Category Archives: beer review

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Five Sentences, in Reverse Chronological Order, about the Queen’s Head

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Vamoosing from our front-bar nook, we carry the lamentable lettuce cups out with us and I then drop Claire at the Gov, where she’s interpreting for Josh Pyke, who — recalling what she told him at his gig in April — offers a heart-swelling shout-out about our wedding and the role played in it by his exquisite song Sew Your Name.

Pausing our celebration amidst the pubbish murmurings, Claire does a gallery walk around the bar studying the sepia Adelaide Oval Test-cricket photos, and as we speculate about life a century ago for these bowler-hatted, stern-faced types, I try to orient the oval for her by pointing at one grainy image and saying ‘That’s north,’ which proves unhelpful when she replies, allegedly, ‘You know I find compass references troublesome.’

Devolving ever deeper into late-capitalism, a telling symbol of this is that the only youngsters in pubs are often those pulling the beers; tonight is no exception, though our barkeep is convivial as we order a bowl of wedges — gladdening and homely in their aroma — and a delicious-sounding plate of lettuce cups.

Returning bar-side, the aroma of deep-fried calamari wafting past our noses, we claim our second and final drinks — Claire’s now-established espresso martini and my Pale Ale — and linger over them at a secluded table beside the — is November 14 premature? — Christmas tree; before this, we’d opened our night with a white wine and a pint of Heineken, which I always forget is essentially European VB, though without its charismatic nose or middle-palate length.

Ambling through the brisk air into the Queen’s Head (my choice for this month) past a footpath table of chaps relaxed into their late-Friday residency, having parked our RAV4 on gently undulating, village-like Kermode Street after a ten-minute automotive crawl up Montefiore Hill — itself preceded by collecting Claire from the ghostly TAFE on Light Square — we begin the sixtieth edition of Mystery Pub.

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Mystery Pub: In Future Nursing Homes There Will Be No Jaydens

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I message Claire with a brevity I hope conjures a sense of espionage. I enjoy these conspiratorial moments.

5.37pm in the TAFE car park.

We meet at precisely this time.

Success! Claire thinks we’re walking. It’s only 750 metres or a ten-minute stroll on this warm afternoon.

So, to continue the mystery, I decide to drive us.

This month’s Mystery Pub is the Crafty Robot, a brewery on Grote Street with a sprawling beer garden and cavernous, concrete interior. Come early evening we’ll all be in another interior of a more cosy nature.

Making her (overdue) Mystery Pub debut, my sister Jill breezes through the gate, and we assemble about an outside table.

Claire volunteers to procure the drinks. Returning, she clasps a white wine, a (0.0%) beer for Jill, and a Blonde Ale (4.5%) for the only non-blonde in our party, me. With sips and nods and brief individual analysis, all are deemed satisfactory.

We chat and eat a shared dinner of deep-dish margherita pizza which has recently transitioned from being a (dysfunctional) quiche. There’s also a plate of indeterminate potato stuff. Inside a Quiz Night rumbles into animated life. Peering through the glass I see the MC moving about with insistent evangelism. I imagine him asking, ‘On which Beatles’ album does Ringo not play a cowbell?’

We speak of the Fringe and our aspirations. Claire enquires.  ‘What are you doing, Jill?’

‘Got a few shows booked. 27 Club (about the musicians like Hendrix and Cobain who all shuffled off at this tender age). One in Stepney too.’

Claire recalls last Saturday’s play in the library. ‘Prometheus was hard work. Youth theatre. After a few minutes I was waiting for it to end.’

I agree. ‘It asked the audience to work too hard.’

Conversation then moves to the immediate for we’re going to the Fringe’s premiere comedy club, the Rhino Room and specifically its subterranean venue, Hell’s Kitchen.

The fifty-first edition of Mystery Pub concludes. We’ve had a splendid hour.

*

Until Claire was appointed as the Auslan interpreter for Brett Blake’s stand-up show we’d not heard of him. Ambling in, Jill and I have no real expectations but present ourselves with open minds.  

Hell’s Kitchen is tiny, the size of a modest suburban lounge room. It’s close and hot down there (as befits a venue called Hell) and the stage is only elevated a few inches. It does the trick. Claire’s on a chair to the left of Brett.

You might know BB from his recent appearance in a betting ad with Shaq O’Neill. He clicks up a photo in which he’s standing next to the seven-foot basketballer and is about half his height. Upon shaking his hand he describes, ‘My hand got lost in his palm and I didn’t touch one of his fingers.’ This is all context for his main story about being arrested when he was seventeen.

As the show progressed, I formed a view. Blake’s a brilliant writer and storyteller: observant, skilled with language, assured.

His routine’s about growing up in an outer suburb of Perth (tough) and his homelife (loving), school life (challenging for all) and escapades at large (hilarious and harrowing).

I roared like a drain (what does this actually mean?) across the sixty minutes. The highlight was BB talking about cars and youth and motoring perils. Mid-anecdote he said,

‘Jayden? Jayden? Silence. No reply. The nursing home was quiet.’

He continued. ‘This is because in the future there’ll be no Jaydens in nursing homes. Why? Because they’ll all have met their untimely ends. Every Jayden will perish by accident in a shitty old Commodore. No Jayden will live to fifty.’

The room erupts. The truth in it—absurd, yet undeniable—hits us all and there’s bellowing aplenty.

