Take two champions of the brewing world visiting Australia for the first time, give them free rein over a brewery for a day, then bring in chefs from some of Melbourne’s leading restaurants and what do you have? The Good Beer Week Masterclass of Champions. After months of discussions, negotiations and excited chatter, all the details are now in place for what promises to be one of the 2012 festival’s truly unique events. Kjetil Jikiun, from Norway’s Ní¸gne í – named Champion Exhibitor at the 2010 Australian International Beer Awards, and the founder and head brewer from Californian brewery Moylan’s – last year’s AIBA Champion Exhibitor, are joining forces at Hargreaves Hill’s brewery in the Yarra Valley for a brew day, masterclass and brewery floor degustation rolled into one.
Kjetil, Brendan Moylan and his brewer Denise Jones have been in discussion with Hargreaves Hill owner Simon Walkenhorst and the Good Beer Week Team over the beer they will brew on the day and those that they will showcase during the degustation. Meanwhile, in the past few days the Good Beer Week Team has confirmed that The 36 Collective, a group of “dining chameleons”, has pulled together a dream team of chefs and waiting staff from the Stokehouse and Auction Rooms to create a one-off menu – with a little “service theatre” thrown in along the way.
The result is an experience for guests that will start with a bus trip from Melbourne CBD to the brewery followed by an intimate masterclass with Kjetil, Brendan, Denise and Simon while this unique collaborative beer is brewed. It will include brewhouse tours, sensory evaluations of the unfermented beer at different stages of the process and the chance to delve into the minds of the award-winning brewers. Then guests will sit down to a three-course degustation with an Eastern European theme (a theme that goes beyond the food), each course matched to a beer from each of the the three breweries.
“Whether you’re a beer lover, foodie or home brewer, this has to be the ultimate experience,” says Good Beer Week co-founder James Smith. “Bringing together the last two AIBA champions to create a beer especially for the festival is incredibly exciting. That we’re able to combine it with an intimate masterclass and a brewery floor degustation created by some of the brightest young talents in Melbourne is simply amazing.
Kjetil Jikiun
“I worked with The 36 Collective for The Gypsy & The Goat event during Melbourne Food & Wine Festival (see photo at top) where they created a menu that caused one guest to dream of her soup later that night so I’m really looking forward to seeing what they come up with this time.”
Josh Elias, from The 36 Collective, says they are taking traditional Eastern European food as a starting point – pickles, pastrami, lox, kreplach, perogies and so on.
“We’re looking at the old tradition of warmth and comfort from food but giving it a modern twist,” he says. “We want to provide food with lots of soul that’s given a twist that will promote the beers as best as possible and will give people a new kind of experience.”
He says the group’s aim is “to open the windows and doors to fine dining through new environments”, hence creating events in breweries.
“We’re taking fine dining out of fine dining restaurants and putting it into breweries, laneways and all kinds of different environments and spaces,” he says. “We like to align ourselves with brewers or winemakers or people who produce products that make people challenge the way they look at something.”
As for the Good Beer Week brew, it seems the brewers are keen to see how far they can take the Hargreaves Hill brewhouse. There has been talk of using exotic sugars and new or experimental Australian hop varieties, with Kjetil declaring, “I really love experiencing new flavours and aromas! This will be certainly be a lot of fun. Hopefully we can combine lots from many worlds!”
Brendan Moylan
The beer won’t be available until after Good Beer Week, but the two visiting brewers have nominated the three beers each would like to showcase with the lunch and Simon has offered to serve one brand new beer as well as one served straight from the tank.
“Getting to know the international brewers is really good fun,” says Simon from Hargreaves. “It’s a good opportunity for people to learn about brewing and it’ll be really interesting to see how the brew comes together.”
Tickets for the Masterclass of Champions cost $250pp and can be booked here. It takes place on May 15. Guests can either meet at Fed Square at 9am to catch the bus to the brewery or head straight to the brewery in Lilydale.
Kjetil is being hosted in Australia by Phoenix Beers. The Moylan’s crew will be in Melbourne with Northdown Craft Beer Movement.
