Need I say more!
Some venues and nice ones I've stumbled across recently.
Brownstone Brewery (Eumemmering (Dandenong)
Rusty Sailor, American IPA, 5.8%. put some hairs on those chests for serious IPA drinkers.
Hop Shop (Playne St Frankston)
Playne St Pale ALE, 4.2%, Aussie IPA, hoppy, fruity, mid-strength so you can enjoy more than one pint in summer, ...... Er. I think!
Hawker Hall (Chapel St, Sth Yarra)
Fury, 5.2% American IPA, not sure if it was the combination of food and beer but the beer was mighty fine!
If we can get enough geographic coverage we'll build a a suitable list of day trip targets!
My neighbours at Curlewis Winery also grow Cascade and Chinook hops. Another neighbour, a surgeon, uses the fresh hops to create a range of excellent beers. They are sold under the 38th Parallel Brewing label. I get mine from the winery but it is sold in several outlets in Geelong and on the Bellarine.
38th Parallel Brewing is classed as a nano brewery so there's not a huge volume produced. That's good because it means that the quality is maintained.
Blackman’s Brewery at Torquay has a good range of beers on tap and more than a few in cans. I take a re-usable growler or two and get them filled ... and they have a loyalty card.
The venue has a good atmosphere and the food is pretty good.
I recently bought their light beer in cans from our local BWS. It was full-flavoured and each can was one standard drink - easy to keep track when you’re driving.
Had my first pint of Pale Ale last weekend since prior to the pandemic, went down very smoothly, almost like when you rediscover something that has been missing but you had forgotten about! :o
Once upon a time, many moons ago, Me and a mate of mine started a 'beer shelf' which included some of the best beers and/or best containers we could find. That ended up morphing into 'collect the whole set'. With the amount of microbrewers that became an impossible task.
Their ended up being over 250 different types of beer (empties of course) that eventually found there way to the recycle bin.
Way too many to keep track of, but we used to have a pretty good idea of everything we had tried and always got something we never had before as a priority.
One of the first ones we had was the Grolsh with the swing top / rubber stop.
and
A 'Lucky' beer which came in a glass bottle the shape of a buddha.
My wife recently got me some random mixed pack of beers for my birthday which has about 8 new beers in there.
The Lucky beer is/was still available, my wife and I had one at a mates cafe about 3 years ago.
I don’t mind the VFL beer, Smithy’s, though I normally drink Otinger the German beer that woolies use as a home brand.
Yes, I’m a tight arse… 😎