Later, I wonder how many ways the mandatory forearm tattoo can be spelled.

Jaden. Jaydon. Jaiden. Jaidyn. Jadyn. Jaidan. Jaydin. Jadin. Jaedon. Jaedyn. Jaydyn. Jeyden. Jadon.

What’s your favourite?

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Beer Review: Nepal’s Finest Ale

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To recycle an old joke, I’m going to try to write this without mentioning the Himalayas. Oops, failed already.

The Barahsinghe is a swamp deer that’s native to Nepal. It has given its name to a craft beer brewery located three hours from the capital Kathmandu in Kurintar. Founded in 2016, it has a modest range of products including a dark wheat beer, fruit beer and pale ale. Should the words swamp and beer co-exist in the same sentence? Let’s find out.

Claire and I are not in Nepal.

We’re just across the road from the Coles supermarket in Glenelg at the Sherpa Kitchen and Bar. It’s long held curious appeal, and we decided to visit early Saturday evening (our dining hours are veering dangerously toward that of Queensland pensioners). We had a minor celebration to acknowledge.

Taking our chairs on the alfresco area the menus soon materialise. Our server is affable and answers our questions. For starters we settle upon some dumplings. We can select ten or five. We ask for five. The smiling staff says, ‘Would you like six?’ As the Dalai Lama noted in his cricket diary, ‘Kindness is my religion.’

‘Yes,’ we chorus, knowing he’s saved us from the interpersonal calamity of an irreconcilable fifth dumpling.

Claire orders a white wine. I follow with, ‘I’d like the Barahsinghe Pilsener, please.’ Having completed our order, we chat among ourselves.

There’s modest frisson for I’m about to make my Nepali beer debut. Cars come and go from Coles. There’s a river of foot traffic past the restaurant. Modern music plays throughout, presumably from Nepal. Doof, doof but Buddhist.

We speak of Christmas, NYE cricket, The White Lotus (we’re late to streaming TV) and our impending trip to Sydney. Hot on the heels of our 1985 adventure to the Harbour City (it’s been forty years, so hot like tundra) and it’ll be fresh and distantly familiar as teenaged memories largely are.

Next to appear is my beer.

The label tells me it’s made with German hops and natural spring water, and I wonder if spring water can be unnatural.

The Pilsner’s bright and appealing in the glass. Entirely unlike a swamp deer I quietly imagine. The aromatics are zesty, and this builds my expectation. It’s hoppy and refreshing to sip. Does the Dalai Lama approve? Should he?

My ale from the foot of the Himalayas is going well. Can’t believe I did it again!

While our starters of Sherpa Momo (dumplings with curry sauce) were excellent our main courses arrived prompt and hot but presented as a little bland (like the early evening view of a Coles supermarket).

The Barahsinghe Pilsener was a highlight and in our globalised world it has made its way from Nepal to Glenelg (likely via Dan’s at the execrable Watermark pub).

This is Blog #500. Thanks for reading and your words of encouragement. Here’s to more stories, and adventures.

See you in 2025!

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Three Balinese Beers

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Bintang

Rented daily at the Fiki Fiki Bar on the beach at Kuta, this was a functional and fun beer. Alex, Max, and I bombed onto the beanbags and the boys each had a (young) coconut as the sun submerged into the Indian Ocean. Somedays, Alex then surfed for an hour, while Max and I yakked and repelled the unrelenting torrent of often comical hawkers. There were cultural and interpersonal lessons for all. On successive days one fellow tried to sell us (purportedly) temporary tattoos featuring enriching life advice such as, ’Talk shit, get hit’ and ‘You wish, jellyfish.’ However, removed from a convivial context Bintang can be a dull, flavourless slog. It’s occasionally the sole option at local restaurants but let’s not be overly critical for a beer is a beer is a beer, as almost sung by a faceless German techno band in 1985.

Diablo IPA

An India Pale Ale in Indonesia? The homographic repetition of ‘Ind’ could be a good sign. And it is. On Saturday after yoga Claire investigated a Bintang supermarket (no relationship with the aforementioned beer) and bought herself a few treats (including a dress ring) before returning with a new beer for me to investigate. It was a restorative change and after dark, I scrutinised it as we collapsed in and out of the villa’s sparkling water. Gang of Youths soared into the sultry Ubud air. Invigoratingly zesty and aromatic with citrus, it’s well-suited to the tropics and at 4.9% comes with not inconsiderable clout (hence the name Diablo, even if a little overstated). I might try to get some in Glenelg.

Prost

Clean and crisp, this golden lager is amicable, and you know the name is German for ‘cheers.’ In Ubud, I’d collect a pair at the Ratna supermarket for poolside refreshment however there was early distress during our stay as I couldn’t find the villa’s bottle opener. So, despite my brash promises of cultivated behaviour, I had to knock the top off with a decidedly bogan methodology (no teeth were involved). Ultimately, this beer displays only minor charisma despite its slogan proclaiming the philosophically knotty and largely indefensible, ‘Good people drink good beer.’ I also read a suggestion that Prost has, ‘notes of corn and hay’ but remain unsure as I didn’t share my ale with any English-speaking local livestock.

