Beer Nail Brewing Hughe Dunn Brown

Slowly but surely, the pieces are falling into place for the rest of the country to discover what the people of WA and the nation's beer judges have known for some time: that John Stallwood of Nail Brewing is one of Australia's very finest brewers. Since going into business with longtime friend and sparring partner Brendan Varis of Feral as BrewCorp last year, he's had the capacity to supply the East Coast and the logistics are now pretty much there to get his immaculate takes on classic styles out far and wide.

To celebrate, he plans to start the NailBrew Series next month - small(ish) batches of one-off beers created every six weeks "for a person or reason". First was supposed to be the Dunn Brown Ale in honour of WA brewing guru Hugh Dunn but packaging wasn't ready so John knocked out 700 750ml bottles of Hughe Brown, an Imperial Brown Ale, instead. While not as huge as his epic Clout, it's no shrinking violet: a deeply brown beer with tonnes of creamy caramel, chocolate and nut aromas. The taste is a little more manly, perhaps even Marlboro manly, specifically a touch of the Marlboro Man's boots after he's crossed a desert in fact, as there's some leathery, ashtray like complexity amid the luscious malt flavours too. As a precursor to the NailBrew Series, it's one to build anticipation nicely; as a beer to share with your mates, it's rather special too.