G’day Guys and welcome to the new monthly wrap up/accountability post on Beer O’Clock Australia. The idea I have is that I’ll put this post up in roughly the first week of each month & it will hopefully encourage me to finish this project at some point! I’ve already given up on the idea of finishing it this year with the amount of stuff I still have to do this year; I think a more realistic target is mid-2024.

Year of the Local

The state of play. Currently according to my list there are 245 breweries/brewing companies in Victoria. Admittedly I haven’t done a cull of the contract brands for quite some time – so that may reduce that number. Currently I have 84 posts to right, beers from 32 brands to try & 15 breweries to visit. 2 new brewing companies were added in January; Devilbend Farm Beer Co & Dem Cats Brewing.

January saw me visit 3 breweries, however only 2 of them were new for Year of the Local, Farm Dog & La Sirene. I did manage to try beers from 4 new Victorian producers; the aforementioned Farm Dog, Great Ocean Road Brewing, 38th Parallel Brewing & Devilbend Farm Beer Co.

Untappd

I’ve been slightly surprised how many comments/questions I’ve gotten since I stopped doing the Untappd posts. I mean there’s a very easy way you can find this data… In any case I got 27 badges in January, 22 of which were unique. The duplicates were:

  • Cheers to Independent U.S. Craft Breweries (3)
  • Low Gravity (2)
  • You Don’t Know Brett! (2)
  • Sky’s the Limit (2)

Those badges really tell the story of the month. Or more accurately one day at Carwyn… The Side Project event in mid-January was crazy – the big name stouts lived up to the hype, the mixed fermentation stuff was better than expected. Raising the Heat is a badge I haven’t seen for quite sometime – so I thought I’d include the artwork; it’s for Herbed/Spiced beers, which also incorporates ancient styles like Gruit. So levels of that don’t pop around anywhere near as much as some others…

Beer of the Week

Week 1 – Rodenbach Red Tripel

There wasn’t a heap of contenders in week one – but this Rodenbach offering really stood out. Brewed for their 200th Anniversary, this beer combines the sweetness of a Tripel with caramel notes & a mild acidity that really elevates it to another level. If you like Tripels & Rodenbach it’s a match made in heaven!

Week 2 – Blackman’s Juicy Banger

Everytime I have Juicy Banger I wonder why it’s been so long since I last had it! One of very few Australian made IPL’s still kicking around. The combination of the crisp lager finish & the bright tropical hops make it such a wonderful beer.

Week 3 – Side Project Beer Barrel Time Rye (2020)

It was always going to be a question of which Side Project Stout took out Week 3’s Beer of the Week award. Rye was probably always a slight favourite given my penchant for it & it did the right thing and saluted. It had the most barrel character of the 4 we tried & had this really interesting almost fig like character to it. All 4 bottle pours at the Carwyn event were world class. My hot take from the event; For Gabe is overrated!

Week 4 – Devilbend Stumpy Lager

Devilbend Farm Beer Co is a brewery on the Mornington Peninsula that I know very little about at this stage. I’ve been told they’re attempting to do full estate beers, growing everything on site, but I’m yet to confirm that. 1 thing I do know is that their Stumpy Lager is available at the Somers General Store – near my parents beach house. The other thing I know about them is that they make a damn good lager!

Other Stuff

I got a new dog. His name is Copper, like the colour, & he’s a rescue Red Heeler (Australian Cattle Dog). We think he’s roughly a year old. He’s very wary of people but is pretty cool & settling in really well. We’re hoping to get him to the point where we can take him to a quiet brewery in a few weeks time. We’ll keep you all updated if there’s enough interest. Anyway, I think this has been reasonably comprehensive. Let me know if you’ve got any thoughts or anything you’d like to see added to this over the coming months at angus@beeroclockaustralia.com.

Remember it’s always Beer O’Clock somewhere in the world!