If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Tonight I sampled Erdinger Champ. It was the first and probably not the last time I’ll have it.

For starters it comes in what initially looks like an unassuming bottle. There’s no way I would actually choose it based solely on its packaging. However, having got it home I discovered something very cool…. the underside of the bottle has a dip in it that is perfectly bottle-top shaped. Upon even closer inspection I found detailed instructions on the side of the bottle describing exactly how to take the top of one bottle off with the base of another!

I like their strategy - you gotta buy two bottles!

And it does actually work - although it does take a bit of effort so I wouldn’t recommend leaving the bottle opener at home.

So after my excitement gradually dwindled (it took a while - I love a good gimmick), I finally managed to actually have a taste. And I was quite pleased. It’s very mild in flavour which is not what I was expecting at all. I think because my main wheat beer experiences have revolved almost exclusively around Moo Brew’s wheat beer (it’s called something in German starting with H but I inevitably end up calling it Hilfenhousen or Shizenhousen or something not German-sounding at all in a really bad German accent. After all - who really cares?) . The Moo Brew wheat beer is very strong in flavour and has a lot of sediment. To be honest I don’t love it. I know people rave about it but it just doesn’t do it for me. But that’s another rant for another day………….

Back to our friend Champ here… It’s so mild it almost has no taste. I think I can detect a kind of sweet, flowery aftertaste. Maybe.

Or maybe I’m just being wanky.

Anyway, it’s a bit bland as far as wheat beers go. Beer in general really. But I liked it. Nothing to dislike really. And it comes in a cool bottle.

That’s got to count for something.

Last night was the type of night that would make you fake having bubonic plague just to avoid going out. It was windy and rainy - the sort of rain that goes sideways and soaks you within nano seconds of being out in it. You just have to think about going outside and there you are - drenched. And the wind was so bad that we had to shut a sock in our front door to stop it banging. A great idea from the inside - but from the outside it just looks like some weird drug-dealer sign, you know like the sneakers over the power lines? Just half a dirty sock hanging out the door, flapping in the wind. We’re all class.

But, having said all that, we did end up braving the elements.

What could possibly lure us out from our two heatpumps blasting a toasty 28 degrees each you ask???

Ham roasted in Guinness.

Oh yes, our dear friend with her bountiful knowledge of all-things-cooking, created an absolute masterpiece! The recipe was again from the Men’s Health mag and was again a total winner. Now I like ham at the best of times, but to be smoking hot out of the oven, basted in stout, and served with roasted carrot and parsnip, mexican corn bread and a perky little relish - it was nothing short of exquisite.

We drank some Grolsch with it which was refreshingly crisp compared to the salty, molassesy ham. It was a good match I think. We were wondering if we should maybe take some stout or a dark ale to have with it but I’m really glad we didn’t. I think a lighter beer definitely complimented the dish rather than over-powered it. The ham already has a very pungent flavour and when you couple it with something like Guinness, I think drinking it with a dark beer would just be overkill. I also had a Boags Premium with it too and that worked in nicely. I guess the crisp beer kind of acted as a palate cleanser in between enormous mouthfuls of dirty, fatty, delicious roast swine!

Anyway, I’m about to go and make lunch now but for some reason I can’t seem to face the little blister pack of 97% fat-free “ham” smirking up at me from the fridge.

I think I’ll just have a guinness instead.

Cheers!

Today we went to the pub for lunch. Not just any pub. Not just “the local”. But OUR pub. I feel it’s ok to call it our pub because we literally live about three doors down from it. There’s actually only one house between our back fence and said pub and I can’t tell you the times we’ve mused about tunnelling under or having a shared walk-way through the neighbour’s yard in an effort to get ourselves to the pub that 5 seconds faster. So which pub is so glorious that we should move heaven and earth to buy a house virtually next door I hear you ask?

The Cascade.

