Category: Beer review

Woz & Chook at Wayward Brewery in front of a fermenter
Woz & Chook at Wayward Brewery

 

In the next week or so, Wayward brewing will have a limited release beer around town. It is their Banoffee Wheat beer and it is a result of the #mywaywardbrew competition they ran earlier this year that was won by one of our members Warwick Ferguson, AKA Woz, with a toffee malt inspired wheat beer. The focus was on the banana ester from the right yeast with a hit of rich toffee malt to give it a banoffee flavour. Banoffee pie is the classic British dessert that features banana and toffee.

Woz calls his backyard brewery Chook’n’Walrus, a combination of Woz’s wife’s and his nicknames for each other (too cute). He has been brewing since 2016 when Chook gave him the normal Coppers home brew setup. He soon hit the limits of that format and, early last year, moved up to a Grainfather.  His favourite brews are Pale Ales, IPA’s and Porters but he is not scared to get a bit out-there, hence the idea for the banoffee wheat beer.

The Walrus really enjoyed his time at the WaywWayward_Banoffee_Hefeard brewery. They looked after him every step of the way, including delaying things when he had a family medical emergency that delayed the brew day a few weeks.  Fay from Wayward was his main contact through the competition and planning and was incredibly helpful. On the brew day, good things got better. Woz worked with Shaun Blissett, Wayward’s head brewer to scale up the Banoffee Wheat beer to a commercial batch. As Woz put it “Shaun was great. Gave me an amazing run down of all aspects of Wayward brewing. Couldn’t be more helpful or welcoming.” They gave him the full brewery tour and even had him help decide some of the ingredients on their next ‘macadamia’ beer.

For Woz this was an amazing experience and something he can brag about for years. For Wayward, it was a chance to do something new and different again. Sound like a great combination but you can judge for yourself when you get to try some.

More info is here.

https://www.waywardbrewing.com.au/post/mywaywardbrew-winner

 

By David Gilks

BD_IPA_header You either love or hate the Scottish brewery Brewdog.  They deliberately create controversy, breaking the British brewing mainstream and producing ridiculous beers like Tactical Nuclear Penguin, their 32% ice-distilled Imperial Stout.  That said, they also make some quality beer, and are one of the few breweries we get in Australia that produce a commendable American IPA.

Brewdog recently release a series of four single hopped American IPAs called IPA is Dead.  Using four of their favourite hops, Bramling X (UK), Citra (USA), Sorachi Ace (Japan) and Nelson Sauvin (NZ), Brewdog sought to highlight the features of these hops in a 7.5% single-hop IPA.  All four beers use the same malt backbone and the same late hopping schedule, with the only difference being the amount of bittering hops used to get the beer to its 75 IBU.

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By Patrick Baggoley

Debacle Debacle in Braddon is keen to become known as a high-quality beer destination and at the forefront of this noble aim are its beer degustation nights.

The Czech Beer Degustation on March 4 was Debacle’s third in what hopefully becomes a long tradition. While I didn’t attend the first, a German night, I was lucky enough to attend the Belgian night and based on that alone I’ll be doing whatever I can to make it to more.

The Czech night cost $85 per person which included five courses and five matching beers. And we’re talking decent serves of both.

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By Sam Highley

Primator Before Czechoslovakia gave us cake, they gave us beer. The little town of Náchod in the Czech Republic has a long history of brewing beer, with the townsfolk themselves brewing beer in their homes up until 1872, when the town council founded a local brewery. The Náchod brewery — now known as Primator — produces about a dozen different beers including a weizenbier, English pale ale and a stout. It was owned by the town itself until last year when it was sold to an investment fund which also owns another couple of Czech breweries in Svijany and Rohozec. Part of the condition of sale was that the new owners had experience in beer, and that a guarantee was made to continue the brand for a period of at least five years.

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