Yesterday was the AFL Grand Final - which means nothing to most of you - AFL is Australian Football League, football in this instance being Australian rules football not soccer and for grand final think Superbowl or FA Cup final. The single game which determine who are the champions of the competition of the year. It's held at the MCG in Melbourne and there was 100,013 people there.
Over the last few years I've developed a tradition for watching it - I assign a brewery (maybe breweries) to each team and whoever is ahead a each break in the game (quarters, which are about 30 minutes long) determines what beer I'm drinking.
So lets meet the participants. The Teams are Sydney and Brisbane. My team is North Melbourne, who finished.....17th out of 18 teams, should we ever get back to being good I'll be at the MCG to see it - as I was in 1995 (against Sydney) and 1999 (against Carlton) when we won and 1998 (against Adelaide) when we lost it.
Both of these teams are (kind of) foundation teams of the AFL - which was formed as the VFL (Victoria football league) in 1896.
Sydney were formed as South Melbourne 1874, so are 150 years old. in 1981 they moved to Sydney to be the first team outside of Victoria (between 1981 until now it went from being a 12 team competition with 11 teams in Melbourne and one in Geelong to an 18 team competition with 9 teams in Melbourne, 1 in Geelong, two in each of Sydney, Adelaide and Perth, one on the Gold Coast in Queensland and soon to be a 19th team in Tasmania.)
Brisbane are more complicated. They are a merger of Fitzroy (started in 1883 and merged with Brisbane in 1996) and the Brisbane Bears (Who started on the Gold Coast in 1987 with a Koala as a mascot, so they were neither from Brisbane or Bears so that was confusing)
Interestingly this was the first grand final between these two teams since 1899.
And the two breweries we are going with. For Sydney we have chosen One Drop who are known for crazy smoothie sours, but also make everything else really well - founded in 2019 and quickly one of the top breweries in Australia
For Brisbane we have Range Brewing - founded in 2018 and THE best brewery in Brisbane, they are known for their IPA's but of course make other things. Their thing is releasing an insane amount of beers - basically something new every week.
So let's get things underway.
So problem one, no one is ahead at the start of the game but I need a beer so for that you need a 'neautral' beer. I though about half way between Sydney and Brisbane but it was too hard so I went with the cloest Brewery to my house - which is (I think) Bonehead - and their beer The Wall which is a Red IPA - it drink more like an Amber Ale than an IPA, more malt driven than hops - it's okay but not spectacular. I should mention here I drank this through the pre game entertainment which was from Katy Perry for some reason.
Quarter time and the game has been relatively close. it's unknown what might happen from here. Brisbane are up 27-19 and therefore it’s time to select a Range Beer - it’s a double dry hops DIPA with my favourite hop - Citra and it’s very good, with each sip I had I exclaimed, gee that's a good beer.
Brisbane have blown the game open in the second quarter and at half time it 73 to 27. For Sydney to win this it would have to have the biggest comeback in the 125 odd years of grand finals - so it looks like we will be drinking Range for the rest of the day.
Also half time which means it’s time for lamingtons, but we forget to buy them some I’m making do with a Panettone which is…nothing like a lamington.
As for the beer, It's called Boost Joose and it's meant to be a Hazy IPA made with a liquid version of some west coast hops. Well it might be hazy but it’s a little west coast it’s not as smooth and the dripping in green, still pretty darn good though
Brisbane have this in the bag at 3/4 time, it’s 107 to 34 and it’s going to be Range all the way, some it’s time to sneak in a Smoothie Sour so I don't get IPA'ed out
'Taste like Orange' is the name and it looks and smells like orange juice and in fact pretty much tastes like it too, it’s refreshing enough, but is it beer? I mean really
And then it's all over Brisbane slowed in the last quarter to end up winning 120-60 and it's time for the presentations, lap of honour, speeches and whatnot and it's time for the final Range Beerit’s called Way out West and tastes exactly like you would expect it to, it’s a big ole west coast IPA, very drinkable, very hoppy with just a hint of dankness.
So all in all another good fun Grand Final day, one day we will get back into it and until then given you have no idea what I’ve been talking about this whole time, where are some highlights