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Mystery Pub: Shostakovich liked a snort

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While Billy Joel approximately sung, ‘It’s five o’clock on a Friday and the regular crowd shuffles in’ this is not so for we have the joint to ourselves apart from the staff or as I once heard someone say of his daily pre-noon hotel visit, ‘The bloke what usually serves me, he’ll be there.’  The Port Admiral, perched on Black Diamond Corner—a quintessentially Port Adelaide location—was vacant.

However, contemporary punk music blasts throughout the barren bar. Formerly, I would’ve enjoyed this but not now as my Triple J days are increasingly done and we listen to Classic FM when driving. It keeps the pulse passive although I find it difficult to pronounce Shostakovich with any confidence. Too much sibilance. Rachmaninov, at least the way Scottish morning announcer Russell Torrance says it, is less knotty. I remember old school mate Davo pronouncing Chopin as choppin’. He was habitually phonetic.

Claire and I explore the pub up and downstairs: broad, inviting balcony, generous dining rooms, and even The Bottle Shop which is a bottle shop but also a snug chamber with every table home to happy folk. Squatting everywhere are bookshelves and I spy Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet; the story of two families sharing a sprawling old house in Perth: the deeply religious Lamb family, and the tempestuous, boozy Pickles clan. Gazing about, I reckon the Port Admiral’s the type of hotel protagonist Sam Pickles would frequent. Sam’s a ‘little truck driving bloke with no schooling’ who makes dreadful decisions but remains earthy and likable.

I love books in pubs and pubs in books.

At the top of the stairs there’s a scattering of games including Yahtzee. Claire confesses, ‘I’ve never played.’ I reply, ‘It’s a game with five dice.’ Claire adds, ‘I don’t like games of chance.’ I whimper, ‘Oh,’ glancing at the Connect Four box, thinking it might be more likely.

Mystery Pub’s singular purpose means I’m content there’s no wide screens showing footy or the Menangle trots or tachyon cricket from India. There’s also no TAB, meat trays or other distractions. Down the Port, there’s plenty of these, elsewhere.

The Port Admiral’s the rarest of pubs: just a pub. 

Claire conjures a Martini Espresso to celebrate the week’s wins and I survey the rows of taps before buying an XPA. It looks like Grandma’s pea soup or melted honey or both. However, I think it’s the first beer of the day from this keg and sipping some, it presents like Shaun Tait on a lively deck: problematically. It’s rarely worth being a beer pioneer.

And so, in this massive, sprawling, mostly empty old pub we squirel into a nook by the staircase. It’s cosy and secluded and reminds me of Jordan’s observation in The Great Gatsby, ‘And I like large parties. They’re so intimate.’ Two old chairs are separated by an occasional table. Beneath the stairs is a cram of firewood, which is merely ornamental.  

We speak of our afternoons, our weeks, tonight, and next month… There’s much to investigate. To enhance our empathy, we swap chairs after the first drink. We could be in a period drama set in Oxfordshire save for ridiculous bonnets and forbidden, urgent panting.

I then opt for a Two Bays Pale Ale from Mornington Peninsula while Claire returns with the hitherto unheard of Piquepoul. I learn it’s similar to Riesling and grown in Rhone and Catalonia and the Barossa by Lienerts. Meanwhile the front bar punk explosion continues for an absent demographic. We hear no Billy Joel or Shostakovich.

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Spag Bog at The Bot: A Coopers Botanic Ale Tale

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With Coopers announcing that their newborn Botanic Ale is available for a strictly limited time, the following commentary is both festive proclamation and premature eulogy.

However, the phrase, ‘limited time’ makes me think of the Rolling Stones and how more than once Mick asserted, ‘I’d rather be dead than singing ‘Satisfaction’ when I’m forty-five.’ Both Coopers’ XPA and Session Ale (which transmogrified into Pacific/Specific Pale Ale) were also declared momentary but are happily still happening.

Clamping my peepers on a can the pink, purple, olive, and red markings conjure a nouveau psych-rock aesthetic. It’s visually reminiscent of the swirling guitars on Tame Impala’s Innerspeaker album and this is encouraging. Beer and music can pair well.

Having gathered ingredients to make a beef curry in the slow cooker (crock pot is too 1970’s a term) I swung past the Holdy to collect my debut four-pack of Botanic Ale cans. Home, I slid them into the garage beer fridge where, aside from some understandably abandoned lolly water, they were among friends.

With its deliberate Adelaide evocations, I pondered the name Botanic. Was it named for the much-loved public gardens or the adjacent pub I often haunted on Monday nights while at uni?

To stay open late in those heady, 1980’s times, The Bot was required to serve the punters a meal so at the prescribed hour we were obligated to queue, grab a paper plate, and witness a sullen worker slop out spaghetti Bolognese or, most often, an inferior replica. It was that or go home. On occasion I even saw people eat it. Salad days, indeed.

Back to the future and just down Chief Street in Brompton sits the elegantly renovated Brickmakers Arms. Their pristine beer garden recently provided some colleagues and me a celebratory context to acknowledge a curricular writing milestone. As we all know kegged beer is king so noting Botanic Ale on tap, I waved my phone at the dinging debit box and marched outside with a frosty tumbler.

Safely on my bum with cup in claw I considered the (late) London restaurant critic Victor Lewis-Smith and his frequent use of this question in his splendid reviews: what made me pleased?

