Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
Hailing from the Mountain Goat brewery in Melbourne this Organic certified Steam Ale is brewed with a hint of wheat in the name of brewing an easy drinking beer. In a glass this number has a hazy pale straw colour, the head is smaller than average upon pouring and very quickly subsides to nothing but a thin lace covering. On the nose apple and citrus notes stand out accompanied by the odd mint note.
On the palate the drinker is initially greeted by grassy hop notes, although the bitterness seems to be very restrained. Further on grainy bread, yeast and apple flavours predominate eventually ending with a slightly sweet nutty character.
Verdict: Not bad from a bottle, very easy drinking and not at all unpleasant, i have previously tasted this on tap at The Local Tap House and remembered it having more depth though.
Score: 7.4 / 10
Link: Mountain Goat Beer
Where to buy: You should be able to find Mountain Goat Steam Ale for sale at any of the large Sydney bottle shops such as Dan Murphy’s.
Tags: mountain goat, Organic, Steam Ale, VIC
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Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
Steam beer as a style is fairly old and harks back to the early days of the Californian Gold Rush. In the 1840’s the popularity of lager beer was growing and after a hard day trying to strike their fortune in the hills a good portion of the miners wanted a nice refreshing crisp lager to unwind with. The problem was lager requires cold temperatures during its fermentation and maturation and California in the days before refrigeration didn’t have have access to the same climate as the caves found in lager’s native Germany. Brewers therefore eventually got desperate and tried using lager yeast in their brews anyway whilst fermenting as normal at the same temperatures Ale is made at, resulting in the creation of Steam Beer! Some people didn’t mind it in the end, and in some areas it even caught on and became sought after.
The Steam Exchange brewery is situated in South Australia at Goolwa and given the name of the brewery it seems only appropriate for them to make a “Steam Beer”. Decanting a bottle into a glass displays a clear bronze coloured liquid, with a fairly high level of carbonation and a nice large creamy head riding atop. The head ended up being 3 – 4cm’s tall and took a good 5 minutes to die right down to a nice lace covering.
This beer is brewed in open fermenters which i think contributes a lot to the complexity of the brew’s aroma. It is sensational with toffee, caramel, mango, melon, nectarine, floral and citrus notes being fairly easy to detect. On the palate this beer is big and malty with a big hop hit that starts at the front of the palate and seems to increase all the way to the back. A lot of the flavours are contributed by the malt with butterscotch, caramel and brown sugar leading the way but herbal and citrus notes also accompany.
Verdict: Great aroma, very easy to drink yet complex enough to keep you interested. I loved this beer very tasty!
Rating: 8.1 / 10
Link: http://www.steamexchange.com.au/
Tags: Goolwa, Open Fermentation, SA, Steam Ale, Steam Exchange
Posted in Beer | 2 Comments »
