Beer writer Mike Gribble suggests 19 winter brews from South Australian craft breweries
THE season is about to laugh at its bitter grip on your freezing bones. Rolling waves, shady soirees and long, light-filled evenings are a cruel memory.
THE season is about to laugh at its bitter grip on your freezing bones. Rolling waves, shady soirees and long, light-filled evenings are a cruel memory.
Can beer relieve the drudgery?
Seasonal beers are not about just about any port in a storm. They can be warming cocoa-like porters, sticky toffee-esque red ales, malty ambers – even chocolate and milk stouts. There’s a blizzard of bottles expertly crafted by the state’s brewers. And punters are lapping them up.
Their are two proud brew giants in South Australia – Lion Nathan’s SA Brewing and the Coopers family. Their stalwart recipes are local favourites and both have invested tens of millions of dollars on expansion in the past few years. But craft – or small capacity and contractor – breweries in SA, from brew bars to fledgling empires look likely to soon surpass 30 which, in 2006, was the national total.
Chair of the Australian Craft Beer Industry Association Peta Fielding says growth in craft beer is a national trend.
“The industry is vibrant, dynamic and very exciting,” says Fielding, also director of Burleigh Brewing on the Gold Coast.
“When we started in 2006, there were 30 breweries in Australia. Now there are 280. And they are all, by and large, small Australian manufacturers – I don’t know if Australian manufacturing in many other areas of industry can match that kind of growth.
“Craft brewers also source locally made and grown (products and ingredients) and that resonates with a lot of consumers.”
Fielding said consumer interest was piqued by the wide variety of aromas and flavours in craft beers. The versatility of beer is suited to a wide range of palate preferences and a natural match for foods.
“For a while, wine took all the limelight but craft brewing has put beer back in the minds of consumers and it has also bought women to beer,” she said. “I feel quite comfortable wearing a ball gown and drinking a bottle of craft beer.”
And in summer, brewers have winter in mind. That’s when they launch plans for recipes designed to draw on the long, comforting embrace of roasted malts, heady alcohol, creamy foam and a prickle of moreish bitterness. Flavours to capture the imagination and warm the soul – and some just for year-round refreshment.
So here’s one beer from each SA brewery in full production at press time. Let them warm a bit on the bench for lifted flavours. Match them with foods or tip them right in (try a stout-charged slow cooked lamb shank recipe from taste.com.au). Or match beers with your own nut, toffee or chocolate desserts. And if the kitchen’s not for you just drink them - and celebrate the joys of Australian barley, wheat or hops.
They are selected to catch your attention. Before you know it, the rain will have stopped and the sun will be on your back.
PIKES
Genuine Stout
Clare Valley
There’s a sticky-lipped candy sugar finish here, evoking the rich characters of milk stouts and big imperial styles. But the alcohol is a bit more moderate so you can quench the urge to have just one more. Malty, nice esters and nice wood char bitterness.
LOBETHAL BIERHAUS
Chocolate Oatmeal Stout
Adelaide Hills
Hop growing and brewing in Lobethal date back to 1851 and co-owners Alistair and Rose do the history proud. One of SA’s most interesting brews in the kettle; A bold, milky, cereal-like, roasting coffee, big hearted breakfast beer.
BIG SHED BREWING CONCERN
Frankenbrown
Royal Park
Launched at Thebarton’s Wheatsheaf Hotel two years ago, Frank has never looked back. This is the story of two Hills homebrewers who are tasting well-earned touches of fame. A terrific dry finish salutes the long, more-ish, malt-engaging ride.
BAROSSA VALLEY BREWING
Double IPA
Tanunda
Daunting (at 8 per cent alc), its huge winter green wet hop flavours and 100 International Bitterness Units add a spine of jangling acidity. Creamy, zesty and with shape-shifting undertones of dried fruit. Vindaloo, anyone?
BIRBECKS
Railwayman
Oakden
English hops for an English style porter and contact brewed at Big Shed. This offers a wink to brewing history. Its sweet aroma gives way to brilliant crisp, dry roasted malt. A unique individual.
BREWBOYS
Seeing Double
Croydon Park
A Scottish “wee heavy”, its 8 per cent alcohol lifts the peated malt and long, seductive esters after three yeast pitchings. Named for brewer twin Simon Sellick, this Australian International Beer Awards gold medallist makes a grand statement.
CLARE VALLEY BREWING CO
King Kong Stout
Clare
This big, silky stout has a Kong-like attitude with aroma and flavour notes lofty as the Empire State Building. Fruity esters are at slumber in the yeast beneath a welcoming pot-belly of toast, nuts, treacle, and a touch of Violet Crumble.