Here goes. I remember a hot Barossa afternoon when old mate Holmsey told me of a now long-forgotten European ale that, ‘wasn’t sessionable.’ I think this may be true of Botanic Ale too.

In the glass it has a brooding yet bronzed presence, and this foreshadows its hefty 5.8% engine. Turning the key, the pint was zesty and gripping, and possessed an apt sense of occasion while also being fun. It provided citrus/tropical aromatics, all in the context of presenting as a bold beer and not just a cold beer. And it does suggest a nouveau psych-rock aesthetic, so I pronounce another Coopers triumph. It’s highly worthy of a gargle.

Snare a slab if you can and consume with slow-cooked vindaloo and Tame Impala. Or at a pinch, sloppy spag bog just before midnight.

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Seven Ways of Looking at a Sparkling Ale Longneck

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#1

This statesmanlike, red-labelled bottle is a narrative.

In the realm of ales, it’s Ulysses. A front bar round of pints is often comic theatre, and a butcher of ale (200ml for the uncertain) is a haiku revealing its buried fortune as you dig into its poetic earth. But the Coopers Sparkling Ale prose is of canonical eminence. Like engaging with longform art, there’s opportunity for immersive delight but also an obligation to contemplate life’s deeper themes. It’s your favourite novel, your Great Gatsby which you re-read on the lounge as an affirming annual indulgence after Boxing Day.

#2

No, this beer isn’t The Beatles. With a heart prone to menace and darkness it’s The Rolling Stones and their farewell letter to the sixties, Let It Bleed. Every glass contains Mick and Keef’s nightfall poetry and gritty realities, deathless swagger and irresolvable tension. We traverse from the ‘apocalyptic dread’ of that first foamy tumbler in ‘Gimme Shelter’ to the psychological ruin sweeping across, ’You Can’t Always Get What You Want.’ Now, the music fades and you drain the dregs into your cherished schooner as the glimmering sun slants in over the back lawn.

#3

My Friday evening ritual is a Sistine Chapel visit. Like many of life’s joys, one is sufficient but two is dastardly excess from which no good can result. Take in the grandeur, and purity of aspiration. Open-mouthed and fizzing of brain, I stare up at Michelangelo’s ceiling. But do it only once. And if you’re tempted, don’t return to the fridge for a second bottle. You’re done. What else can you request from a work of art?

#4

Each frosty longneck comes complete with engaging conversation, original observations, and deep introspection. Listen to its voice and you’re reminded of Richard Burton, all conquest and divine warmth, commencing his narration in Under Milkwood

To begin at the beginning:

It is spring, moonless night in the small town

Starless and bible-black

The cobblestreets silent and the hunched

courters’-and-rabbits’ wood limping invisible

down to the sloeblack slow, black, crowblack,

fishingboatbobbing sea.

#5

Old bull: No, let’s walk down and do the lot.

#6

It’s also a maverick. The only beer commonly viewed as being better out of a bottle and not taken from the keg. Why is it so? The scientists could tell us but at play there’s delightful alchemy. Flip the bottle top and shake hands with this twelfth apostle, this preternaturally talented twelfth man cricketer, this Lysithea (the twelfth moon of Jupiter). Another time when the reluctant rebel instructs those of us safely inside the fence line.

#7

Erect of glassed carriage it dominates its alfresco setting. A statement beverage, announcing itself as quietly authoritative. Warning against a flimsy heart but offering steely security of purpose. Depending on the light, it’s a romantic painting by Toulouse-Lautrec, or a Shakespearean sonnet, but ultimately, it’s dynamic and organic like Frank Lloyd Wright’s architectural wonder, Falling Water.

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Pirate Life Brewery

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Listen. I’m hugely sympathetic to those affected by the potato shortage. I really am. I’ve got Irish ancestry.

But Saturday evening I was tackling my cheeseburger and fries in Pirate Life brewery when I had bad thoughts about my fries. Nobody should experience this. Meanwhile, Claire enjoyed her brussel sprouts. More on these later. Both Claire and the sprouts.

Like so many of you I’m a big fan of chips. More than I should be although I doubt this is a small, exclusive club. Despite the pony-tailed DJ pumping choons, the ambiance convivial and my ale a-tasty, I decided that fries, in this particular case, shoestring fries, are more than a little bit rubbish.

The surface area to actual spud ratio is poor. With an authentic chip, you can and should eat them singularly, but pesky fries require you to snatch them by the handful, like a lesser primate. They make you a greedy-guts and I’m reminded of the cafeteria scene in Animal House when prior to spitting a mouthful of cake over everybody and declaring, ‘I’m a zit, get it?’ Bluto Blutarsky is stared at by Babs Jansen who says, ‘That boy is a P-I-G pig.’

See, fries make us worse. Fries invite self-loathing.

Fries. They just ain’t no good, mama.

I love being taken on a secretive excursion, and despite my occasional affections for Pirate Life’s South Coast Pale Ale, hadn’t visited the source. So, ever mindful, Claire chaperoned me to the Port. With about two dozen beers on tap, choice was difficult, in that bounteous, contemporary way. For no good reason, I thought I deserved a treat.

I got underway with a Mosaic IPA, which was feisty entertainment if somewhat boisterous, weighing in at 7%. As is her ritual, my wife tried a squirt of cider, shook her golden locks and then asked politely for a glass of red.

