Fed Square Microbreweries Showcase

Yesterday, I went to the Microbreweries Showcase, held at Federation Square. With 17 breweries showing their product, there were plenty to try from. Here are my notes from the variety I tasted:

Brewery Brew Notes
Arctic Fox Brewery Ice Cap Lager Light flavour, with a slightly fruity aftertaste. Drinkable, but not particularly exciting.
Bridge Road Brewers Dark Ale A solid porter. Nice smoky flavour.
Buckley’s Beers Pilz Lager Very sweet. Easy to drink.
Original Ale Sweet, light flavour.
Coldstream Brewery Cider Boring. Really unimpressive. Tasted like watered down apple juice.
Grand Ridge Brewery Natural Blonde A sweet wheat beer, with a hinte of orange. An excellent summer beer.
Holgate Brewhouse White Ale A clove flavour, reminded me of spiced wine.
Big Red Pilsner Brilliant, rich red colour. Boring flavour.
Temptress Dark Ale A rich porter, made with vanilla beans and Dutch cocoa. Could work even as a dessert beer.
Matilda Bay Brewing Co Sebastian Reserve Dunkelweizen Sweet and dark, with a hint of apple. Tasty.
Mildura Brewery Mallee Bull Brilliant colour, uninspiring flavour.
Mountain Goat Brewery Fancy Pants Amber Ale Similar to their Hightail Ale, but not quite as strong a flavour. Slighty sweet, slightly spiced. Smelled of celery, for some unknown reason.
Prickly Moses – Otway Estate Summer Ale Bleh. Reminds me of Carlton Draught.
Red Duck Brewery Pale Ale Light flavour. Nice summer beer.
Honey Porter Light porter flavour, strong honey flavour. Nice, but similar to Beez Neez, I couldn’t drink much of it.
Southern Bay Brewing Co Effen Premier Lager A fairly standard lager. Good to drink, but nothing exciting.
Sweetwater Brewing Company Golden Bitter Tastes like it should have flavour, but has been watered down instead.
Temple Brewing Company Saison Good flavour, reminded me of Hoegaarden. A hint of cloves.
The 3 Ravens Brewing Co Dark Smoke Beer An excellent stout. Traditional, tasty.
2 Brothers Brewery Growler An American brown ale. Nice, but nothing special. Kind of a light porter.
Three Troupers Pilsner Light colour and flavour, like a Pilsner should be. Small bite in the aftertaste to keep things interesting.

All up, a good variety from some of Australia’s microbreweries. Particularly worth mentioning is Holgate’s Temptress Dark Ale, which is probably the best chocolate beer I’ve had. Buckley’s Beers also gets a second mention, for making my two favourite beers for the night, though the Original Ale just beats the Pilz Lager.

3 comments

  1. LOL!!! You thought that Prickly Moses Summer Ale tastes like, wait for it, a watery draught?!? Hmmm, this calls into question the validity of this entire study.

    *finished calling shenanigans*

    Pretty jealous. Wish I was there. Couldn’t you have told me it was on?!? Geez. It’s not really worth subscribing to this blog if all the events are ipso facto.

    PS I hear you + alcohol = earthquake? Awesome. Seriously awesome.

    1. It was seriously unimpressive. If you really want me to change my mind, you’re welcome to buy me more of it.

      I updated my Twitter and Facebook about it, consider yourself notified. Also, “ipso facto” isn’t really the right term for blogging about stuff after I’ve been to it. Perhaps “ex post facto”?

      It’s true about the earthquake thing. Once is a coincidence, twice is correlation. Given that I don’t drink because of earthquakes, there’s only one conclusion we can draw.

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