Do you every wonder what, where and with whom you drink beer. This week I decided to chronicle a week for #beersaturday - admittedly this is Monday to Friday week so no Saturday in there.
Monday in Victoria, the state of Australia I live in was labour Day - the celebration of the 8 hour day so we get a public holiday - in an affront to unions everywhere I'm currently working as a contractor so although I didn't work, I also didn't get paid like the salaried workers would so not quite living up to the spirit of one public holiday I get all yeah tied to something I would actually want to believe in (our other holidays are religious, for a football grand final, a horse race, the anniversary of the crowning of queen of another nation, the anniversary of that country sending our troops to pretty certain death in a battle we certainly didn't win and an increasing problematic celebration of Australia on the day that the whitey's turned up to make it a prison - don't get me wrong I love having a day off, but we do seem to choose some odd things to celebrate)
Anyway back to the beer. Now we ended up at the pub for lunch unexpectedly - it turns out most of the cafes around us were closed as it was a public holiday (penalty rates and all that) but the pub was there, and they do an amazing burger so The Three Crowns hotel it was for the first beer of the week
What is it? - A Passionfruit and Guava imperial sour from local Melbourne brewery Fury & Sons and it was delicious, It was big 7%, hazy, malty, fruity and of course sour - it was a very refreshing beer. Whilst at said pub we argued over the possible naming of the pub - It's on the corner of King Street, Victoria Street (named after queen Victoria) and Errol Street which it turns out is named after the Earl of Errol who was kind of the leader of the Scottish Catholics in the reformation and was therefore sort of a king. So maybe that's were the three kings comes from. In my research I found out the pub has always been called The Three Crowns and has been there since 1867 - which seems like a fair amount of time.
Tuesday and I'm out seeing a comedy show - now I know that sounds a bit weird - it might be the first event (other than couple of football games) with a audience I've been to in about a year or so. Okay admittedly it was outside and the crowd was spread out, a lot but it was nice to be back to something normal.
The Commedians - Anne Edmunds and Lloyd Langford - and I imagine they were working on some material for the Melbourne International comedy festival which starts in a few weeks (fingers crossed) The beer - an Aussie classic - Coopers Pale ale, or Coopers green for the knowledgeable amongst us. Coopers is Australia's largest Aust owned independent brewery.
Thursday night and time to get back to something a bit more normal for me - a nightcap. This time an United states beer - Clown Shoes Undead party crasher - which is an imperial stout, to accompany my ginger nut biscuits. The beer itself was given to my wife as part of a collection of 12 random beers as a thank-you for here work for well, some work. They understand she doesn't drink wine so when other people get thank you bottles of wine she gets beer - how nice. The beer itself didn't do much for me unfortunately, all a little dull.
The end of the working week - Friday and it's hot in Melbourne town, unseasonably so - about 28 degrees in March is a bit weird, but welcome. I'm working from home. I a strange coincidence doing some work for Australia's largest brewery (although owned by a Japanese mega brewer Asahi) so it seems apt to be drinking one of their beers - albeit from one of the craft breweries they have bought out over the years. It's Goat from Mountain Goat brewery - it's meant to be a crossover beer, and well, it is - It's super drinkable, thrist quenching, basically a perfect beer for drinking whilst finishing up some work on a Friday arvo.
And then it was off to the pub for after work drinks, again we never intended on doing this, but it's a been a long (shortened) week and I didn't feel like cooking dinner so we wandered around the corner to another classic local pub - Bobbie Peels (named for Sir Robert Peel, English Pollie noting for starting the Police force in London, hence why they are called Bobbies - and yes in olden we loved naming things after English people)
And since this is Melbourne I had a couple of Pots and a Parma. The beers in question - Crankshaft IPA from Bentspoke brewery in Canberra - This beer was recently voted the best craft beer in Australia in the Hottest 100 and I must admit I had forgotten how good it was - so beautifully balanced and drinkable, great refreshing hop character without being too much.
And then it was back to that Giant brewing company which is (indirectly) currently paying my wages. It was the South Coast Pale ale from Pirate Life brewery in SA - This is another craft brewery they bought about two years ago and this is another attempt at a cross over, easy drinking beer. Pirate Life produce some fantastic beers - this is not one of them - it's dull, but then again it's not made for me. I've already crossed over.
