May at Hoppsy is New Zealand Beer month and the first of our beer stories from the land of the great long cloud is Speight’s Summit Golden Ale.  This 4% alcohol lager was first brewed back in June of 2008 and is the brewer’s first all natural beer. Speight’s use only natural ingredients including lovely Pacific Hallertau Hops from Nelson which is added late in the brew to the kettle, delicious malted barleys and crystal clear New Zealand water to produce a pretty tasty beer. It is a fairly light beer in comparison to the mainstream Speight’s Gold Medal but has a wonderful fruity flavour with some floral aromatics. The beer like many New Zealand beers has a sweet and smooth taste.   Speight’s part of the Lion Nathan suite of brands has been marketing this beer as a smooth flavoured golden larger that embodies the spirit of the modern Southern Man and is aiming at younger and more active customer, who might purchase a imported product instead of the traditional beers.

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Today we do another beer we found at a local beer festival which isn’t readily available in our local bottleshops. Usually the only Mexican Beers we see in Australia are Corona, Corona and Corona, and sometimes and more rarely SOL, Tecate, Modelo  Dos Equis. But today we have found a new beer Cerveza Mexicali Beer.  After a bit of research we found that the beer is quiet popular and brewed by Tecate. The beer is a Pilsener style using German brewing techniques and recipes dating back 90 years.  The beer uses row barley malt and Chinook, Mount Hood and Peerless hops to give the beer a semi dry finish. Unlike many of the Mexican Beers lime or lemon are not suggested, this way you can fully appreciate the smooth and delicate flavour- works for me!  We have also seen there is a Special Dark Larger available so we are on the lookout for that.

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We did a story back in May 2008 about Red Duck Beer. http://www.hoppsy.com/australia/red-duck-handcrafted-beers/ Red Duck is a small microbrewery from Purrumbete which is in the Western District of Victoria Australia.  Since our story the brewery has grown from strength to strength and has even opened a beer tasting room in the nearby township of Camperdown.  The beer is all hand crafted and only natural ingredients are used. We were re-introduced to Red Duck at a Food and Wine Festival in Lara, about ¾ of an hour south west of Melbourne Australia.  Red  Duck had some amazing new beers which absolutely blew us away including a the American style Pale Ride an amazing Strong Bitter English style pub ale called Burton but the favourite and one of the most unique beers we have ever tasted was called White Garden. This beer was a classic whit beer which contained a little raspberry and believe it or not rhubarb. The beer was absolutely delicious. Sadly the 4.1% beer is only a limited release but it was amazing.  In fact we bought our self a Quack Pack of it and enjoyed it when we got home.

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Today we are drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon in the sunshine overlooking the magnificent San Francisco harbour.  This beer is a American style premium lager or pilsner which originated from Milwaukee in Wisconsin, but today is part of the giant Miller Brewing Company and is brewed in six locations around the USA including is now base Woodridge in Illinois which is west of Chicago.

Pabst originated back in 1844 and in 1893 made a bit of a name for its self at Chicago’s World Columbian Exhibition.  Pabst claimed they won the America’s Best award but others say they picked up a bronze medal for attending. But too much beer has been had since and the story is now legend and it doesn’t really matter.  The Beer was at its peak in the late 1970s when over 18 million barrels were produced annually. Over recent years it has a resurgence of popularity due to its push towards the youth market with inroads into social media and the like. The beer is probably more popular in the major US cities than in the rural areas.  For those who care about their waist line Pabst also produce a low carb version called Pabst Blue Ribbon Light which has less calories and about about a third less of those nasty carbohydrates.

