and viscous with a brown head. The barest amount of light that can peek through around the edges shows the brew to be a deep brown rather than the russet of the eponymous fox. Smells like lush vanilla, raspberry, chocolate and coconut on the nose, rich and slightly jammy, like a chocolate jamball donut. Tastes extremely thick and viscous, like drinking chocolate syrup with raspberry jam through it. Very sweet, with a (welcome) bitter note of dusty cocoa and alcohol heat through it. Despite being 10.5% it’s not hot like spirit, but more like wine. The texture is velvety like a reduced and honeyed port or liqueur. There isn’t a great deal of fizz, instead presenting a lusciousness like melted icecream. Combined with that syrupy nature it’s like butterfat or cream in the mouth, going down like an intense, melted Belgian chocolate-cherry ice-cream or maybe a Black Forest gateau. Very jammy for something that contains no actual red fruit. I feel like they were maybe going for a lamington type thing – the toastiness of the coconut blends pretty seamlessly into the all-encompassing chocolate notes, and so is a bit… well, subtle is not a word I could use for this brew, but lamington-ness falls away and becomes a big, boozy chocolate and berry cake. The yeasty esters that add that red fruit flavour are not overly intense, but add roundness and additional bitterness to this very lightly hopped beer.
It is perhaps a bit too much for me – I like my stouts a little drier and roastier and this is too thick and sweet for my tastes. For all that, it isn’t too, too much – it is a decent drop, and I love its Christmas-ness. It’s rich as all get-out but not overly cloying and unpalatable. As it warms it retains its roundness, rather than separating out into constituent spheres of booze/sweetness/richness. Surprisingly drinkable for something so huge. As I near the end of the glass, the warmth causing all the flavours to intensify still hasn’t rendered it undrinkable. I don’t think I’d order more than one in a pub, but I wouldn’t regret choosing it as my last, lingering drop of the evening. The final sip – 3.1 standard drinks in – goes down as smooth as silk.
TL;DR: like putting a slice of black forest cake and a slug of port into a blender. As thick and sweet as you’d expect from that description, but somehow it holds together better than you’d think.
Bonus chocolate: Milk chocolate salted caramel truffle. The saline crystals help to cut through the soft, rich, fudgy caramel. It is sweet, but not too sweet. Also helps to cut through the sweetness of the beer somewhat. Delicious. A good start.
Saturday, December 2nd – Mountain Culture Pavlova Palaver 10.9% Triple WCIPA
The can design is lovely and lush and the beer pours classic IPA – bright amber or orange/yellow with a white head. Smells entirely like a fruit salad with an almost peach-yoghurt-and-biscuit base. So faintly like a cheesecake, almost, one championing citrus and stonefruit. The booze heat is certainly present, thrumming through the sweetness but married well with the bitterness at the back. There is a light tropical overnote that slips into an almost treacly morass of the bitter and the esterous, but it isn’t overpowering. The bitterness mounts and mounts – and then fades, allowing bigger and bigger pops of orange, and of mango, and of passionfruit before returning to dank, pithy bitterness. The triplitude manifests as being generally thicker and more viscous, and certainly less spritzy than you might usually find in a typical IPA. The syrupiness intensifies as it warms and opens up, lending some apricot delight vibes. Could be the booze, could be the good company I’m in, but the bitterness has all but faded by the end. Though genuinely big and strong, it never quite reaches the point of feeling like a chore to drink, as TIPA’s often do. It’s not precisely ‘easy-drinking’ but I could certainly see myself finishing one and ordering another before realising that would mean having somewhere around 6.2 standard drinks.
TL;DR: As a triple IPA it presents its usual papers – big tropical fruit aromas and flavours, sweetish malt, big bitterness, but it flings them right into your teeth. Albeit in a way that doesn’t alienate, and rather ingratiates it to you, somehow. More cheesecake than pavlova, more beer than dessert. Good stuff.
Bonus Chocolate: Speculoos crumb fudgy ganache. Has a sort of marzipan characteristic, smooth but with a crumbly (duh) texture. Caramelised, biscuity and delightful. Eaten separate to the beer so it can’t be rated on its pairing, but it was lovely.
