Usual practice at Crafty Manor when it comes to the Anniversary Ales from Murray's is to buy a couple and hold onto them for a later date to allow them to age, only to get scared of ever opening them as once they're gone, they're gone. Thankfully, a special occasion recently saw bottles of 3, 4 and 5 opened one after the other. Crafty felt the love particularly for 3, general consensus elsewhere favoured 4, while 5 - with the addition of darker chocolate malts and roasted barley to the old recipe - was noticeably sharper up front, but soon settled into a familiarly warm, rich and soothing multi-layered experience. "Of what sort?" we hear you cry. Well, the Anniversary Ales are oak-aged wheat and barleywines, with this one also boasting a bigger hop profile - a new blend of Green Bullet, Pacifica, Motueka and NZ Cascade - that comes through on the nose and in the bitterness. It's designed to stick around for up to ten years, so quite why Crafty's cracked one already......
Published January 7, 20112011-01-07 00:00:00
Name
Murray's
Address
3443 Nelson Bay Rd
Bobs Farm
NSW 2316
Phone
(02) 4982 6411
Open Hours
Cellar door
Mon to Fri: 10am to 5.30pm
Weekends from 10am Restaurant
Lunch: Open 7 days
Dinner: Friday and Saturday nights in January (bookings essential)
Tours
Public tours daily at 2pm. $5 per person. Bookings recommended. Groups of 20 or more and private tours by appointment. Extreme Brewery Tours via helicopter. (Murray is not the pilot - but he'd love to be). By appointment.
