Beer awards: Gage Roads, Stone & Wood, Two Birds, Pirate Life

Some excellent beers - and breweries - drew attention to themselves at the Australian International Beer Awards.

Jamie Cook, Brad Rogers and Ross Jurisich, co-founders of Stone & Wood, which won Champion large brewery.

The Australian International Beer Awards is a big deal: almost 1800 entries from more than 300 breweries across 36 countries, assessed by more than 60 judges. I got a guernsey to the gala awards dinner last week because I’d helped judge the AIBA’s media award — which this year went to Glen Humphries, who writes the witty, opinionated and informative blog beerisyourfriend.org (I particularly like his History in a Bottle and Homebrew adventures).

Some hoppy highlights: Gage Roads in WA is not a brewery I’ve been all that taken with in the past, but after tasting their utterly delicious, punchy, perfumed Little Dove Pale Ale at the awards (it picked up the most coveted trophy, Champion Australian Beer), I’ll be paying a lot more attention. And it was great to see recognition for the three Champion Australian Brewery trophy winners: Byron Bay’s Stone & Wood (large brewery), cementing its position as our leading craft producer; Spotswood’s fabulous Two Birds (medium-sized), a big favourite of mine; and Adelaide’s Pirate Life (small), a brand-new brewery whose excellent Throwback IPA also won the trophy for best mid-strength beer.

You can download a PDF of the full results here.

Best of Best’s

The Thomson family of Best’s Wines in Great Western celebrated the 150th anniversary of their vineyard in typically low-key style at Melbourne’s Jimmy Watson’s Wine Bar last week when family patriarch Viv Thomson, 78, opened a bunch of old bottles and invited past winemakers to come and tell stories about them. Most of the yarns revolved around Viv’s firm but generous manner as a mentor — and his wife Chris’s brilliance in the kitchen (both of which I can attest to, having visited Best’s during vintage earlier this year), and most of the wines opened beautifully: if you ever come across a bottle of the 1981 Bin O Hermitage, grab the opportunity to taste one of the best old Australian reds made in that decade.

Current winemaker Justin Purser also showed three very special red wines he’s crafted as one-offs for the 150th: an exquisitely pretty and elegant 2014 pinot noir made from vines planted in 1868; a gorgeously balanced and grippy 2013 blend of pinot meunier, dolcetto and shiraz simply named Concongella, after the vineyard; and a marvellously dense and inky 2014 shiraz called Sparky’s Block. These extremely limited wines each cost $150 a bottle and are available direct from the cellar door. More here.

Cooler months, fortified wines

As we head into the cooler months, thoughts turn to strong, comforting fortified wines — well, mine do at least. Importer Scott Wasley of Iberian wine specialist The Spanish Acquisition must be a mind reader, because he recently opened his full portfolio of sherries, ports and madeiras for an indulgent tasting. I felt like a kid in a lolly shop as I swirled, sniffed and sipped my way through the line-up. And OK, by the time I got to the really old gear there wasn’t a lot of spitting going on (neither would you if the luscious tincture in your glass was made in the late 19th century).

Standout sherries included two remarkable old wines from Sanchez Romate: the intensely dry and dark Old & Plus Amontillado ($150 for 500ml) which tasted like discovering rich treasure inside an ancient lacquered cabinet; and the Cayetano del Pino 35-year-old solera Pale Cortado ($130 for 375ml), which is pure, precise essence of toasted hazelnuts and woody spice.

It wasn’t all expensive old booze, though: I also really loved the 2011 Niepoort Late Bottled Vintage Port, a bold purple wine with heaps of bright spirity perfume and dark bramble berry fruit. Delicious now, it will also cellar well for many winters, and costs around $30 for 375ml. More here.