Sunday, December 3rd – Sobremesa Al Dente Redcurrant and Cranberry Barrel Aged Blended Saison 5.8%
Pours a beautiful, vibrant, electric ruby-pink, with a rapidly subsiding pink foam head. Smells like acid and bret funk, like boiled lollies dissolved in vinegar in a horse stable. Crisp, sharp acidulousness – the spiky berry acidity blends into the vinegar in a complex interplay of vitriolic brightness. There is a thrumming vibrancy to the keenness of the acid – like the tartest parts of red berries, and the not heavy-handed but definitely-present biscuity funk from the years on oak. There is none of the sugar to become cloying, though there is a little fructose sweetness to highlight the beautifully sharp sourness of the brew. Intense is a word which springs to mind, like slightly unripe raspberries in apple cider vinegar made into a tart, zesty, pithy and citric lemonade. I’d definitely order it again, though perhaps not immediately. For all its brightness, it scours the back of the throat and the tongue, leaving scorched earth behind it. Feels like a bright new take on a very classic Belgian fruited lambic. Like many things of its ilk, it seems to magically mellow and get easier to drink as the glass nears its end. Perhaps that is the cells in my mouth deadening and shrivelling up from the acid, or perhaps it’s just balanced nicely enough to be enjoyable to the point of even becoming almost quaffable as it warms slightly. The fruit and sweetness feels much more noticeable in these final gulps.
TL;DR: Tart berries, old school funk and sour combo with a modern twist. Intense, but lovely.
Bonus chocolate: Dark hazelnut cluster. Velvety dark chocolate enrobing rich, crunchy, roasted hazelnuts and shot through with flecks of toffee praline. Deepens the beer’s flavour a little, turns those bright redcurrant, cranberry, raspberry type flavours into deeper, pruney plums. Delicious.
Monday, December 4th – Seeker Brewing Blue Blaze Thiol Haze IIPA 8%
Pours clear and light, settling in the glass as a lightly muzzy, pale, yellow-orange IPA with a white head. Smells like thick tropical nectar, passionfruit and mango. First sip is a big punch in the mouth of tropical hops, musk sticks, sweetness and bitterness. A hoppy brew with strong perfume notes of passionfruit and a deep, orange-syrup characteristic, quite thick but with a lengthening and lingering bitterness. The flavour is something that feels like it would go very well as a quenchiful brew, but with the mouthfeel being so syrupy, and that vinous booze along with the bitterness lingering down the back of the palate make it a bit more of a mouthful. Though not in an arduous way. It lacks just a touch of balance – you can feel all the elements, the hop profile, the malt profile etc but just ticking a little out of phase. However, it kinda comes to harmony after a few sips. A big, bold, light and quite lovely brew. I could see myself (attempting) sessioning a few of these, but with a second one you’d find yourself clocking in at something like 5 standard drinks, so maybe pump the brakes a little. Still, it was 30 odd degrees today, and this big beer found itself quite welcome this evening. The hop flavour is intense and concentrated in a way that I am not overly familiar with, leaving an almost saline and herbal, aniseed note to the palate, along with all of those more juicy, tropical aromas and flavours.
TL;DR: A thicker, wobblier imperial IPA, heaps of juicy hop flavours. Decent but a touch out of balance.
Bonus chocolate: Almond praline. Kind of like a Guylian seashell/Nutella vibe with a lighter characteristic, with an almond button of white chocolate and a touch of salt. Interestingly, when consumed alongside the beer, it provides an alchemical change from Nutella to a pineapple donut aspect, but one that sat in the box alongside the classic jamball and had a little chocolate icing and a touch of jam left on the side. Quite, quite delicious. Paired well. Good alone also, if perhaps a touch sweet in that way that white chocolate tends to be.
Tusesday, December 5th – Boatrocker Steinbock Stone Beer 8.5%
Pours a beautifully deep copper colour with a rapidly subsiding white head. It looks like some kind of sparkling toffee as it pours and catches the light, which carries a ruby hue as it shines through this comparatively clear brew. Smells like caramel and gingerbread, with light notes of chocolate and coffee, vanilla and the tiniest trace of that banana bread that German beers so often have. The first mouthful is rich, toasted brown bread with a light buttering and smear of vegemite. It has a robust body and characteristic – less sweet than I had assumed (though there is sweetness present) with a pleasingly bitter finish. Classically to the style of a doppelbock, it manifests considerably more like a lager than the amber ale it presents as – the eye says ‘sweet’ but the palate says ‘lush, malty lager’. Definitely a delicious brew, one I would happily have several of in some autumnal pub somewhere. The satisfying and full-bodied brew conceals its abv shockingly well – two pints of this would go down a treat but also deposit a whopping 8 standard drinks into your system. Well played, Boatrocker.
