Five Barrel Brewing Ghost Creek Collection

Style
Barrel-Aged Sour Ales
ABV
6.0%

Five Barrel founder Phil O’Shea comes from a homebrewing background and hasn't forgotten his roots, as made abundantly apparent by this quartet of releases. Created in partnership with Marcus, a Wollongong homebrewer and friend of Five Barrel, it features the homebrewer’s sour culture in combination with an English ale yeast.

The sat in a 500-litre barrel for about a year and, upon leaving the barrel, was split four ways; there’s a straight version, one that was dry-hopped, another that made friends with some peaches, and a final offering that features an Amazon Basin fruit called achacha.

The resultant base beer is dry and sharp, and throws flavours of orange peel and orange sherbet. The dry-hopped version uses Hallertau Blanc, which helps to tamp down the orange characters and bring in some white wine and pineapple notes. The achacha, well, that’s a fruit flavour with which I’m not familiar, but the Ghost Creek version it’s hiding in shows up some pear-like flavours, while remaining closest to the base beer in taste.

The personal favourite of the quartet is the peach version. The fruit gives the beer a slightly golden hue and a softer mouthfeel than the others. The peach also makes the beer a tad sharper, though that sharpness levels out towards the back of the palate.

Obviously, when you split a 500-litre barrel four ways you don’t end up with a lot of each individual beer - so you'd best get in quick. As for the name, it comes from a story surrounding the ghost of a soldier who killed himself rather than be court-marshalled and is said to haunt a creek in Wollongong to this day.

Glen Humphries

Published August 29, 2019

Name
Five Barrel Brewing
Address

318 Keira Street
Wollongong
NSW 2500

Phone
(02) 4200 8881
Open Hours

Sun to Wed: midday to 6pm
Thurs to Sat: midday to 9pm

Pickled OnMarket
Black Bad Boy Bao 2024 B

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