Nostalgia: not what it used to be

It's almost five years since I was in Australia. In the week or so I was there I worked through as many of their beers as I could get my hands on, which meant a lot of pale lagers. I haven't retained much memory of most of them -- though Toohey's Extra Dry sticks in my mind as my go-to lager. Had I been blogging at the time, I'm certain I'd have given an honourable mention to Boag's Premium, from Tasmania.

Declan from the Bull & Castle gifted me a bottle, only slightly out of date, following a root through through the pub's backroom store. Never one to refuse free beer from a pub manager I took it home to give it a proper write-up.

Grassiness is the dominant characteristic here, on the nose and in the foretaste. Oddly -- and maybe this is the bottle showing its age -- the aroma had a kind of sharp, sugary tartness to it, almost like a lambic. The flavour is very definitely bitter, however. Green and slightly vegetal, though not straying far from the clean refreshing lines of hot-country lawnmower lager.

Perhaps not as good as I remember it, but better than the brewery's Strongarm lager, and not bad at all for free.

Anything else back there, Declan?

Sedimental journey

I hadn't intended for my weekend's drinking to have a theme, it just turned out that way.

On the roster were three beers I'd been meaning to try for ages but hadn't got round to, and all with their gritty little secrets.

First up was Hen's Tooth. I'm a big fan of Old Speckled Hen, so I thought it only just to give the reserve beer a go. I wasn't disappointed: it's incredibly smooth and delicately flavoured, very similar to the best pints of draught cask ale I've had in Britain. And it has a hefty 6.5% strength, so much more satisfying than the 3-4.5% that ales tend to hover around. And surprisingly, the sediment didn't get in the way. I did my best to keep it out of the glass, but some of it ended up suspended in my pint. Didn't affect the flavour though, or at least not unpleasantly.

Continuing on the enhanced editions theme, I tried a bottle of Aventinus Eisbock. Schneider Weisse is my favourite German beer, and their Aventinus is great too, so I figured the concentrated Aventinus was definitely worth a go, despite the €5.50 price tag. No strength on the label was the first black mark. I read, however, that it's around 12%. This is the same as Bush, Belgium's strongest beer, and the taste was similar too: ultra-heavy and very cloying. After a few sips I managed to get into it, but it's hard, chewy work. A 330ml bottle and a considerable quantity of sediment meant that at least the experience was curtailed slightly. This stuff is an acquired taste for sure, and given the price I'm not sure it's wholly worth the effort.

Last up was a beer I've seen many times but hadn't considered buying because it looks so unassuming: Cooper's Sparkling Ale. Australian beer for me is limited to Toohey's Extra Dry and Carlton Cold, and even then only when I'm actually in Australia and have limited choice (though I do recall a great Carlton Cold drinks promtion in an Irish bar in Hong Kong some years back). Recently while trawling the Internet for beer suggestions I happened across a review of Cooper's Sparkling that made enormous claims for it -- a true connoisseur's beer, a proper ale from a country where beer terminology is badly abused. However, while it does stand above its compatriots, this stuff just can't cut it in a European context. The taste just isn't bold enough, leaving it watery and having an annoying fine sediment. I can completely understand why one would turn to this if VB or Toohey's New was your only other option, but otherwise I don't get it. One for the ex-pats only, methinks.