Crema - Matilda Bay

Australia & New Zealand Homebrewing Forum

Help Support Australia & New Zealand Homebrewing Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

ant

Well-Known Member
Joined
30/7/04
Messages
303
Reaction score
0
Tried Matilda Bay's new "out there" offering this arvo - Crema. They didn't have much info on it at the bar except that it has coffee in it. Now, all the beers brewed with coffee I've tried to date have been dark beers - stouts and imperials. This beer, this is different.

It looks like a trad lager. It's light in colour, with a bit more then a lagerish head, prob some malted wheat. Aroma has the coffee there, with amber(?) malt behind it, no hop to speak of (well, that I could pick). Front of palate has a nice strong roasty coffee taste - but smooth like a flat white compared to an espresso. The malt is there, biscuity and balanced in step with the coffee, and it seems to rely on the bitterness of the coffee to carry the malt. Nice, medium bodied mouthfeel, but finishes crisp and dry like a trad lager.

I had several pints. Really well balanced between the malt and the coffee. If there was a brekky beer, this would be it for me. Brad has done a great job with this. I've got no idea what it is, but I'll have a punt on 70% pils malt, 20% malted wheat, 5% biscuit, low AAU noble hops (I couldn't pick em; they were unobtrusive) and some nice clean yeast. I'll be interested to read a proper review of this at some point soon...

An
 
The barmaid at the Balmoral told me it was a wheat beer. Cant comment on the grist, I didnt buy it as 1) I dont like wheat beers and 2) I dont like coffee, so I think this could possibly be the beer on tap when I finally make it to Hell. I had a sniff and there is definitely a huge coffee hit in the aroma.
 
Duck Season is over time to relax with a coffee (beer!)
Following on from the huge success of Barking Duck, which won third best in the world at the 2006 World Beer Cup and was received mightilyat the various shows and on tap in a very limited number of bars in VIC and WA weve decided to stop producing it. A weird idea? Perhaps. But The Duck will return! And the next time it will also be available in bottle. So as Daffy mightnt have said Thats not all folks!
In its place were bringing out Crema, which weve brewed using premium Australian Arabica coffee beans to produce a soft, smooth, creamy beer. This special blend of grains and coffee beans gives Crema a real aromatic toasted, nutty, coffee character.
Crema is the second in our series of out there beers, where we give our own interpretation to some weird and wonderful beer styles and create some brand new styles.

Brad personally selected the beans to be used in Crema and then roasted them on his personal coffee roaster at the Matilda Bay Garage Brewery.

Coffee originally grew wild in the mountainous forests of the Kaffa region of Ethiopia. It bears cherry-like fruits, inside which are the coffee beans. Archaeologists claim that people have been eating coffee cherries for the last 4,000 years or so - almost as long as they have been drinking beer! The ripe red coffee cherries have a quite high sugar content, so it didnt take too long for people to start fermenting them to make a sort of wine. Therefore, the first coffee drink was almost certainly alcoholic!

So alcoholic coffee and coffee beers have been made before but theyre usually very dark or black in colour. Our Crema is much paler - more like a latte rather than an espresso.

from: http://www.matildabay.com/people/index.html
 
Barking Duck is still on tap in Toowoomba for the next few days, it will then be taken over by Crema. Here is hoping that Crema will be as good as the duck was. I also believe that Crema will be available in 750ml bottles.
 
Back
Top