Little Creatures’ Hotchkiss Six: a stout companion
Stranded at Melbourne Airport by a storm, a lonely traveller befriends a dark stranger, and settles in for the night.
It was a dark and stormy night. No, seriously; the apocalypse had hit the east coast and, while there were worse places to be, Melbourne airport was awash with all the suite of emotions that run from anxiety to despair.
Stranded we were, and watching the flight information boards roll like slot machines. Flights into Sydney were being pushed further and further back. One runway was operating, the curfew was approaching as one by one services were cancelled. People arriving from the north looked green and aghast, disembarking with rubber legs and sweating foreheads.
There is nothing to do in these situations but drink. In fact, is there anything else to do in an airport — whether the weather be good or grotesque, flights on time or delayed, mission a holiday or a family emergency?
So, on the weekend the swimming pools and gardens of the privileged slipped into the sea, Beer Goggles slipped into the airport bar and felt the mood lighten. Beer varieties are not the strong point of such establishments but, like everywhere, they are improving and this winter it seems a new stout has found a niche among the offerings.
The strangely named Hotchkiss Six is the latest seasonal from Fremantle’s Little Creatures and bucks the trend towards more excessive variations. A lot of smaller outfits are cranking out souped-up imperial stouts that in some cases are so strong as to be approaching a syrupy sweetness.
By contrast, the Hotchkiss comes as close to sessionable as any stout can be. Think Guinness without the nitrogenated smoothness. Think good use of caramel malts, English chocolate malt and roasted barley oats. The Hotchkiss has a hint of fruit aromas and a touch of spice (possibly aniseed) that comes from the late addition of New Zealand Rakau and Southern Cross hops.
Head brewer Russell Gosling has kept a steady hand on the process and landed the beer at just 4.5 per cent alcohol.
Little Creatures, like most breweries, is locking in on the seasonal idea: last winter it put out the excellent Return of the Dread Stout. That was a more muscular 7.2 per cent.
“The Return of the Dread was very popular and people wanted to see it again but the brewing team thought there is no real innovation if we keep doing the same beers,” Gosling says. “We wanted to do a stout that still had all the stout-y flavours but was more approachable.”
The more nautical among you will note the subtle maritime theme. The Dreadnought was the first modern battleship, bristling with big guns and driven by a steam turbine. The first one was launched in 1906 and was credited with giving Britain the edge in the naval arms race. The Hotchkiss Six was a revolving cannon with six barrels that was adapted to the Dreadnought.
Little Creatures released its first beer 15 years ago. The magnificent pale ale heralded a new era of fragrant, carefully brewed, American-style pale ales. It was the best beer in Australia at the time and, while the competition was nowhere near the strength it is today, it could hold its head high against any of the modern APAs.
There was a period where its hopping regimen seemed to be affected by the scale-up in production that came with the expansion and eventual consumption of the brewery by international brewing conglomerate Kirin.
Kirin owns Lion Nathan, which in turn owns Little Creatures and James Squire beers. Some mutter darkly that such arrangements are not craft brewing, and maybe they are correct, but both brands make beers that are superior to anything available 20 years ago.
Little Creatures Pale Ale is now widely available. During last year’s Ashes, English and Australian journalists held a party in a terrace house by Edgbaston Lake in Birmingham where that beer was provided by a host who had tasted it on the previous series Down Under. It was, he said, the only way to watch your side go down the gurgler 5-0. Drinking Australian beer by the lake in this Midlands town as Australia bumbled its way to a series loss was one of the better moments for Australian visitors.
The Hotchkiss Six is available all winter.