Granite Belt Brewery – IRA

Granite Belt Brewery – IRA

Stanthorpe, Queensland wine capital is the home from where this beer came from – Granite Belt Brewery – IRA (Irish Red Ale).

This ale pours a dark copper reddish colour, not t real frothy head that quickly drops away to lace the edge of the glass. Low carbonation. Aroma is sweet with notes of honey caramels, floral and spice. Has a light bitterness finish, sweet balanced caramel flavour. A smooth light bodied beer – Nice easy drinking sessional ale from an area dominated by wine.

I have another 5 Granite Belt Brewery brews that I’ll road test in the up coming weeks!

ABV – 5.0%
Style – Irish Ale
Scoured –

Granite Belt Brewery

Brewery – Granite Belt Brewery

Bacchus Brewing Co

Bacchus Brewery Cellar Door

Well I’ve got to rave about this, being a Redlander and beer lover, having one of Australia’s best craft breweries a stones throw from my base. Funny enough about 25 years ago I used to have beers in just about in the same spot as where Bacchus Brewing Co is now,  when it was a dual screen Drive-In Theatre. Now I get the opportunity to do it again, but now with a better selection of beers and i don’t have to sneak them down. Over the back fence of the brewery was one of last of the Redlands turf farms. (Possibly ideas for a few heritage brews names).

I’ve been buying home brew stuff from Craftbrewer (Bacchus Brewing Co sister company) for a few years and had a few testers from what they had on tap, as well. I was envious when seeing inner city Brisbane bars having Bacchus Beers on tap and finding it hard to travel over Tingalpa Creek to go to the big smoke in hope there was still beer in the keg. So after hearing from the crew at Bacchus a while back that they planned on kicking off a bar my hunt for the Bacchus Brew was made a lot easier.

Tasting Paddles made from Barrels

Bowling Lane Bar Top with 15 Taps

Clown Shoes – Space Cake Double IPA

Clown Shoes – Space Cake Double IPA

Space Cake pours a clear darkish amber colour, the head is off white with a 10mm head that slowly dissipates to leave a thin foamy head with heavy lacing around the glass.

Has a barley wine style aroma with a heavy nose of fruity sweetness – lemon, mango, pine – from the hops and caramel.

Big hop bitterness to this brew, not overly sweet, with malty caramel flavoured backbone again with that barley wine style coming through in the flavour.

With all of the Clown Shoes brews their art work on their labels are always standouts and on this bottle it’s no different. What’s written on the bottle describes it well – “Why are Miracle Mike and his dog, Bionic, being chased by many evil laser beam shooting cupcakes and two giant layer cake mother ships? Because we’re straight lunatic fools? Well, maybe, but with a few brains cells remaining we managed to craft Space Cake double IPA, utilizing citrusy Mosaic hops and an immaculate West Coast style malt backbone. Dude… Chill out. Enjoy some Space Cake.”

Space Cake

A warming full bodied brew that you can definitely feel the 9.0% ABV when getting to the end of this 650ml Double IPA bottle. No more reviews tonight as some people have to work tomorrow! Me included! Another cracker brew from Clown Shoes.

ABV – 9.0%
Style – Double IPA
Sourced from – The Vine Liquor Mart Cleveland
Brewery – Clown Shoes Beer
Nationality – Ipswich, Massachusetts, USA

Brisbane Beer

Just a quick shout out to a new Brissy Beer site!

Brisbane Beer

Dogfish Head Brewery Indian Brown Ale

Dogfish Head Brewery Indian Brown Ale

This beer comes from a unique US brewery in Delaware as one of their year round brews. One of my favourite US breweries even though this is only the second beer I’ve tried of theirs (with two more in the kegerator). It was their TV series Brew Masters for me that did it, which showed the extent that brewer Sam Calagione went to brew unique quality beers.

This Indian Brown Ale pours a very dark brown reddish almost black colour with a creamy head that reduces down to leave a foam ring around the glass edge. The roasted malts give a sweet chocolate caramel aroma and that continues on into the taste with hints of sweetness of brown sugar with fruity hops. A full bodied beer with a smooth mouthfeel.

A quality dark beer full of flavour.

ABV 7.2%
Sourced from – Queensplaza Wine & Beer
Brewery – Dogfish Head Brewery