It's just as well there's no self-imposed, Twitter-like character limit at Crafty Towers. If there was, we'd pretty much have exhausted it with just the names of two new limited releases from Bridge Road. One, which left the brewery late June, was given the dubious honour by Bridge Road's senior brewer Steve of "the worst beer name ever". Said name is One Autumn Sunday Morning Somewhere Three Hours North of Melbourne and the beer is the collaboration with Leo from Birra del Borgo and Tobias from To-í?l brewed on the opening weekend of Good Beer Week. It's a "black session IPA" and, says Bridge Road founder Ben Kraus: "Session IPA seems to be the flavour of the month ... and there's plenty of talk/argument about whether or not it is really a legitimate style. We thought it'd be a good idea to add fuel to the fire and make a black one." The hop bill is comprised of odds and ends lying around the brewery that were plucked from by Tobias and Leo over breakfast.
Also out now and bearing a similarly dubious title is Fat Man Red Suit Big Sack, which was originally brewed for, you've guessed it, a Canadian beer importer's advent calendar (What do you mean you didn't guess?). There was some left over so it's been packaged for the Aussie market. It's an India Red Ale brewed with a selection of Aussie hops drawn from pretty much every sector of Hop Products Australia's Hop Flavour Spectrum. As such, it's alternately tropical, spicy, herbal and grassy and, despite its relatively large size (7.5 percent), it's pretty light on the palate with boozy sweet caramel playing second fiddle to peachy hop flavours.
Published July 7, 2014 2014-07-07 00:00:00