TL;DR: Deliciously malty, complex, interesting, full-bodied German lager. Full marks for both Christmas novelty and execution.
Bonus chocolate: Dark Raspberry Ganache – what it says on the tin. Plush dark chocolate and bright raspberry in a smooth chocolate truffle. Again, delicious. The chocolate pairs surprisingly well with the beer – at this point its starting to feel a little like Koko Black and Carwyn Canvent have a bit of a Dark Side of Oz thing going on here. The bittersweet chocolate leans into the complementary beer flavours nicely, taking on a toastier characteristic as well as something of a cherry and coconut quality, and the roastiness manifests a dry, bitter, matcha finish.
Wednesday, December 6th – Two Bays Broader Horizon Hazy IPA 6.3%
This gluten-free millet-and-rice-malt drop pours like a standard hazy IPA, an almost milky yellow, opaque liquid looking for all the world like a tropical banana nectar fruit juice. The main difference seems to be the head, which even poured hard barely amounted to anything, and slunk away quite quickly. Smells invitingly tropical with a dank, savoury undertone. Tastes more on the west coast of the IPA spectrum rather than the east, with fruit and flowers all along the fore and a strong, bitter backbone that hangs together quite well. This beer holds the distinction of being the first gluten-free beer that I have tried that wasn’t, as the old adage goes, like making love in a canoe. The robust IPA characteristics hold your attention on all fronts – aroma, flavour and bitterness, with just the barest suggestion that this beer is maybe somehow thinner or more watery than a traditionally brewed ale might be. I could very easily drink this for a session, and though it isn’t a light by any means – at 6.3% and nearly 2 standards per can – it goes down smooth.
It is an interesting beer because it quite effectively straddles the line of juicy-and-spritzy hoppy IPA and dank-and-bitter hoppy IPA. Even in a regular brew, I feel that this is to be applauded. As time passes though, the beer gets flatter and flatter, failing to hold onto that CO2 and taking on a significantly more citrus-pith-bitter note than you’d expect from a hazy – typically a style more akin to fruit juice than traditional IPAs. Still, I really, really must commend Two Bays highly for this effort – it’s a gluten free beer that I would not just make do with, but happily thrive on. I have never been able to say that about a GF beer before – they are typically too thin, or fail to carry their flavours appropriately, or are bluntly just mediocre beers, but this is a magnificent effort. Gives me hope for the future of the genre.
TL;DR: A quality hazy IPA on its own merits, and a shockingly good one for a gluten-free offering.
Bonus chocolate: Macadamia and Wattleseed white chocolate ganache enrobed in dark chocolate. I mean, obviously – delicious. The bitter dark chocolate and the silky white chocolate ganache fight over whether or not this is too sweet, and eventually settle on an uneasy balance. The flavour of the macadamia puree and the roasted wattlseed are a little savoury and nutty and delightful. When you take a sip of the beer after a mouthful of this, it takes on a much more astringent note, whether that’s the roastiness of the wattlseed or the sweetness bringing out the contrast with the hops, who knows. It also takes on, bafflingly, a sort of black pepper and chicken liver pate sort of quality – in a good way, if such a thing can be said. This pairing is an intriguing experiment I’d be happy to conduct again, but probably wouldn’t necessarily recommend.
Thursday, December 7th – One Drop Worm Hole Sour Worms Sour Ale 6.9%
Rad can. Pours a deep, muddy purple red, like cloudy beetroot juice or Ribena with a fluffy, lacy pink head. It smells like a bag of sugary lollies, cough syrup, berries and citrus. The flavour is instantly intense – very sweet, very sour. Straight away I can tell that this is not a beer for me. The flavour is like – yes, fine – sour worms, but it also has a medicinal quality like cough drops or Hydralyte or similar. It is a sugary, syrupy mess, frankly. There are, bobbing about in this stew, some flavours that are pleasant – sharp, vinegar notes and fruity lolly tones. But even just the muddy glass is a sign that this is not a well-considered beer. It is ‘fun’ – I commend them for that, and my partner (who hates sour beers but loves sour worms) says that this is better than any other sour she’s tried. She still didn’t like it though.