The brewery’s a lively place and there was a 30th at a nearby table, and lots of unfettered kids scurrying about. Suddenly, our ears twitched like rabbits. Yes, the DJ was playing ‘Africa’ by Toto. But not the version we all know, which inexplicably has had more than a billion and a half plays on Spotify. How can this be?

While I decamped to buy an additional IPA, Claire approached the choon-smith and learnt that the funky version was by the Hackney Colliery Band, a modern British ensemble that’s, ‘inventing the brass band format for the twenty-first century.’ As it’s synonymous with our adolescence, we share some affection for the song however its enduring appeal ultimately escapes us. Yes, the musicianship is impressive, but the lyrics are among the most turgid slop ever imposed upon humans. Try this.

I hear the drums echoing tonight
But she hears only whispers of some quiet conversation
She’s coming in, 12:30 flight

The moonlit wings reflect the stars that guide me towards salvation.

Steaming, heaving nonsense, I hear you say.

I now ask: has anybody really seen stars reflected in the moonlit wings of, say, an Airbus A380? Agreed. No, not even by an aggrieved baggage-handler on a rainy Heathrow night as he drop-kicks your increasingly scuffed case across the tarmac.

In pleasing contrast to the lyrics and the shoestring fries were the aforementioned brussel sprouts. Did they ever really go out of style? When he was about eight, Max described them as ‘balls of leaves’ but either way these oval spheres are excellent, and possibly the new broccolini. Claire ordered a plate of them, and pan-fried and coated with garlic stuff, it was our meal highlight. Each one feels healthy to eat and a single sprout counteracts the harm of a hundred shoestring fries. It’s true. Ask your grandma.

Nearly out the door, we swung by the merch tent which was really an in-brewery shop. Some folks collect spoons or stamps or Nautical Sextant Telescopes, but I like to keep my stubby-holder stocks healthy. So, I left, rubber beer-drinking device in hand.

It’d been a fine hour.

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Three Italian Beers

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Varenna

It’s late afternoon in Lake Como.

Claire and I are sitting on our second-floor balcony and in the cool twilight, we help ourselves to dreamy snatches of the water. As the mist settles, snowy mountain peaks fade into the bluish light of Switzerland.

We listen to our scenery, the breeze, and the folks below.

Birra Moretti’s mustachioed mascot makes my beer instantly recognizable. He’s patriarchal, encouraging in that European way, and timeless. He’s urging me to be my best beer-consuming self. Luigi Moretti launched the brewery in 1857.

Our initial Italian meal was a belated lunch at a bistro on Piazza San Giorgio. We both had variations upon lasagna as, wide-eyed, and happy, we gazed at the cobblestones, the church, and the black scooters, lined up like fast, rebellious smears.

Given this postcardy context how was the beer? Moretti’s a fruity lager; energetic and offering of infectious excitements. Mine is in a cooperative tumbler.

Of course, it was great. How could it not be?

Vernazza

Arriving by train in the Cinque Terre we had to yank our luggage up a cliff around sunset. It was nearly three-hundred uneven and ancient steps, clinging to the rock face.

We struggled past two (American) couples, securely dining and wining in a café, and these both remarked helpfully on how our physical chore appeared as if it, ‘Sucked.’

My philosophical question remains: Is it good to warrant a holiday beer? Are they to be earnt while travelling?

Either way, sitting on our lofty terrace I had a Peroni Red. I can’t recall an unwelcome coastal beer and this one certainly wasn’t.

We also drank in the view of the rolling Mediterranean where to the north the blinking lights were the Cinque Terre’s first village in Monterosso. We’d explore it in a day or so.

The ale is slightly darker than its more famous stablemate, Nastro Azzurro, but is flavoursome and feisty. The brewery was established in 1846 in Vigevano, just south of Milan. Its aroma and palate are fetching.

As we sipped and chatted, we heard the bells ring out from Santa Margherita di Antiochia Church.

Glenelg North

Back home and it’s the Sunday before work. I’ve a near-fatal case of post-holiday dreads.

Dr. Dan prescribes a medicinal excursion to his liquor emporium. A variation on our Mystery Pubs and Mystery Days, I come home with Mystery Drinks. I get beer and on occasion, something tentative and spiritual (alcoholic not holy) for Claire. It’s an opportune distraction.

Pirate Life’s Italiana lager catches my mourning eye. It’s brewed down at the Port, the Napoli of Adelaide, or not.

At 5.2% take caution after a few so you don’t get lippy with Nonna. If you did, I wouldn’t want to be you.

A zesty beer, I found Dean Martin in my glass, and it made me think of zig-zagging home after the opera at La Scala; birdsong by a Lake Como church; scampering along the platform to make our train to Pisa.

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Mystery Pub: Getting Metaphysical at the Morphett Arms

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Glen Campbell gave us ‘Rhinestone Cowboy’ and failed contestants of the ancient quiz show Sale of the Century were gifted a diamond encrusted stick pin by host Glenn Ridge. So what jewel does Glengowrie offer us?

Why, of course, the muscular boozer that is the Morphett Arms.

It was an act of bravery but also necessity. The pub is large, aggressively functional and a shrine for disciples of the Friday Meat Tray. None of these generally hold much appeal for Claire, but it’s seven minutes from home, and it would be a snobbish oversight to not swing by at least once as curious locals. Mystery Pub, as you well know, is underpinned by egalitarian principals and a dedication to exploration, geopolitics and post-modern art.

