Willie The Boatman Common Ground

When Willie The Boatman was invited to be a part of a festival in Tasmania at the end of 2018 they figured, quite reasonably, that it might be nice to make a beer for the occasion, one with a bit of a flourish of local ingredients. The way in which they did so was via a common ale centred around Tassie-grown Galaxy and Cascade hops.

Common ales are typically fairly light in strength and colour and this one is down the line in those regards, a 4.5 percent ABV beer that looks every bit like the golden hued image you’d get returned to you if you were to throw the word “beer” into a search engine. But belying its inherent lightness Common Ground is surprisingly juicy, the hops throwing forward plenty of citrus character that really does a job washing over your palate before it rounds out to a pleasantly dry finish that makes it moreish. If only your average beer was as tasty as this common.

Nick Oscilowski