April 6, 2017

 

News bulletin #385
April 6, 2017

City of the Wind

Next Tuesday’s new release is pretty special. So special there’ll be a simultaneous release at Hashigo Zake and Husk! It’s the result of a collaboration between Matt Walsh of Modern Times and Kerry Gray of Choice Bros/Husk that happened when Matt toured the nation last month.

It seems that while he was here Matt was on a mission to promote the use of hop oil. This is distinct from the more widely used hop extract that can take the place of whole or palletised hops for brewing, particularly for bittering. In contrast, hop oil is a kind of concentrated distillation that provides volatile flavour and aroma compounds but no bitterness. There’s a handy explanation of the process here.

Matt used it in this beer and in another collaboration that we’ll be talking about soon.

Now some readers may recall a beer that Deep Creek surprised 2016 Beervana attendees with, called Hoppy McHopface. Apparently that beer used (or possibly misused, depending on your experience) hop oil that had been extracted from Nelson Sauvin. The little vile of oil that Matt left at Husk was extracted from Eureka hops and he left strict instructions about just how few millilitres to use, because these oils are notoriously concentrated.

The resulting beer is an adaptation of Modern Times’ City of the Sun IPA. Only someone thought that this should be called City of the Wind. And it goes on tap at 5pm on Tuesday.

This Saturday

 

Playing in our lounge will be JB3, bringing funk and boogaloo from 9:30 until 11:30.

And if it’s still raining (or even if it isn’t) there’s the option to settle in the red room a couple of hours before that and take in the Hurricanes/Waratahs game.

Does it get any better? Why yes, it does, because all this entertainment comes at no charge.

Easter is Coming

Over next week’s Easter period we’re required to close on Good Friday and Easter Sunday. And this entails being closed on the stroke of midnight on the evenings before those days.

But what we won’t be doing is applying any pesky surcharges on any of those days that we are open, including Easter Monday.

And as soon as Easter is over we go into the season known as Hopstock.

On Tap Now

• Tiamana Blushing Brew
• 8 Wired Cascara Hippy Berliner
• Tiamana Even Older Fritze
• North End E.S.B (handpump)
• Beer Baroness First Lady APA (handpump)
• Mata Hip Hop Pils
• Graphic Kick Grass Pacific Ale
• Mike's Leaky Boat Grapefruit Pale Ale
• Te Aro Oatmeal Stout
• Beer Baroness Rye-ot Grrrl Rye IPA
• Oskar Blues OB IPA

Highlights

We’re in the middle of a mini-sour festival. What is probably the last of a batch of beer made to celebrate a certain power couple’s wedding late last year is on tap. That’s Tiamana Blushing Brew. It’s a low gravity, ultra-refreshing raspberry gose, also known as Himbeer.

Just along from it is there’s a small amount left in our keg of Tiamana Even Older Fritze. The bugs that must have been lurking in the wine barrel that this was aged in have started to take effect and the result is an incredibly complex, big, boozy bock. It’s a rare opportunity to try this beer without investing in a bottle, although investing in a bottle is still something you might want to consider.

Finally we have 8 Wired Cascara Hippy on tap. This is just the kind of divisive beer we love having. The cascara seems to upset the palate of some drinkers. While others correctly love this beer for the complex tang that the cascara adds to the base beer.

At more normal pH, Oskar Blues IPA is on tap. Although on recent form this news may not still be true by the time many of you read this. Get in quick.

Finally, when the aforementioned Even Older Fritze runs out soon, its place will be taken by another beer that has been ageing carefully since some time in 2016. In this case it’s a survivor of last year’s GABS Festival. It’s Paddington, a Barley Wine that must have been one of the last beers made by our old friend Graeme Mahy while he was doing his second stint as head brewer at Murray’s over in New South Wales. The lengths they went to with this beer were pretty extraordinary. Oranges, lemons, grapefruit, cardamom and star anise were thrown into the vat and drawn though some big, bitter hops to enhance the citrus flavours. The beer then spent six months in Tasmanian whisky barrels. The result is a perfect beer for winter. Or a really sh!tty autumn.

Cult Beer Store Beer of the Month

Over at the Cult Beer Store, this month’s Beer of the Month is La Sirene’s Farmhouse Red. This is a Red Ale made with rose buds, hibiscus and dandelions(!) in a distinctly Flemish fashion.

In the spirit of synchronicity and simultaneity, we’ll be offering this over the bar and for takeaway at a special price.