Ultimately, it’s just an artificially sugary, sweet, cacophony rather than any sort of pleasant harmony. It’s not utterly without redeeming features, but I can’t honestly recommend it. Too sour and far too sweet, not overly visually appealing – it’s a pity, because I like One Drop, and this is maybe my favourite can design so far, and certainly one of my favourite concepts. The idea could perhaps be workshopped and explored by someone further down the line – who wouldn’t want a sour with the flavour of childhood favourites? Sour lollies, sour beer – the concept is ready made. But it needs to be someone who is willing to act with a bit more restraint rather than this jubilantly, Moondog or Wonka-esque nightmare. Which… I begrudgingly admire them for, in a way. This is a childish, joyful celebration of Christmas time, and I love the playfulness of the brew. Just not the brew itself.
Full disclosure – I poured about half of this out, and only got that far through sheer bloody mindedness. I don’t remember the last time I poured a beer out.
TL;DR: The first true failure of the calendar for me, a too sweet, too artificial, utterly incoherent brew.
Bonus chocolate: Delayed to be eaten later, because the can itself was already too much sugar and the chocolate would have been lost. It was a dark chocolate Baileys truffle. The dark chocolate and the whiskey flavours create something almost subtly sour in this little choccy. A crisp outer shell and a boozy, smooth and flowing interior was a delightful pairing with a coffee a few days after… the worm beer. Liqueur truffles – what’s not to like? A classic for a reason.
Friday, December 8th – Spotty Dog Doppelschwarz 8%
Pours black as pitch with a thick brown head. Smells like spicy, chocolate-chip banana bread. Tastes like 100% chocolate cacao spread onto burnt toast with a little banana – initially rich and bready malt that ends shockingly bitter. Acrid, really. It tastes like it was made with 100% burnt malt, maybe some oatmeal, and filtered through spent coffee grounds and oversteeped tea leaves. And was then bittered with strong hops. Having been brewed by a thrice-divorced stand-up comedian who left the Beatles the day before they blew up. It’s bitter, is what I’m saying, and this from someone who drinks multiple double espresso daily and IPAs and Campari weekly. It’s almost overwhelming at first, but after a few sips, the palate acclimates, and it is possible to glean all the forepalate flavours before the bitterness kicks in at the back. What is interesting is the suddenness and severity of the dropoff – palate says fine, fine, fine oh no! Plunging off the cliff of pleasant and approachable flavours to dash to pieces on the bitter rocks below.
I don’t know if I’m just out of practice with bitterness or something, if I’ve experienced a negative shift in my lupulin threshold. Feels rich and full and chocolatey, with a little sweetness and a pleasant mouthfeel. You can barely notice the alcohol, for a big 8 percenter. But really, trying to focus on anything other than that bitterness is like trying to read dry history books at a topless parade. There’s really only one thing that holds your attention, and it ain’t The Decline of the Roman Empire.*
*It’s the big, bouncing, astringent titties.
TL;DR: I really want to like it – everything works quite well up until its shockingly bitter burnt-malt back palate which dominates and drowns out everything else.
Bonus chocolate: Yuzu and mandarin dark chocolate. Like the orange portion of the ‘Snack’ chocolate or similar, but with the elegance dialled up. Quite delightful. Smooth as silk, bright and spritzy citrus crème in dark chocolate. More orange on some bites, more lemon curd on others but yuzu all the way through. It pairs initially very well, leaning quite comfortably into the dark chocolate profile of the beer, but ultimately exacerbates the bitterness, resetting the tolerance you built up. Worth it though. Very delicious, but not a perfect match – I don’t really know what would be.
Saturday, December 9th – Good Land Brewing Co Amusement Park Fairy Floss IPA 6%
Love the novelty of the can arriving with 3d glasses, making the label, bedighted with pinks and blues and purples really pop. Fully expecting a bright pink, it actually pours like a lovely NEIPA, pale yellow and hazy as witbier with a fluffy white head. The scent of peachy sweetness pours out along with the beer, with a hint of sweet vanilla. And it tastes like that – sweet vanilla and light citrus and stonefruit. The body is thinner than you’d expect, though it gives an almost pavlova vibe, finishing with a very light fruit salad and pith bitterness. Though sweet and somewhat lacking in balance, it isn’t overly cloying. I could drink a few of these, but I’d probably prefer a different brew. That said, this is a beer that has both established and then almost instantly subverted my expectations. It isn’t super sweet, it isn’t shocking pink, it has more bitterness than you’d think. I expected it to be sickly and unpalatable, but it’s actually rather good. Not quite as juicy, fresh and fruity as a NEIPA, not quite as full bodied and finely flavoured as a regular IPA, it sits outside of the sweet spot of what I like, but it is still, undeniably, pretty good.