COOPERS
Dark Ale
Regency Park
This is a classic South Australian go-to beer, fresh as the first hint of orange that starts to curl autumn leaves. Dark but cleansing, light to medium mouthfeel yet rich with biscuity malt and cocoa, and a touch of residual sweetness. Just so good.
PRANCING PONY
India Red Ale
Totness
The flame-fired kettle behind the gentle smoky charm in every Pony brew has set tongues wagging. And word-of-mouth has seen this brewery expand with a beer hall. Hopes for high hops are delivered with an old-fashioned red toffee vibe.
SA BREWING
Southwark Old Stout
Thebarton
Well, hello to the giant of SA beers (7.4 per cent alc). Brown as a burnt stump, roasted and bitter, oily but creamy, tarred but sweet. Burnt but biscuity as breeze over Arnott’s on Yo-Yo day. If SA Brewing was a Cadillac, this would be the hood ornament.
SWELL BREWING CO
Amber Ale
McLaren Vale
Some of the best surf happens when, weirdly enough, winter’s beaches are empty. So it is that Swell’s Amber is often overlooked as a wet season tipple. One chug from this bottle makes you life-long friends. Refreshing with longboard balance.
VALE BREWING
Vale/DRK
McLaren Vale
This is like three Bush biscuits and a Ginger Snap in a bottle. The bitterness is subdued to let the mile-wide malt flavours caress the palate with hints of Milo, coffee, a little milk chocolate and singed toffee. Prescription: Take four near a fireplace.
WOOLSHED BREWERY
Judas the Dark
Wilkadene, near Renmark
A prime winter offering at a popular river brew haven, this uses local roasted wattleseed in the kettle. So you’ll get a touch of spice amid the big malt taste and chocolate, nuts and coffee at its edges. And, ahem, the stunning setting ... as my mate Wazza says, you’ve just got to go.
GOODIESON
Stout
McLaren Vale
Jeff Goodieson once worked for the man. Now he’s the man who makes the wildest beer in the Vale. He doesn’t care for eccentric hopping regimes but he loves malt so you’ll get it in spades. He should just call it Mad-Seasonal-Chocolate-Licorice-Must-Have.
PIRATE LIFE BREWING
Throwback
Hindmarsh
It hums with rich, old-school Maris Otter barley but more appealing is the low alcohol (3.5 per cent) and the big hop flavour. It’s zing is from Crystal, NZ Cascade and passionfruit/pine notes of US Simcoe cones. Let’s see ... one car + one can = so do-able.
GULF BREWERY
Sou’Wester Stout
Hahndorf
A little-known brewery tucked away in Hahndorf, beer-maker Peter Fitzsimons simply calls this a “smooth, rich chocolate stout made with large amounts of chocolate malt and quality cocoa”. And he should know – he’s 10 years in.
KNAPPSTEIN ENTERPRISE
Reserve Lager
Clare
You might not eat Vegemite each morning and you might not want dark beers on winter arvos. That’s where this awarded “winery beer” comes in. Long and fresh with Juicyfruit-like NZ hops and neat, easy bitterness.
MEECHI
Pale Ale
Langhorne Creek
Also an odd one out? Not at all. This makes a cleansing break between big, roasted malts and alcohol. From Bremer River wine country, its easy bitterness sets up the palate for winter nibbles – and it’s a taunt to stop at one. Great session beer.
MISMATCH
Archie’s Red Ale
Adelaide
There’s a sometimes attainable symbiosis in brewing where malty toffee and fruity hops dance on the tongue. This rye ale is one of them. Australian, German and UK grains brewed with US hops and a love of beer. A full-bodied must-try
DON’T WANT TO DRINK IT? COOK WITH IT
It has been said that beer fixes everything (perhaps only by me). But beer is also an often surprising cooking ingredient. It can be substituted where water is called for in many recipes - and sometimes for a small portion of the stock requirement.
It is used in savoury and sweet dishes and, like cooking with wine, you should use the beer you’d like to drink because it’s all about building up flavour.
The most popular cooking beers are ales; with their warm fermented yeast and bolder profile of grains and hops for bigger flavours but lagers are fine, too.
A light ale or even a richer lager could be used to replace water in a simple camp cooking beer bread recipe - its inbuilt yeast content will work its magic; ie. About three cups of SR flour, one cup of plain, a knob of butter, pinch salt and pepper (and any other favourite herbs/spices) and one stubbie of beer. Mix to a just-wet dough. Set the oven to 180C (or a generous handful coals on top and bottom of the camp oven, top up as ash forms) and bake for a half hour or until a knife comes out clean.
Darker ales are popular in dessert dishes such as tiramisu, rich chocolate biscuits, sorbets and ice creams - such as an absolute cracker made with dark beer by brewer Alistair Turnbull’s team at Lobethal Bierhaus in the Adelaide Hills. I haven’t eaten much ice cream since I was a kid, but this calls for a second helping.
