brewshare at the local

When you invite people into your home and ply them with alcohol, it's very unlikely they're going to say anything negative, or even particularly critical, about the experience. So I was scared but also drawn to the brewshare night at the local taphouse in darlinghurst like a fat blowfly bouncing into the deadly blue light of a mozzie zapper. I was daunted, walking into a room full of 30 or more strangers to have my beer tasted and dissected by a group of people who mostly know more than I do about beer. The daunt was literally flaking off my arms leaving a mess all over the floor (it smelled like gruyere)

It turned out I was among friends. What unfolded was a night of civilised drinking, tipsy conversation and all-round good cheer. I tasted a lot of beer and still had a hoppy flavour in my mouth a day later. There was some stand-out entries, including a mango beer, some kind of crazy belgian raspberry beer and some american pale ale that was so strongly hopped it made my eyes water, with beer tears, which is more pleasant than it sounds.

The next brewshare is on the 18th of may, and it's worth going to even just for the experience of not having to share the local with after-work-suited-wankers. I love the vibe and the thing of the place and getting to hang out with beer nerds drinking bubbly grain alcohol in there is one of those experiences ... do you know the kind I mean? When you're right at the point of drunkeness that you mostly have bodily control but a pleasant layer of cheer and goodwill has settled on your brain. You're losing the ability to speak but you don't need to cause everything mostly makes sense, people are smilling at you and you have a comfy couch under you, keeping you stable. That's the moment that I love and being in a pub like the local, with it's dark wood and tarnished furniture, it's uncountable rows of condensationed taps*, I can just sink, comfortably, into it and let the conversations flow right through me.

*ok, someone's probably counted them

feral

I had the good fortune to drink and dine at the local in darlinghurst on my birthday. My wife and I shared the banquet, a series of 5 generous courses with matched beers. It's unusual to feel full after the first course in a degustation-style meal, but that's where the big plate of meatballs took us. In the end I had to be rolled out, as I emitted happy little beer burps.

This blog isn't about food, though, so let me get right down to it and say that I had a truly happy beer experience when I got to taste some of Feral Brewery's Razorback barleywine. This was so rich and malty with a sweetness that hid the hefty 11% alcoholic content. This was definitely a brew for sipping and savouring. I've never seen Feral beer for sale anywhere other than the local, but if you see it, grab it and then drink it. Don't forget that last part. You'll thank me, I know you will.

40 litres of happy

So everything I said about being too scared to brew turned out to be wrong. In the end my desire for beer overcame my fears and I am whole again.

That's a stout on the left and an ale on the right.

Too hot to brew

Our new home is a heat-sink in this filthy-hot weather. I'm scared to put on any new brews right now for fear that another 40 degree day will wipe them out. The move and the heat have also led to extreme laziness when it comes to writing new music. In the spirit of not doing it ourselves right now, the wife and I opened up a six pack of coopers mild ale and drove down the south coast listening to They Might Be Giants.

Both of these go down easy, the mild ale is particularly good for a low-alcohol beer. Not something I'd usually get into but considering driving plus children plus an un-patrolled beach it was probably for the best.

Listening to They Might Be Giants is always a rewarding experience. Their way of blending standard rock and pop progressions with something that I can only describe as experimental maths rock is something that I aspire to. They are certainly the masters of breaking a melody down into fundamental numbers and building it back up into a complex and disarming array of digital and analogue pulses that is somehow recognisable as music but strangely new, and then suddenly slipping into a familiar blues riff.

It is the kind of thing I'd like to do if I had the time or patience. But my music is all about making it up on the spot as much as possible. That's my niche and I'm sitting in it, looking out at the rest of the world in wonder and appreciation.

A beer to remember us by

I grew up in the suburbs and it never really fit me. As soon as I could I fled to the beach and hid myself in Maroubra; at the time one of the grungier Sydney beach suburbs. As I got closer to my 30's I realised that my heart was in the inner west of Sydney and moved with my wife into the colourful urban village of Glebe where we have lived since. I swore I'd never go back over the bridge - back to the cursed north side with it's sprawling suburbia - a mono-cultural wasteland in my eyes. Well all things come to an end and age dulls passion.

As time has passed a child has arrived and years of living beyond our means have left us paying back for our past enjoyments. I've managed to land a decent 9-5 job on the hated north side. The pressure of traversing the harbour each day combined with the rising insanity of anything real-estate related in anywhere-fun-to-live in Sydney has led me to suck it up and head north to (hopefully) greener pastures.

Moving house is hardly a joyful experience, but to add a bit of a bonus to the venture I've started up a house-moving brew. It will be the last beer I brew in Glebe in the near future and it will be a gift for anyone who is inclined to help us out. Come over, help us pack and drink a keg of goodbye ale: that's the deal. Let's leave our quaint little terrace house in our rejuvinated inner city slum with a bubbly, burpy smile.

Being time poor in preparation for this special occasion I took advantage of the Coopers company's generous offer and bought a homebrew kit. I couldn't resist using up the last of my fuggles hops and adding it, post boil, to the fermenter. I also added a very bracing 2kg of dextrose to the 19 litre brew to ensure a powerfully alcoholic tonic will be served. I'm betting on a strong, spicy and pleasantly bitter end to a day of manual labour and cardboard grazings (you know the kind, when you rub your lilly-white, never-done-an-honest-days-work-soft skin against cardboard till it's raw).

I couldn't help drinking a little bit of the wort and savouring the ridiculous sweetness. I love to imagine all those little sugars being gobbled up by yeast and pooped out as alcohol. The yeast is truly a god among microbes.