Colonial Brewing Co. Margaret River

[Vlad the Pale Aler]

Dig, slightly OT, but if MS is at Colonial, who took over at The Sail?

 

[dig]

Not sure. Had an IPA at the Sail on Friday and it was pretty good. Mal's only just started at Colonial, so I doubt the beers on tap there or at The Royal are his work.

 

[ausdb]

I heard a rumour that the beer was just not the same but thought that it was somebody having a lend of me, sounds like they weren't

 

[Beer Guy]

They ran out of beers so the CEO instructed the managment team and the brewer to put on the beers in the serving tanks that were still in conditioning the IPA was one such victim and was pretty ashamed on behalf of Digs work for that, it poured like the dregs from the coopers for about a week.

It sounds more like he copped a flat brown(another brilliant management desision) not the IPA though as from memory that IPA brewed in may was a bitter and twisted little number and the balance was favouring the hops. I thought the bite and bitterness may clean up as the yeast dropped bright but did not get the opportunity to see that before I left.

It should still be on tap so if any MR AHB's want to second opinion pls do. I can honestly say that the brew logs were not deviated excepting the unavailability of Bairds GP which I replaced with Marris Otter.

 

[brendanos]

I'm heading down to MR for a week tomorrow, so I'll be sure to report back on all things beer and Colonial!


*fingers crossed all beers have been adequately conditioned by the time i get there.

 

[Beer Guy]

Say hello to Mal and Joel for me.
Richo.

 

[brendanos]

I made my first visit to Colonial today (it's my local atm, so I think i'll be there a few times) so I thought I'd share my experience. I got the paddle, so Witbier, Koelsch, Pale, Porter, IPA. The IPA and the Pale ale were the standouts, and in great condition. The Pale seemed maltier (fudge) than the ones I've had at the Royal, and the IPA was bright and hoppy. The Porter seemed a littled sweet, otherwise good, and the Koelsch tasted overbittered and not as clean and quaffable as the ones I had in the past. The only beer I couldn't drink was the Wit, which looked like a yeast starter, and smelled like a tub of hoyyts popcorn. This is my first major experience with Diacetyl, and forgive my ignorance but I didn't even know you could produce such noticeable quantities with an ale yeast. It was really quite full on. The bar manager had a taste and insisted it was as intended, and did not at all taste like buttered popcorn. He actually quite liked it, and was pretty angry with me for giving him some feedback. Sadly in this day and age it seems the customer is always wrong. Not having a dig at Mal, I'm sure given proper conditioning a belgian witbier might have presented itself, but sadly it was very much on the green side.

I'll be back to fill my growler up with IPA a few more times though!

Say hello to Mal and Joel for me.
Richo.

Will do, mate.

 

[randyrob]

This is my first major experience with Diacetyl, and forgive my ignorance but I didn't even know you could produce such noticeable quantities with an ale yeast.

Hey Brendan,

sometimes hard to believe i know, but it is definatley possible!

i've got a beer in primary i pitched us-05 into and it's been sitting at 16*c ambient temp in the shed, prolly even lower over night
and it got some serious diacetyl going on even overpowering simcoe!

i've also kegged a couple of ales to early and low levels of diacetyl have been present.

i'm pretty careful about doing a d-rest with lagers so have never had it in any of my lagers yet!

be intersted to see what you think of some of the other micro's offers out that way

Rob.

 

[brendanos]

be intersted to see what you think of some of the other micro's offers out that way

Will summarise when I get back in an appropriate thread and when I have a bit more time, but so far the Cowaramup Special has been the hit.

 

[Millet Man]

Hey Brendan,

sometimes hard to believe i know, but it is definatley possible!

i've got a beer in primary i pitched us-05 into and it's been sitting at 16*c ambient temp in the shed, prolly even lower over night
and it got some serious diacetyl going on even overpowering simcoe!

i've also kegged a couple of ales to early and low levels of diacetyl have been present.

i'm pretty careful about doing a d-rest with lagers so have never had it in any of my lagers yet!

be intersted to see what you think of some of the other micro's offers out that way

Rob.

A bit OT but I have recently done 4 identical (apart from the malt cultivar) trial brews with US-05 at 18-20C and they all had ship loads of diacetyl and very cloudy. I even left the last 2 batches on the yeast in primary for almost a week to try and get it to re-absord but no difference. Only after about 3-4 weeks in the keg (unfiltered) have they cleared up and the diacetyl has almost all gone. Never had this before with US-05.