TL;DR: Pretty decent hazy that gives pavlova and IPA together. Not perfect, but not bad, and not what you expect which is always to be commended.
Bonus chocolate: Rum & raisin milk chocolate truffle. Suave, lacking much of the graininess you’d expect from a blended raisin concoction. Tastes like Christmas – sweet, smooth, booze pudding. Goes very well with the beer, the sweetness mingling and the boozy fruit marrying well, though the bitterness at the back clashes with the flavours of the truffle. Which really does, for all the world taste like fruitcake and plum pudding, but elegant and subtle and sophisticated. Elevated. Like the brute force of centuries old British cookery, dried fruit and suet steamed puddings has finally been refined into its best elements. I tend to not much care for rum and raisin – such an old-fashioned flavour – but I could eat this all day.
Sunday, December 10th – Hopocrisy OLI Obesely Large IPA 9%
Simple but impactful can design, black on black with Christmas theming, it’s another that sets an expectation and goes another direction. Pouring more hazy than trad IPA, it has the amber colouring but not the clarity I was expecting, with a thick white head. Smells and tastes like orange and grapefruit marmalade and tastes like mixed peel as well as stewed and/or candied fruit, with a bitter backbone. The boiled orange flavour is at the fore, and the whole thing tastes in keeping with the Christmas theme. Lost in the borderlands between Imperial NEIPA and WCIPA, it has much more fruit juice hops and malt sweetness than your average IPA, but more astringence and dry bitterness than your average NEIPA, all wrapped up in a quite thick brew. It takes me back to the days of the IPA pissing contests, when people tried to make bigger and bigger beers with more and more hops, but never quite wielded them as delicately nor as artfully as the next wave did. Just big, bludgeoning swings of handfuls of hops cones, with bigger malt bills and bigger ABV’s to support them. It has that B-I-G-ness, without the balance – it’s more of a challenge beer than a delightful one. It’s not bad, but there is definitely a sort of person who would like this more than me. You know the type – they were there, man, when beer crawled out of the macro swamp and little brewers were doing big things with hops. It’s not really a beer for me, but I don’t hate it. I might drink it again, but I wouldn’t rush out for it.
TL;DR: Old school too-big IPA, loads of citrus in the hops – boiled and fresh – like a half Imperial NEIPA, half WCIPA. Not for me, but conceivably for you.
Bonus chocolate: Dark salted caramel. Perhaps a little too much salt, and the caramel has a touch of graininess to preclude the usual smoothness. However, that’s really just nit-picking. Salt, caramel, dark chocolate – a winning combination if ever there was one. Rounds out the sweetness in the beer to full fruity glory – works surprisingly well, actually. Adds a little jamminess to the brew also, transforming it for all the world into a hot-jam donut flavour. Another fine chocolate that pairs surprisingly well with its counterpart.
Monday, December 11th – Your Mates Hazy Pale Ale 5.5%
Another hazy. Have there been that many or does it just feel that way? This one has the distinction of being the only ‘normal’ sounding attempt so far, pouring on the clearer, golden side of the hazy spectrum with a regular white foam. It couldn’t smell more like orange, mango and passionfruit juice without actually being a glass of orange, mango and passionfruit juice. Guess how it tastes? Yep. But it’s just a little bit of a crispy-boi, which you might expect from the Queensland brewery. Less lush and fluffy than a regular hazy, more on the bitter hop side of things, this is friggin’ delicious. The calendar’s balance has been off a bit this year, with more fun ‘gold star for effort’ experimental Christmas-theme beers and fewer ‘this is genuinely delicious’ beers, but this one helps to re-right the course. Possibly a little far in the other direction actually, as this is just a pretty plain, regular beer. Albeit one done very well and almost directly tailored to my tastes. Has the easy drinking nature of a pale ale, the juicy deliciousness of a hazy, the crispiness of a lager and the slightly sharp edge of a good hoppy brau. Hats off. Expect to see this one in cans later.
