The final months of the year are an excellent time for enjoying as well as learning about beer with numerous beer festivals throughout Australia. Here at Beer Cartel we have been making sure we attend our fair share!
The first was the 5th Australian Beer Festival at the Australian Hotel in Sydney. This beer festival brings hoards each year to try the different brews on offer and 2009 was no exception. The pub and adjoining streets were chokka with beer tents for 18 breweries and thousands of beer fans keen to get into the beer action.
Armed with our beer tokens and tasting glasses we made our way through the crowds to sample some new and unusual beers. The Red Angus Summer Ale went down a treat and is one to get your hands on if you can, as did the Prime Beer from Fusion Brewing. The Prime beer is designed specially to go with meat – if only we had a good steak on hand while! It is definitely one to re-visit for our next bbq. Also of note was the Akuna Ginger Beer from the great team at Akuna Brewery, their beers were 
immensely popular with the crowd as they took out the people’s choice award for best stall.
Two weeks later we made our way further north to the Maitland Bitter and Twisted Festival. It was our first chance to take part in a beer festival as an exhibitor and was a lot of fun! It was great to have a chat to various beer fanatics as well as those keen to sample a few different beers. While we were busy manning our stall, we made sure we had time to have a yarn and a beer with some of the different brewers.
The Murray’s Brewing Co. and Matilda Bay beer tents appeared the most popular of the weekend, regularly generating queues of thirsty beer lovers. The Murray’s seasonal beer was extremely flavoursome, as was Matilda Bay’s newest beer Big Helga. Also of real interest for the weekend was the Liquid Bacon made by the brewers at the Hunter Beer Co. The bacon flavour courtesy of smoked malts was very recognisable and polarised the crowd, with beer fans either loving it or hating it.
It was a great weekend despite the Sunday downpour and one we will definitely be looking forward to next year!
PS. For those in New South Wales that haven’t had a chance to get to a beer festival yet this year, check out the Coogee Beer Fest (28th & 29th Nov) and Warners at the Bay Beer Festival (29th Nov).
Cheers,
Rich and Geoff
1 comments:
I always wanted to go to a beer fest down in OZ, but never had the chance. We just had our annual winter beer fest in Portland, OR (USA). Our climates may be a little different but I bet you lot had just as much fun as we did. How are the winter ales down under? I'm making a top10 winter beer list and I was hoping for some suggestions. Check it out if you have time, http://beerloversblog.wordpress.com
Keep up the good work!
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