It’s one of the oldest pubs around Hobart I believe. So they really know how to cook a steak coz they’ve had a bit of practice! It’s one of the few old fashioned pubs left in town - some might call it daggy. Uncool. Because it doesn’t offer things like panini, bruschetta, salt and pepper squid or risotto. Well call me uncooth but quite frankly when I go for a counter meal - I want a freaking counter meal!!! And I’m talking chips thanks love - no salad. It’s a beautiful place. The beer is cold, the food is FANTASTIC and there’s heaps of it. None if this dainty little portion size crap at the Cascade - their sole aim in life is to give you indigestion for the rest of your working week before you finally pass something that closely resembles - in both size and weight - a house brick.

Just writing that makes me want to go back over there and order another schnitzel.

Mmmmmm………….. house brick………………

Even the pots they use are pleasing to me. They’re the little short fat ones. Not the long trendy pilsner-type. I think some of my friends find them offensive. But to me they’re lovely - they fit in your hand nicely, they make you feel like you haven’t drunk a whole pot and thus need to have twice as many and, best of all, they’re low to the table - meaning a lower centre of gravity - meaning they’re harder to knock over in a passionate moment of wild gesticulation. See? Perfect.

I love to sit there amongst the Nannas having their Roast of the Day or pureed fish or whatever it is that they’re dribbling down the front of themselves and just soak up that pub atmosphere. I think it’s great that I can take my son there and he can lodge as many soggy chips as he likes into the neighbouring customer’s hair and no-one bats an eyelid. I enjoy being served by waiting staff who look like they would gleefully jab you with a cattle prod to move you out of their way if only it was part of their workplace agreement.

It is a truly wonderful experience every time. Not an ounce of pretense. No attitude. Just great food, cold beer and a 2 minute stagger home.

I love my life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Drinking a dark ale such as Toohey’s Old after 3 Draughts is like drinking molten Vegemite. It’s Bonox in a stubbie.

Thankyou.

That is all.

Picture this if you will, a small community centre filled with at least 50 cupcakes, 70 cocktail savs, 30 kiss biscuits, 25 mini meringues, 12 slices of fairy bread, 800 chocolate crackles, various pastries, a Dolly Varden cake and 10 children all under the age of 3 who had basically consumed half of the above in roughly the time it takes you to go from being a just little bit silly to a big bit spastic.

Now imagine facing this scene with not a drop of alcohol of any variety in sight.

Welcome to the hell that was my day.

Now, it wasn’t the 10 small children hyped up on sugar and dressed as fairies that really caused me distress. (Although this in itself is decidedly distressing) It was the fact that my 15mth old son who is normally sweet, jovial and quite attractive, suddenly decided that today was the day to turn into a screaming banshee that wouldn’t look sideways at anyone without being actually on top of me. Mother of god. I would have willingly severed all four of my limbs and eaten them just to have a few beers.

I had actually prepped myself beforehand with a glass of Bailey’s and 2 cigarettes but trust me, it did nothing. NOTHING I say. By the time we got home with this pink, screeching child dressed as an elf but looking more like some sort of enraged troll, we decided to push beer o’clock forward from our usual 6 o’clock to 4 o’clock. Still about 3 and a half hours too late if you ask me.

The moral of this story is do not attempt to attend a children’s birthday party (particularly one requiring some form of costume) without first ensuring that it contains a designated wet area or secreting a hip flask the size of Alaska.

I’m off to get drunk and try to repress the day’s events.

Cheers.

The stew was passable but nothing compared to my previous effort. I suspect this was the inclusion of margarine as opposed to our full-flavoured fatty friend butter. Mmmm butter. No matter how much beer you put in - when it comes to flavour, alcohol is no much for artery-clogging, heart-stopping, palate-pleasing lard. That’s right people. I said lard.

So learn from my mistake and don’t waste good beer by mixing it with margarine.

