Next week, the G20 leaders will gather in Brisbane to further advance their plans to hollow out and poison the Earth while concentrating the entire planet's wealth in one person's hands and leaving those of us that survive into this bleak future in eternally impoverished servitude. Doesn't sound like much fun, does it? Thankfully, elsewhere in Brisbane, Bacchus Brewing will be hosting the B20, pouring 20 one-off beers designed to commemorate, mimic or pillory each of the nations. And that sounds like a lot more fun.
It's just the latest off-the-wall venture from the tiny Capalaba brewery that can, a brewery that rarely does anything that isn't off the wall yet keeps winning plaudits from beer geeks and judges alike.
"They're shutting Brisbane down for the G20 so we thought we would give people somewhere to go for the day," says brewery owner Ross Kenrick (above right holding court at a dinner at The Alehouse Project). "We created a beer to represent each country and there's one keg of each pouring at our bar until they're gone."
Among the more colourful creations is the beer representing Indonesia. It's based on the story of Schapelle Corby, the local Queensland ex-convict who was caught with 4kg plus of cannabis in a boogie board bag. The beer has been brewed with 4kg plus of hemp hulls and is called Boogie On Down, Barley Brown.
The Australian entry is Abbot's Budget Smuggler's Redneck Ale, brewed with all Australian ingredients; essentially it's a clone of Stone & Wood's Pacific Ale but with added beetroot powder to give it a sunburnt red colour.
Meanwhile, with many of the best-known beers from African and Asian nations being rather uninteresting variations on the mainstream lager theme, Bacchus has got a little creative there as well. Representing South Africa will be the Mandela IPA, brewed with Nelson Sauvin hops. India gets a King Korma Lager, starting with the idea of Kingfisher lager, adding spices and then finishing with Kiwi Waimea hops for a mango twist. And the beer from Russia is one based on the ancient Kvass brews, featuring rye bread and a sourdough culture. There is no boil and ingredients such as mint have been added for flavour.
"That's the one beer I'm worried about," says Ross.
If anything, the event puts the Bacchus approach to brewing to the test. In creating so many new, often one-off, beers every year on their multiple, 50-litre mini-brewhouses, there's no time for trial batches, although with many of them being single keg releases that's not the issue it would be with breweries operating on larger batch sizes.
"I compare it to a chef," says Ross. "They make a meal from ingredients. Even if you get a new ingredient and taste it, the chances are a chef never makes a meal that isn't pretty good. When you brew so many beers you get an understanding for the ingredients.
"We might miss a few little things we were wanting to achieve [when trying a new ingredient in a new beer for the first time] but we've never had to throw out a beer. We've pretty well been happy with everything we've done for various reasons."
He says the closest they got to pouring one away was when trying to recreate a beer style from mediaeval England known as a mumm ale and brewed with lots of herbs and spices.
"It was interesting and certainly not bad, but there was no wow factor for me. It achieved what we were trying to achieve and probably tasted better than I was expecting but it's not something I would make again. That said, even that had a following.
"The only other one I had real concerns about was our crayfish beer because the wort smelled and tasted disgusting. Yet when it fermented out it was really good. The beer was a saison and the fish ended up giving it a lovely aftertaste, like the one you get with prawns or lobsters."
Up until a few weeks ago, there could have been no B20 as Bacchus didn't have the bar it does now. When Ross took over the business, it was a combination of home brew supplier Craftbrewer and the multi-mini-brewhouse setup that invited punters in to brew their own beers and was "in wrack and ruin". The intention was always to move the home brew service to a nearby site and install a bar but, when the intended location fell through, both operations had to continue under the same roof as Ross attempted to gain recognition for the Bacchus brand, something that their idiosyncratic approach made challenging.
Success has come about through, as much as anything, hard work and persistence. He's always been willing to travel with his beers, confident that initial scepticism will be overcome once people taste them. One can imagine initial conversations with interstate bars when trying to line up tap takeovers...
"So I've never heard of you, but you want to take over all of our taps with beers including one that tastes like raspberry and white chocolate and another brewed with an actual chicken?"
"That's correct."
"Riiiiiiiggggght."
That said, those that have taken the plunge have been quick to welcome Bacchus back. And beer lovers have developed a soft spot too. At the 2013 Great Australasian Beer SpecTAPular, the aforementioned Raspberry and White Chocolate Pilsner took out the People's Choice award, with Sex, Drugs 'n' Rocky Road coming close to making it a double in 2014. The latter also took out gold at the Australian International Beer Awards, as did his Flanders Red, with the brewery shortlisted for Champion Small Brewery.
"It was awesome," says Ross, particularly coming a year after the beers he entered fared less well than he'd hoped. "To get recognised by your peers is always good, even if it's a bit of a lottery. You really need to put your beers into half a dozen competitions [to see if] you get feedback saying the same thing."
But back to the Bacchus bar. A new site three doors down was found for Craftbrewer earlier this year, allowing the bar to be built in front of the brewhouses. Open seven days a week, manned by the brewers as they work during the day and the Kenrick family in the evenings, it has a minimum of 15 taps and hand pumps running at any one time with more wheeled in for events like B20. Drinkers can sit beside racks of barrels, where beers such as his pick of all he's ever brewed – the three-years-in-the-making Strawberry Lambic – take shape, pull up a pew outside or play pool while working through a tasting paddle.
"I'd always wanted a bar but when the opportunity came up there seemed to be a lot of restrictions and regulations," says Ross. "When we saw the complete rules on a brewery operation in Queensland, the last paragraph [said] that if you also own a brewery license rather than a wholesaler's one then none of the above [restrictions] apply. That was the turning point: we didn't need a new license, we just needed to open."
So they did, in a move that means the former scrap metal merchant might pay himself a wage out of the business for the first time in more than six years soon, even if it means bad news for interstate fans of Bacchus brews. Ross hopes one day to pour 50 percent of all Bacchus beer produced at his bar; having worked to establish the brand in the mind of beer lovers nationwide, the focus is now returning to home.
"I'm a firm believer in keeping beer fresh and local," he says. "We're being more choosy [with where we send out beer] – the Quarryman's in Sydney is our only permanent tap outside Brisbane."
That said, there will be another beer for GABS 2015 and occasional forays out of the state. But if you can't wait, you know where to find them at source.
The Bacchus Brewery Bar is open from 10am every day, usually open laters on Fridays and Saturdays.