If your bent for cooking is a bit more old-school, just throw a stubbie of stout into a slow cooked lamb shank recipe from taste.com.au. You’ll be surprised at the difference.
A sparkling ale such as Coopers is great for plate-grilling fish on the barbecue, with constant basting and a little seasoning.
Beer batter is worth experimenting with using lighter ales. The yeast in ales does a terrific job as an active medium from aroma, body and flavour in cooking.
And, of course, beer goes well with any food - to drink, that is. Try the big-hopped IPAs to cut through cloying foods such as lamb chops. Take the delicate Pilsener by Moo Brew in Tassie and match it as a complement to lighter, subtle foods.
Or match a stout beer to chocolate tort or a red ale to complement a dessert with toffee flavours - or just stout and a block of chocolate around a fireplace.
Probably the only beers you’d avoid in cooking and food matching are low carb beers because most of the sugars, hence flavours, have been brewed out to keep the carbs down. But, really, if you’re enjoying beer and food in any order, would you be thinking about carbs?
– Mike Gribble
SOME BEER DESSERT RECIPES TO TRY FROM LOBETHAL BIERHAUS CHEF JEFFREY GEBLERTEAMING beer in dessert recipes is a good way to add balance. The bitterness from some beers takes an edge off the sweetness and gives balance to various elements.
We also like to serve stout sorbet with this pudding.
Our stout sorbet is made for us by EverCream icecream in Hahndorf and uses Lobethal Bierhaus Chocolate Oatmeal Stout.
STOUT, DATE AND NUT PUDDING WITH PORTER TOFFEE CREAM AND HEFEWEIZEN CUSTARD
STOUT PUDDING
(Makes 8 individual puddings)
YOU WILL NEED
● 250ml Lobethal Bierhaus Chocolate Oatmeal Stout
● 1½ cups pitted dates
● ¼ teaspoon bicarb of soda
● 60g cold butter cut into cubes
● ¾ cup dark brown sugar
● 2 eggs
● 1¼ cup self-rising flour
● ½ cup walnuts
Putdates, stout and bicarb of soda in a saucepan and boil. Remove from the heat.
Put butter and brown sugar into a food processor and process until light and creamy. Add eggs into butter mixture and lightly mix in.
Add boiled dates and stout to the food processer and lightly mix in. Add flour to the food processor and process until flour is just mixed in. Do not over mix.
Add walnuts to batter and lightly blitz, trying to keep the walnuts from breaking up too much. Put approximately 140g into 8 lightly buttered and floured ramekin dishes. Oven-proof coffee cups work too. Bake at 160C for 20 minutes or until a wooden skewer comes out clean.
PORTER TOFFEE CREAM
YOU WILL NEED
● 300ml Lobethal Bierhaus
Red Truck Porter
● 300ml cream
● 400g brown sugar
● 200g cold butter cut into cubes
In arather large saucepan put the porter, cream and sugar together and boil for about 10 minutes. Be careful that it does not boil over the top of the saucepan.
Remove from heat and allow to cool to 90C. Whisk in cold butter until completely dissolved. Keep warm and pour over hot puddings.
HEFEWEIZEN CUSTARD
YOU WILL NEED
● 200ml Lobethal Bierhaus
Hefeweizen (wheat beer)
● 300ml milk
● ½ vanilla bean split
● 2 cloves
● 150g caster sugar
● 4 eggs
● 55g cornflour
● Pinch sea salt
● 30g cold butter
● 125ml cream
Bring to a boil the Hefeweizen, milk, vanilla bean, cloves, and sugar. Remove from heat and allow to cool for 5 minutes. In a bowl combine eggs, cornflour, sea salt and butter.
Slowly pour milk and Hefeweizen mixture into the eggs and whisk until smooth. Return to the saucepan and continuously whisk until the mixture starts to thicken. Do not boil. Remove from the heat and strain custard through a fine mesh strainer.
Whisk in cream and serve either hot or cold with the pudding.
OTHER MENTIONS:
SA breweries in start-up: Little Bang Brewery.
SA brewpubs/restaurants: Wheatsheaf Hotel, Thebarton; Port Dock, Port Adelaide; Grumpy’s, Hahndorf, Lady Burra, Adelaide CBD (opening soon).
Other SA brewerswho were unable to supply a sample for this story: KI Brewing, Kangaroo Island: Barossa Brewing, Greenock; Smiling Samoyed, Myponga; Steam Exchange, Goolwa.
• Beer lovers will converge on the adelaide beer & BBQ festival at the adelaide showground brick dairy pavilion on July 10-12. Local and interstate brewers will showcase their beers and ciders with food by south australian chefs. tickets are $20 a day or $35 for the weekend. go to www.adelaidebeerfest.com.au