It’s not just a shameless monthly excuse to get on the gargle for an escapist hour.

The courtyard is a fine place to nurse, or if required, attack an end of week refreshment. The sole maple tree offers shade, beauty and a certain conspiratorial atmosphere, enhanced by us having the space almost entirely to ourselves.

There’s a decent range of tap beer but my Coopers XPA lacks punch. I suspect I’m the first to have one for the afternoon and so the keg’s still asleep. On occasion, being a beer pioneer comes at significant personal cost and if I weren’t of a buoyant mood this might have represented an existential crisis. Fatigued ale claims many a hapless victim. Don’t be next.

Claire’s white wine is white and winey in her etched and apparently complimentary glass.

We debrief our week and anticipate the next which with the Fringe now underway includes many Auslan interpreting gigs for Claire at the Holden Street Theatre and in town for various comedians such as Lloyd Langford, our funniest Welsh import. He could read from a phone book (explain this to the kids) and it’d be amusing.

I discuss going to Kapunda for work in a few days’ time and how this’ll be a euphoric treat despite the continuing sadness of the 2022 fire in Eringa. I love going home.

We sit happily at our elevated table and a few groups of post-work folk now drift in. Behind me on the large screen the cricket’s on in Delhi and local boy Travis Head comes and goes without me noticing. I’m probably more disappointed that the next Test has been moved from Dharamsala. It’s the most spectacular setting for a cricket ground with the snowy Himalayas looming just beyond the grandstands.

Our barkeep has a name badge with Rourke on it so when I return for round two of cuppage that’s what I call him. ‘Can I have a Pirate Life thanks, Rourke?’ His badge must be vaguely accurate as he replies, ‘Sure.’ My wife opts for a gin which is fair enough in mid-February. We have a funny conversation about Rourke, and the often-surprising helpfulness of a clearly visible nametag.

On our way to the motor, we duck into the front bar and the meat tray raffle’s away. Despite his microphone and a decent PA system, the spruiker’s a shouty chap and he barks, ‘That’s it for the pink tickets.’ I note a rise in the pub hub-bub, probably that of the singular discontent generated by the sudden pang of knowing you’re not going home with a pack of neck chops, chicken snags and lumpen rissoles.

Still, all blue ticketholders are alive and well. They might be in carnivorous luck yet.

Claire and I had also been in luck having just spent a lovely hour chatting beneath an unexpected maple tree. The tree is spectacular and although trees are not unknown in beer gardens, its green canopy made our occasion snug, and invested the visit with gratitude for our good fortune and mostly easy city and Glengowrie. At all of this I felt a tiny whiff of wonder.

This, my friends, is what Mystery Pub is really about.

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Five Summery Delights

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Beach House Café

A two-minute squirt towards Victor Harbor from our digs at the Bluff. This rickety eatery on the esplanade was bursting last Thursday with folks like us keen for the wood oven pizza or its slightly surprising culinary cousin, North Indian curry. The service was brisk yet relaxed and we inhaled our pizza.

It was fun dining.

The cafe hosts live music and there’s a history lesson as the walls are busy with mounted posters for the iconic acts that have played across the previous two decades, such as Mental As Anything and Ol 55.

Get in there soon to enjoy a Rogan Josh while listening to the Countdown classic, ‘Looking for an Echo.’ It’d be fantastic on a wintry Sunday.

Willowman

Why aren’t there more novels about cricket?

With Test matches allotted five days there’s rich and natural narrative possibilities. I’ve read novels that mention the sport so was thrilled to learn of Willowman which promised a singular attention to the great game.

Inga Simpson’s recent paperback was on my holiday menu and while the plot and characterisation aren’t especially original, the poetic meditations upon batting, music and the patient craft of fashioning beauty are exquisite. Like this section on the main character and Test cricketer

Harrow was using the old Reader bat for the occasion, a deep divot worn in its face…It was yellowed, a few fine cracks in the face, but still beautiful. Some kind of magic at work that it didn’t really age. In the soft English sun, the bat was golden, containing all the hope and possibilities of the game.

I loved reading a chapter or two mid-afternoon, and then napping!

Soul Music

Since the turn of the century this British series has been offering its simple genius.

The producers at BBC Radio 4 take a piece of music and weave together the stories of about five people. The connection: how a particular song features in their lives and became the soundtrack for personal change. There’s the everyday, the tragic and the wryly comedic centred on the transformative power of music. It’s compelling storytelling and gives insight into some remarkable art.

Last Saturday night Claire and I dragged the beanbags out onto the back lawn and listened to episodes on Nick Cave’s ‘Into My Arms’, U2’s ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’ and following a stroll around the block, John Denver’s ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads.’

I was inspired to play the live version from Rattle and Hum which features the Voices of Freedom choir and late in the song Bono and U2 allow them to take over. It’s spinetingling.

The Banshees of Inisherin

Darkly comedic, this is an essay on male friendship and the complex consequences of its failure. Set against the Irish Civil War we, like the main characters, Pádraic and Colm, are vulnerable to their island’s claustrophobia and agoraphobia. It’s a beautiful, terrible place.

It was unsettling and like all great cinema remained with me for the following days as I tried to reconcile its themes. Not for the squeamish, it also has much to say about mortality and art and sacrifice.

