From today's Epicure:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/epicure/lage...7135348923.html
Beers just ain't beers they're adding "bush tucker", writes Willie Simpson.
AUSTRALIA is full of aspiring beer barons, but only one group has dared to label themselves as blatantly as Barons Brewing Company. Good mates Scott Garnett and Richard Adamson decided to start their own craft beer brand some years ago, but were having trouble coming up with an original name.
"We'd love to be beer barons," Garnett blurted out late one evening to Adamson and the pregnant pause that followed convinced them they'd found their name at last. "It's a bit cheeky," Garnett says, "and (a baron) is the lowest form of nobility."
The pair have their brands produced under contract at Australian Independent Breweries in western Sydney and launched their beers into Sydney markets in 2005 and, more recently, into Melbourne and beyond. In fact, these budding beer barons have started exporting their brews to Russia and the US.
While they have a range of notional mainstream brands in Pale Ale, ESB (Extra Special Bitter) and Lager, their "native range" features some exotic ingredients, more commonly found in bush tucker than beer.
"I wanted to do something with Aussie ingredients," says Adamson, who is the brewer while Garnett mainly handles marketing.
Barons Black Wattle Ale was their first release and is built around wattle seed.
"When I was looking at wattle seed, it sat really well with big, malty flavours so I used a Scotch ale home-brew recipe."
Adamson has the wattle seed roasted by a commercial coffee roaster. He then grinds up the roasted seeds and, while he's secretive about exact quantities, he says if you use too much "the beer tastes a bit like mud".
Encouraged by the success of the Black Wattle Ale, he developed a decidedly Australian slant on the Belgian witbier style by employing lemon myrtle and wild lime, rather than the usual coriander seed and dried orange peel.
Baron's Lemon Myrtle Witbier has been toned down somewhat since I tasted the first batch and it appeals as a refreshingly different summer thirst-quencher.
St Arnou Pilsner is another Sydney-based brand produced under contract at AIB and while St Arnou beers have been widely available on tap Australia-wide for several years, they have only recently launched their bottled products. More in the style of a sophisticated premium lager, rather than an authentic pilsener, St Arnou Pilsner is well worth seeking out.
A bunch of ski-mad beer lovers are behind the Boutique Alpine Brews company who intend importing their favourite beers from various alpine regions around the world.
Otaru Export is the first, with a decidedly multicultural feel to it a bunch of Aussies importing a Japanese beer from Hokkaido made by a German-born brewer and packaged in a squat 330ml bottle more commonly found in Belgium.
And Otaru Export has a pale green rip-top lid which made me nostalgic for Cooper's tear-top "hand-grenades" of the past.
The beer has a big malt presence and a rather restrained bitterness and the importers suggest drinking it slightly warmer at about 6 degrees.
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