Beer #192 - W/C 29 October 2018
BREWERY // 8 Wired began on Christmas day when Søren Eriksen's future wife, Monique, gave him the gift of a Coopers malt extract brew kit. After a few successful home-brews, Søren got thinking about a career in brewing. He'd recently finished a degree but a career in biochemistry didn't sound that appealing so he was pretty happy to land a job at Renaissance. While working in the brewery, he picked up valuable experience and also started contract brewing at various breweries under the label 8 Wired. After a few years, he created a brewery of his own in beautiful Warkwork. A wide range of traditional and innovative styles are being constantly released by 8 Wired and their barrel ageing programme must be one of the largest in our hemisphere with 7 huge foedres and hundreds of wooden barrels.
Bridge Road founders Ben & Maria met when Ben was living in Austria. He persuaded her to return with him to his hometown of Beechworth, Australia to set up a brewery in his dad’s shed. Beechworth is a small rural town around 300km inland from Melbourne. Rather than conforming to expectations of traditional Aussie beer, they started releasing a huge range of flavour filled, experimental beers from the outset and the locals joined them for the ride. We haven't visited yet but the beers and pizzas in their taproom sound like they will be well worth a 7 hour roundtrip next time we're in Melbourne.
BEER // This is no ordinary lager. The word 'lager' is an umbrella term which references cold lagering (German for 'storing') which is required by a range of bottom fermented styles including Helles, Märzen, Doppelbock, Rauchbier, Kellerbier and many others. There is actually a whole world of lagers that taste nothing like the bland, watery, green-bottle rubbish most of us associate with the word. While it takes the appearance of a classic pilsner, it is an altogether different beast with every element increased. A bumper portion of NZ malt was used to result in a 7% beer with a solid malt backbone with a touch of sweetness. Then there is serious bitterness from the NZ & Australian hops - Nelson Sauvin, Galaxy & Ella - which also give it piney, lemon peel aroma and flavour. We bought the entire NZ bottle allocation of this special collaborative beer for you wonderful Jerks.
BREWERY // 8 Wired & Bridge Road
BEER // God Save The Lager
STYLE // Imperial Pilsner
ORIGIN // Warkworth
ABV // 7%
TEMPERATURE // Cool - 8C
FOOD MATCH // Thai Red Curry. Sausage Sandwich. Nachos. Sharp Cheddar.
GLASS // Pilsner Glass. Tulip