One note, however – this Canvent Calendar is the opportunity for these breweries to flex their wings and try something a little new and different. It doesn’t need to be commercially viable, it doesn’t have to hit all the right metrics and perform to its KPI’s. It doesn’t have to worry about passing through approvals boards, testing, focus groups, more testing and release. It has a captive audience of insufferable beer nerds who, frankly, could find something to love in the damp underside of a rock if they thought it was true to the Belgian abbey style. If Your Mates hadn’t had an opportunity to knock out a hazy pale before, then they’ve done a wonderful job for their first time around, and good on them for trying it. If they had already made one though… well, it might seem kinda lazy, just banging a good hazy pale in a can and calling it a day. There really doesn’t seem to be any sort of nod at all to the Christmas theme or the ‘special’ nature of the beers. Still, delicious beer, so, I guess that’s what really counts? Even if I immediately forget about it in the face of all the myriad delicious hazies available commercially from almost every brewery.
TL;DR: A proper, delicious beer. Very normal, orange and mango/passionfruit type hazy IPA with no wild experimentation or Christmas theming to it. A contender for favourite, but with points marked down for lack of originality.
Bonus chocolate: Milk chocolate Christmas pudding. Similar to the rum raisin, it’s wonderfully smooth but also kinda old-school with its dried fruit and pudding spice flavours, albeit elevated to a modern interpretation without the clumsy bluntness of its namesake. Brings out the fruitiness of the beer, and the bitterness of the hops transmutes the sweet milk chocolate into a nicely bitter dark chocolate flavour. Again, delightful.
Tuesday, December 12th – Moffat Beach Brewing co. Stormburst Pacific IPA 7%
Can is beautiful and wonderfully inviting, with a gilded, twilight storm over the sea looking for all the world like some sort of delicious dessert. Pours golden and compellingly clear with a thick white crown of froth. Smells like toffee and… is that pineapple? Passionfruit? Citrus, for sure. Hard to make these beers sound different, given their similarities in profile, but they are as distinct as you and I. This is like a Stone and Wood dialled up – more bitter and with more of a booze sharpness underneath those lightly sweet fruity notes. The hops manifest in a far more traditional IPA sort of a way than any of the fuzzy concoctions we’ve had so far. This is a more crisp, bitter, thirst slaking brew with a good amount of fizz to drive the serious edge of the hops. It’s a little more difficult to pick out those individual hop flavours – the previous iterations this go-around being heavy on the stonefruit, or mango and passionfruit etc. This just has what you may describe as a fruity and floral flavour with a bit of orange and lashings of grapefruit and only very lightly resinous afterpalate, and a wonderful lingering bitterness. A cracking, fresh IPA. As with the previous entry, it is distinct for being purely a good beer – my favourite so far? – but doesn’t really get any points for inventiveness or Christmas theming. Except… this being a muggy, steamy, humid 30+ degree day, it is an ideal beer for a Nostralian Chrissie.
TL;DR: Spanky fresh IPA, bold but delicate and well balanced hops. Maybe my favourite, but again marked down for kinda just being a regular beer.
Bonus chocolate: Eaten later, and as such, unpaired. Milk chocolate hazelnut crisp. Like Nutella with crispy bits through it, enrobed in milk chocolate. Purely delightful. Obviously sweet, rich and nutty, crispy and smooth. Another winner.
So that is the first half of this year’s offerings. And how is it going so far? I am *loving* it. Standouts include the Steinbock from Boatrocker, with full marks for hitting all the important metrics of interesting, unusual, Christmassy, delicious and artful. They also include the Your Mates Hazy and the Stormburst Pacific IPA from Moffat Beach Brewing co, for making some purely delicious beers, albeit without much of a nod to Christmas or truly innovation-led beer design. I also have to commend Two Bays for their Broader Horizon Hazy IPA, for turning me around on an entire subsection of beer by giving me a GF beer I could love on. Special mention also to the standout chocolates of the experience, the yuzu and mandarin truffle and the dark chocolate hazelnut crisp for their deliciousness and elegance, and also to the rum raisin and plum pudding pralines for their deliciousness and their refinement.
However, on the other side, we have the jeers to countermand the cheers, The One Drop Worm Hole sour worm beer was a nightmare. If I pour out a beer rather than just finishing it quickly, you know something’s gone wrong. The Spotty Dog Doppelschwarz was also a bit of a disappointment – it was so close to being a delight but was just… not. There were a few others that left me feeling flat, but nothing that deserves a proper name-check for their disappointment. To Koko Black’s credit, every one of their chocolates was a triumph, so keep up the good work there, folks.
Well. Halfway through. Stay tuned for the next installment to see how it finishes off. Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel. And I hope you had a Merry Christmas and a happy new year!
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