Posted on September 2, 2015
My wife has her priorities right
“I’m always worried I’ll break our Santorini glasses. They’re pretty much the only thing we own that is fragile, and I really care about, and can’t be replaced. Except like, our birth certificates. Well, no–we can replace those.”
Posted on August 27, 2015
One month of Schoonerversity
Today marks one month of Schoonerversity. To celebrate, I drank a schooner of I Heart Lager, by Black Hops Brewing and 4 Hearts Brewing, and finally wrote an About page. I know how to party.
Updated on August 23, 2015
Feeling a little Rusty?
We’ve been known to steal things from New Zealand on occasion—Russell Crowe, Pavlova, Phar Lap. It’s not like we’ve never given anything back. After all, we let them use David Wenham in Lord of the Rings. But now we’ve given New Zealand back a far greater gift to make up for it all—the honour of being the inspiration for the one-off brew, Rusty Crowe’s Pavlova Pale Ale.
It’s the brainchild of a bar, a blog, and a brewery. Or rather, the people behind them. I don’t know the origin story, but I do know that the folk from The Scratch, 250 Beers, and Newstead Brewing Co got together one day to peel kiwifruit, scoop passionfruit, and chop strawberry. They added Riwaka hops (also from NZ) and yeast and beer magic (I like to think they did some kind of ritual dance around the fermenting tank), and out came the Rusty, sitting comfortably at 6.1% ABV.
Like the kindly people they are, they didn’t keep the beer to themselves. They took it to the Beervana beer festival in Wellington, New Zealand, where they won the Media Brew award. (And this even though they thought it didn’t taste as good there as it did back home!)
After Beervana, there were 3 kegs left. One of them for The Scratch. One of them for Newstead Brewing Co. And one to be locked up in a time capsule so that the people of 2115 know that the people of 2015 made great beer. (That last one is a lie. I don’t know where the final keg is for.)
And on Friday, I saw The Scratch post on Instagram that they were tapping their keg. So I walked over to give it a shot.
It was a clear light golden colour, with little head. There was strawberry and huge passionfruit on the nose. From my first sip, there was nothing overpowering, none of that ridiculous novelty beer-ruining sweetness of many fruit beers. Rather, it had all those weird and wonderful aromas and complex flavours you get in a really bright fruity IPA, with some slight bitterness at the last. One of the beer’s fathers, Darren from 250 Beers, had told me that they added oats to make it creamy, but I didn’t pick up any of the creaminess. In fact, almost the opposite—I found it to be quite crisp and palate-cleansing. I’d been expecting pavlova-like creaminess, but I can honestly say I wasn’t disappointed. It was a fine brew.
The entire keg was gone in a few hours. Word travels quickly, and award-winning beers don’t last long. But Rusty’s memory will live on.
P.S. For an insider perspective and pics of the brewing day, see this post by 250 Beers.
P.P.S. While I was sipping my Rusty, there was a guy sitting at the bar with a bunch of flowers next to him. I like to think he bought the flowers pre-emptively for when he got home and his wife was annoyed that he stayed late at the bar.
Updated on August 27, 2015
Impulse buy: 4 Pines Baltic Porter
I’m not usually an impulse buyer. But when I walked past a bottle shop on Tuesday and saw them advertising 4 Pines Baltic Porter, I couldn’t resist.
It’s one of 4 Pines’ Keller Door limited releases, and it’s been haunting my Instagram feed for a while now. I thought it must have been haunting my vision as well, with some sort of hallucination or mirage, when I saw it written in the window at Spiros, the humble-looking bottle shop at Paddington. But I blinked and did a double-take, and it turned out my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me. I headed in and found that this unassuming little shop was a craft beer haven. The fridge was full of obscure and delightful beers from around Australia and the world. Unfortunately I was too dazzled to take a photo (that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it), but believe me when I say it was impressive. I stuck to my guns and got my 500mL Baltic Porter, and made a mental note to come back here with more time, money, and a bib to catch my drool.
The side of the bottle is enticing indeed:
“A gypsy show behind the iron curtain, in a bottle. You will be greeted by a slightly aggressive tutu wearing circus bear juggling ignited knives & riding a tricycle. A smug Cossack stands in the corner dousing himself in gooey chocolate syrup, looking on.
Smooth and warming with a rich, sweet body, this blend has been partially aged in French oak whisky barrels for 6 months to give it a unique complexity of light vanilla & earthy minerals.”
Now, I didn’t recognise those flavours. But that evening, I surprised my wife with a dark beer that smells like a red wine and tastes like a black coffee. Even with a partially-blocked nose, I was flooded with aromas and flavours that kept getting bigger as the beer warmed up, and left with a silky finish lingering on my tongue.
If you haven’t tried one yet—do. I won’t promise that you’ll get light vanilla and earthy minerals, or even red wine and coffee. But I will promise that every drop that passes between your lips will be life-giving.
Oh, and enjoy the great artwork on the label. You will indeed find a juggling bear on a tricycle and a gooey Cossack. I’m keeping the bottle.
Posted on August 7, 2015
Blog moved to schoonerversity.com
Big news, everyone!
Well, it’s not that big. But it’s not tiny, either. It excited me.
Medium news, everyone!
A mate of mine did me the favour of procuring the URL schoonerversity.com, to replace schoonerversity.wordpress.com. Isn’t he a legend?
No longer will you have to slavishly type in a mammoth 29 characters to get to your favourite beer blog. You may kick back and type in a leisurely 19 characters, and you will be whisked away to your online utopia. (Or, you know, you could let autofill take care of it. Either way.)
To all of you who have set Schoonerversity as your homepage, make sure you change it to the new address (you know who you are). To all of you who’ve got schoonerversity.wordpress.com tattooed across your chest, don’t worry—one day you’ll get really old, and be able to fold the wrinkles to cover the ‘wordpress’ bit.
To all of you who are just normal, semi-sane readers: just note the change in address, because I’ll be posting exclusively at schoonerversity.com from now on.
Thanks for tagging along, my beery friends. Hope you’re enjoying this as much as I am.