Cheers, Andrew.

 

[Online Brewing Supplies]

Will summarise when I get back in an appropriate thread and when I have a bit more time, but so far the Cowaramup Special has been the hit.

Hi
Have you found any suitable foods ? If you can write them down I woulkd appreciate the list for a later beer expedition.Nice and cold down there at the momnent?
GB

 

[Vlad the Pale Aler]

Was at Colonial the other day, and the beers were all up to scratch.
Looks like Mal and Richard have it under control.

 

[hughman666]

was at the royal on friday after work and tried the kolsch, pale, wit and ipa.

the ipa was the standout, but the wit and kolsch have gone to the dogs. the wit had overpowering orange falvouring and no zestiness that is expected of this style. it was also fairly flat, so not ideal...

the kolsch has lost all of its character and now just represents a very bland pils more than anything. considering the original spruikers challenge set a new benchmark in australian craftbrewing back in the day, it is sad to see it lose all of that differentiation and become a very bare shadow of its former self.

the pale ale is a very good solid representation of the style and a nice quaffer. the ipa was the ducks nuts.

i'm not bagging out the first 2 beers for the sake of it, i just remember the colonial beers that dean brewed with such character, such as "big blow" which was the seasonal hefe and the best wheat in recent years from memory...

colonuial used to have a good line-up of standout beers that were something really special. now they're just beers...

 

[mika]

I had a Kolsch at the Royal not that long ago either, wasn't impressed. My brother was at the pub in the week before the Australia Day long weekend, said it was good, but rated the IPA as 'a bit rough'.
Dig was getting annoyed at the way the beers were being treated and I haven't since heard of any upgrades to production. Beer Guy's post seems to indicate that this is still occuring and the quality of the brews isn't where it used to be. Hopefully management will realise that they can't just keep flogging the cash cow indefinitely and spend the money to save their reputation.

 

[dig]

Anyone have any current info on Colonial? Anyone been there recently? Do they still exist? I read an article online recently by Vic Crossland talking up the WA breweries and their chances for success at the AIBA, and I thought it was odd that he omitted Colonial. Just scanning through the 2010 AIBA results, and Colonial didn't enter. There was talk of a new brewery going in somewhere... Anyone have any news?

 

[Thommo]

I was there about 4 weeks ago and enjoyed it. No bad beers for my tastes, really liked the porter and the IPA.

 

[BrenosBrews]

Anyone have any current info on Colonial? Anyone been there recently? Do they still exist? I read an article online recently by Vic Crossland talking up the WA breweries and their chances for success at the AIBA, and I thought it was odd that he omitted Colonial. Just scanning through the 2010 AIBA results, and Colonial didn't enter. There was talk of a new brewery going in somewhere... Anyone have any news?

Maybe they are going the way of Matilda Bay? I've heard they are pushing pretty hard to get a brewery in Cape Schanck up and running. Which makes sense given they own more venues in Victoria than WA.

Their application for extended hours and what not was knocked back I believe.

 

[BottleBitch]

Anyone have any current info on Colonial? Anyone been there recently? Do they still exist? I read an article online recently by Vic Crossland talking up the WA breweries and their chances for success at the AIBA, and I thought it was odd that he omitted Colonial. Just scanning through the 2010 AIBA results, and Colonial didn't enter. There was talk of a new brewery going in somewhere... Anyone have any news?

Yeah they are still going Dig, I had a chat with Richo a few months ago and they where upgrading the brewhouse to 25hl, should all be in and running by now.

I feel that a lot of brewers have not entered beers this year, we even reduced our entries to 3 for LCB and 1 for WR, but Dig WR Dark Ale won a gold, always thought that was a pretty solid beer, nice work!!!


Cheers

Brett

 

[O'Henry]

I was there last weekend. The beers were alright. Porter was the best, then the IPA (which was lacking a lot of hop flavour, strange in what seemed to be an American style) and the other beers I would not rate at all. Struggled through a Pale. They were doing a pumping trade. Not sure what is going on there atm, but there was a massive hole in the ground next to the brewery. Maybe buildings of some sort. It was a serious hole though, like some one was building a small commercial wine cellar.

 

[mika]

That brewery upgrade must have been an epic fail for them. They'd ripped the brewhouse out when I was there back in late January. Heard they were shopping their recipes out to any local micro-brewery with spare capacity just so they could keep beer on tap.
Bit dissappointing for what used to be my favourite micro in WA.