So tonight I’m cooking a Flemish stew. With meat. And yep, you guessed it, BEER. Surely the most perfect combination on god’s great earth. I once had the most divine Flemish stew at the Belgian Beer Cafe in Melbourne and have never really been able to forget it…. sometimes I just take a moment and go to a quiet meaty place and think about that stew…. it really was that good. It was also made with Leffe - a Belgian beer that is out of this world! Both in taste and potency - you really have to take it easy with Leffe, some of them are about 8% so it pays to sit tight and appreciate the taste otherwise you could find yourself asleep in your own vomit. Oh yes. Your own vomit. TRUST me.

So, back to the stew…… (apologies for the vomit reference), I got this recipe from a recent Men’s Health mag and I believe it is the one used at the Belgian Beer Cafe. I made it a few weeks ago for some friends and it was just super! So tonight I’m doing it again but not to the recipe, I’m adding some - ba-ba-ba-bammmmmmm - VEGETABLES!!! I know, it’s like adding lemonade to beer. But there it is, we need some vegetables. I can feel scurvy starting to take hold. Now this recipe calls also for Leffe but I have been into every bottleshop in Hobart and there’s not one bottle of Leffe Brun (Brun is french for brown, it’s a dark fairly dense beer a bit akin to a stout but I think a bit sweeter. As I don’t have it here to taste I won’t get too descriptive because it would only be from memory), so kindly, the recipe’s author has included an alternative which is Toohey’s Old. I had never tried it before and am pleasantly surprised by it’s light taste. I love a good chunky stout - you know the type - a meal in a can. But this is quite light in taste and texture. A bit easier to guzzle maybe. Which always appeals.

So there you go - a somewhat long-winded way of saying that I have found a new dark beer that I think I could become quite fond of… and also a good excuse for me to drift off to the Belgian Beer Cafe in my mind where everything is made with meat and Leffe and I have a super-human tolerance to 8% beer.

I like to write. I like to drink. I like to get drunk and then write. A beer blog just seems too perfect! I’ve been anticipating this first entry for so long now that I suddenly feel under enormous pressure to get it right. What if you read this and it leaves you cold? Or worse still - FLAT. And I’m talking flat like the beer you chucked in the freezer coz it wasn’t quite cold enough….. only someone dropped round or you went to sleep or passed out on the couch in front of a Midsomer Murder and didn’t find said beer for 2 days, after which time it had frozen solid. And you’ve thought - well i’m not throwing perfectly good beer out. I’ll just leave it to defrost in the sink. It’ll be fine.

Sure.

Until you knock the top off it and instead of making that satisfying SHCHICK……. you are greeted with dead silence. But ever the optimist and reluctant to throw a beer out until it has been proven to contain actual botullism spores, you take big hearty swig and… it’s flat as a tack and tastes just a bit not right.

Well that’s what I’m frightened of. An entry that’s as flat as frozen beer.

So, my own performance anxieties aside, I am actually here to chat about beer. Because what better subject is there to write about? Tonight I am drinking my usual Cascade draught. Now I do like a good import or a boutique beer, but I was only commenting the other night (over a few Cascade premo’s and a bloody hot spa) that if I had to choose one beer to consume as my last, it would be a Cascade draught. Now it’s strange really because I actually grew up in Devonport on the North West coast of Tassie and my Dad fed me “shandies” (about 99.1% lemonade - I WAS only 4 years old!) made with the local drop of Boags. So you’d think I’d be a Boags drinker. But I really came of age here in Hobart and so, Cascade is my beer of choice. Although, when I was coming of age I would have willingly drunk anything so long as it was in my price-range and didn’t cause too much blistering of the esophagus. Which didn’t leave much. Sunnyvale cask wine still has a special place in my heart….

Anyway, back to the revered amber liquid… I hope you have found this first entry to be a crisp SHCHICK and not flat and disappointing (but still beer and thus not to be wasted!) and that you will return to read my future ramblings.

Cheers. I’m off to have another beer. A Stella.

Because some nunk-nunk didn’t get the next 6 pack of draught in the fridge in time and it’s warm and we all know where this is heading………..