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Coopers is one of Australia’s great brewers and now you can make their magnificent beers at home with this great microbrew kit we found in the USA. The kit comes with everything you need to make beer.  There’s the brew tub, all the plumbing, spoons thermometers the lot. All you need to do is mix the supplied ingredients add some water then wait for the brew to bubble away and turn into beer. Then when ready bottle it in the bottles supplied and keep for a little while and before you know it, you will be drinking your very own Coopers Beer. Doesn’t sound too hard does it- well there’s an easy to follow DVD and book just to make it easier. This kit is a great kit for people starting out brewing and is sure to start what will be a rewarding and fun hobby making beer at a fraction of the price of the packaged stuff.   For more details

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We were recently in Portland, no not the $%$# one a few hours down the road from us but the one in Portland Oregon USA. This was beer utopia for two beer loving Aussie guys like us.  The whole town is based on craft beers. The big names like Coors, Bud and Miller are rarely seen, its just craft beer after craft beer. There’s a few fantastic brew pubs too. One we tried was Rock Bottom Brewery boy they had some tasty drops including this wheat beer shown on our picture. The beer called Volkswizen Wheat was as their brochure described a unfiltered Northwest Wheat beer with the added twist of ginger and coriander to give it a crisp thirst quenching zing.. it had a ABV of 5.3% and IBU of 19 and boy was it tasty. They served it with a slice of orange which was popular with many wheat beers in the US including a wheat beer called Blue Moon which was available in many of the pubs.  We will do a few more stories on Rock Bottom’s beers over next few weeks as they were pretty tasty.

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One of our more popular stories was titled “the Real Duff Beer” it was a beer that was brewed in South Australia but was taken off the market due to a legal stoush with Fox the owner of The Simpsons. Well some could say there was more than a coincidence with the product and Homer’s favourite beer but this is nothing to what we have just found in Germany. We just received a tip from a keen Hoppsy follower that there is another Duff Beer on sale and it comes from Gotha which is right in the centre of the country. The beer as you will see in the image above looks pretty much identical to the Duff we all know and love on The Simpsons. The beer is brewed using the traditional German purity laws and has a 4.9 alcohol content. It is sold throughout the northern central and northern areas of Germany and the market is growing and soon will stretch to Bavaria, Bremen and Hamburg. The beer is also proud sponsor of the Queen of the World Competition which is noted as the hottest beauty contest in the world.. We are not sure what the giant News Limited company thinks of this drop, as it looks too much like the real thing for them to be not concerned, so it will be interesting to see what happens with the product as it grows in popularity. It might be another great can or bottle to source for the poolroom shelf. Read the rest of this entry »

This is a great book we have seen for sale on Amazon, it is written by Andy Crouch who is also responsible for a book called “The Good Beer Guide to New England” and written extensively for magazines including BeerAdvocate, Beverage Magazine and the like. This book “Great American Craft Beer” was released in August of 2010 and is a must for any lover of fine American beers. The book features some great historic stories and photographs which will give you a insight into the rich history of brewing in the United States. The book explains the ingredients and the brewing terminologies to help give you a good understanding of this amazing craft. There are stories and tasting notes on hundreds of specialty beers from the four corners of the USA.
To find out more on this book click here

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Unfortunatly this beer might be a bit hard to get now as it was a seasonal release, we have only got around to tasting it and it was really worth the wait.  Monteith’s is one of New Zealand’s major brewers and make some beautiful seasonal beers. Their ginger tasting summer ale was one of our favourites last summer. This winter ale follows the German traditions with its full roasted malted flavour, just the amazing red colour is enough to tell you how good it is, it nearly looks like wine.    Beers like this were produced in Germany for winter to nourish people during the fasting season and nourish it certainly does. It’s not a beer you could drink dozen after dozen it is a beer to be enjoyed like a fine port and goes splendid with rich food like roasts or tasty deserts.  You might struggle finding the 2010 release, but we are heading into the time of year when they might just make another for 2011.  Cant wait!

The Wicked Elf Pale Ale originates from the beautiful seaside town of Port Macquarie on the New South Wales coast in Australia and is brewed by the Little Brewing Company. They have three beers in their Elf range a Pilsner, a Witbier and the Pale Ale we are featuring today. The Pale Ale has a very American Pale Ale style to it. The beer is a very rich copper colour, clear and is very flavoursome having a very toffee like taste. It’s really one to look out for. The beer has won a bag full of awards over the few years it has been on the market including a Gold at the Australian Beer Awards which is a much sought after prize. As far as alcohol content its 5.4% which gives it a pretty good kick. Look out for it in the Australian bottle shops it comes in a handy 4 pack. Read the rest of this entry »