After we saw it Claire and I enjoyed exploring it at Patritti wines.

Pirate Life South Coast Pale Ale

Seeing this on tap I invariably feel a pulse of ale frisson. It occupies that select space I call occasion beers. Fresh and redolent of beachside beers gardens (deliberate plural for who only has one beer?) and gentle swimming bays, it’s an afternoon treat.

Once at Alberton watching Glenelg lose to Port the bar was serving a Pirate Life light beer called 0.9 (based on the alcoholic value). I instead wanted the 2007 grand final commemorative beer, Pirate Life 119 but none was available.

And with an incandescent appearance, the Pale Ale looks painterly in a glass as if Monet had captured it by a French field. Not a regular Friday cup, but one to mark a moment, like a festive luncheon.

5

Beer Review: The Rancid, Amoral Horror of Great Northern

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It was almost there and then it was gone.

The faintest suggestion of a promise of a possible future hint of tiny taste and then it disappeared.

Great Northern Original Lager is representative of all that is evil in late-period capitalism.

It was clearly developed around a table by some untreatably dreadful marketing types. Wearing dangerously pointy boots and strategic stubble, I’ll bet it was workshopped (these shameless ones can often be caught turning innocent nouns into vapid verbs) on butcher’s paper, or the slick e-equivalent.

Their website declares that the beer was, ‘brewed with an outdoor lifestyle in mind’ and I remain curious as to what this might look like given the beverage nightmare. ‘Outdoors’ might mean attack from a marauding numbat or vaguely agitated moth, and you could pelt one of these (unopened) beer bottles at them. If you didn’t hit them, at least they’d be terminally offended by your unspeakable taste in lager.

I took another reluctant sip and peered again at the (dis)information on my screen. With a bold face it stated that the ale was, ‘Light golden in colour with a fruity aroma, subtle bitterness and light palate.’ The following then occurred to me: Adelaide water, that universally maligned liquid, has superior aroma, bitterness and palate.

The bottle label also tells me that the Cairns brewery was established in 1927 which might’ve been fortunate for the then good folk of FNQ. Just play around with F and Q and it’s almost onomatopoeic of their attitude towards us, the customers. Happily, the Great Depression struck in 1929 and the local public may have found themselves unable to afford this depraved slop.

*

My inattention then turned towards the Great Northern Super Crisp Lager which comes in at a non-descript 3.5%. 3.5 is widely acknowledged as the most bland of all numerals. Italian mathematician (and slashing middle-order bat) Fibonacci hated it.

This lager is also allegedly brewed with, ‘an outdoor lifestyle in mind.’ Is there something offensive to these people about drinking a beer indoors? In fact, I reckon this might be for the best. I’d go one step further, just in case someone you knew was walking past and saw what you were voluntarily doing, and pull down all the blinds.

I’m now thinking about the ‘Super Crisp’ qualifiers. I think this might be a fair claim, but only if you’re comparing this sorry muck to week-old lettuce. And given the price of lettuce I’d gobble that up as soon as you left the supermarket checkout, before a Leaf Vegetable Gang mugs you in the carpark.

Further investigation uncovers that our marketing funsters refer to this as the, ‘ultimate refreshment for the Great Northern conditions.’ Remember that scene in Shawshank Redemption when Andy Dufresne convinces Captain Hadley to buy beer for him and his co-workers? They then drink it on the roof and Andy is celebrated as a hero. If it had been Great Northern Super Crisp Lager that scene might’ve been unmatchably gruesome. Andy would never have peeled back the Raquel Welsh poster and dug his way out of prison. They’d have hoicked him off that roof.

0

A Butcher of Victorville Pale Ale at the Greenock Brewers

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It was a perfect half hour.

We strolled in, exchanged greetings with mine hosts and were offered a beer. It was then that we learnt the nostalgic truth.

At the Greenock Brewers Chris and Lisa Higgins sell tremendous beers in bottles and on tap. And, most wonderfully, they can offer you a butcher of beer too.

In a world where the blind madness of upsized consumption has held us to ransom by making us believe we need more and bigger serves of everything from homes to cars to buckets of popcorn at the cinema, being served a beer in a 200ml glass is of great comfort and wistful joy.

Urban myth suggests the Newmarket Hotel in Adelaide first served a butcher of beer to workers from nearby cattle yards, and so the term entered the local vernacular.

Garden-fresh from lunch at the Greenock pub, Nick, Chrisso and I wandered through the shadows of Laucke’s flour mills having decided upon a quick visit and concluding refreshment.

I’m confident it was the first butcher I’d had this millennium. Most pubs no longer stock schooner or butcher glasses and therefore it’s a pint or you’re spitting feathers.

It was instantly the mid-1980s and I was being taught to pull a beer (along with old mate Davo) at the Kapunda Golf Club by Gus Higgins (who was Chris’s uncle). Suddenly all of us were far skinnier but had fatter hair. Allan Border was Australian cricket captain. There were Kingswoods parked outside too.

The Victorville Pale Ale is fiendishly easy to consume. It’s zesty and agreeable and sparkles with citrus notes. I also purchased a six pack for medical and research purposes. If it’d been an hour later, we might’ve dropped anchor and cancelled our evening plans and had a second butcher.

With this nostalgic tone set we spoke of our past, most notably Kapunda icon Skeeta and shared stories of his footy exploits and his drinking exploits and his drinking at footy exploits. Many of us associate Skeeta instantly with the Holden Torana, more particularly his being driven and then not being driven, largely as it frequently ended up in exotic places where a Torana shouldn’t be.

With the golden Barossa light bending across the brewery and through the windows we shared more stories and then it was time for Nick, Chrisso and I to point our non-Torana cars homewards.

I’d enjoyed the beer, and the company enormously. I couldn’t wait until the next time I’d drink a butcher.

5

Three European Beers

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Mowed the lawns and bought the boys a new cricket bat so thought it only fair to shout myself a Norwegian lager.

So, I did.

The paragraph on the can includes some stereotypical gibberish asserting that Trost, “brings together ancient Norse philosophy and modern brewing techniques to deliver an impossibly smooth and sublimely refreshing premium lager.”

No, Trost lager is probably best taken in a Norwegian wood during the depths of a snowy winter with one’s taste buds frozen shut while a reindeer pokes one in the snout. Watch that antler! Ouch!

In a conclusion sure to anger the Norse gods I found the beer uncannily reminiscent of Great Northern lager, from that other famous Nordic outpost, Cairns. Do your worst Baldur, Borr and Bragi for I found it muted and lacking fatally in charisma.

Using the Pitchfork alternative music metric I give it 2.0. Avoid.

My late Saturday excursion then took me about 900 kilometres south to Dargun, Germany for the approximately homophonic Bear Beer. It was a considerable improvement on my previous ale but that’s akin to declaring a screeching cat better than, well, anything in Pink’s back catalogue.

Bear Beer. Is this beer made from a bear? Or is it beer that might be drunk by a bear? I’ll have to jump the Adelaide Zoo fence after midnight and pop by Wang Wang and Funi’s enclosure with a six pack and see what they reckon.

In a confusing development the label now reveals that the beer is approved by the Royal Danish Court. Does this mean that Princess Mary chugs a few back Sunday night while watching the Magpies and GWS? No, I think not.

While the refreshment was inoffensive this was also precisely the problem for it had been stripped of robust taste. Beer without taste becomes merely functional, like a Soviet-era apartment block on the outskirts of Prague.

Don’t avoid as quickly as the Trost, but still avoid. 4.7 on the Pitchfork scale, you edgy kids.

The final leg of my hoppy world tour saw me touchdown in Holland which, if I can believe this label, is home to a beverage cunningly called Hollandia. The can suggests the beer was first manufactured in 1758.

Now, I love that European beer has a proud history with Stella Artois dating back to 1366. It’s a remarkable beer, befitting its 700-year legacy. While Hollandia is only 250 years old, I think it should be much, much better. Thomas Cooper first brewed Sparkling Ale in 1862 and as an upstart, it’s streets in front.

Hollandia’s not a disaster. It’s approachable, but then again, a beer shouldn’t punch you on the beak when you first meet. It possesses a zing that’s a little Amsterdam and canals and bicycles to the Rijksmuseum.

If a mate brings some to a barbie at your house, don’t kick them out before they can enjoy a neck chop. 6.1 on the scale.

0

Beer Review: Nort

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Sitting on our patio late Sunday I decide to open a beer. It’s a Nort and was abandoned recently by a supposed friend. Like an unwanted but inarguably ugly dog it’s been hiding in the beer fridge, all forlorn and problematic and somehow demanding my attention.

Easing off the top there’s no Christmas Day sizzle or birthday effervescence. Just grim functionality, like programming a Betamax VCR in 1984. It’s unceremonious.

The label is Scandinavian assertive and not casually idiomatic. It demands the drinker, “Enjoy More.” Enjoy more what I wonder. Bing Crosby albums or possibly Gilligan’s Island reruns? Seems a bit pushy.

In the bottom half of the label (there’s probably a technical term for this that the Gruen folk could doubtless tell me) it confidently declares the contents to be, “RERFRESHING ALE.” Well, I’ll be the judge of that I think. See, I’ve already started arguing with my beer and this is generally a harbinger of personal doom. Never a good idea on a Sunday.

I next learn that my beverage is “100% crafted.” Now, I’m pretty sure this is porky pies. Crafted by a kindly old grandpa in his rustic shed? Or spewed up on an automated and soulless conveyor belt in a post-apocalyptic industrial estate?

I think we both know the answer to this.

Spinning the bottle around provides further critical reading opportunity. Who knew that beer could be so educational, so enlightening? If I reflect sufficiently on this, I may concoct a taxonomy for future generations to apply to their drinking pursuits.    

Then I see that my ale is, “plant based.”

Ah.

This is great news for I had become weary of all the meat based beer I’d been happily consuming. All the sausage-centred lager and the steak-derived stout. Not to mention the pork pilsner (could be an adult film, produced in Hamburg).

As I type I wonder about the genius that would be a schnitzel-based beer. Imagine the time we could save! Just fire up the nutri-bullet and stick it all in together! Hot or cold, winter or summer! Yum.

So, how was the beer? Peering at the label again I note that Nort anagrams to Rotn.

Yes, this has been a decidedly rotten episode. Linguistically, spiritually, alcoholically.

I don’t know what it costs or where you buy it. If a mate leaves one in your fridge, tip in on some weeds you want dead and claim the ten cents refund.