Tipples Beer Review #38 - New Year's Beers from Denmark, Belgium and Australia

I live in a house with an exceptionally good view of Melbourne’s NYW fireworks, I’m also an old grumpy person who generally doesn’t like people so when New Year’s approached the suggestion that we simply sit on the balcony with a couple of my least annoying friends and drink beer I was all up for that.

But what to drink? I had grand plans to drink all the best beer in our fridge that have been there for a few month awaiting a special occasion, but the reality was I only got through 4 or 5 of them, huge 10% barleywines and stouts don’t work for Australian New Years and I’m only going to tell you about three of them, because well I only have photos of three for them, because I get distracted and whatnot.

First up with actually a beer that Jordan got from Christmas from one of our friends – it was from Danish brewers To-Ol and was called Surttil which is a hibiscus and cranberry sour Christmas beer, and it is sour, very very sour, mouth puckeringly so. It is a hazy red colour not unlike strawberry juice. I’m not getting a huge amount apart from sourness, maybe it would have been better with food. To ol are normally brilliant so this was a little disappointing.

Next up was more European Sours – this time from BrouwerijAlvinne which felt very classic Belgian, but is actually better new – opening in 2004. We were having one of their main range of beers a blonde sour called Omega it poured a beautiful orange colour to match the sunset. smell is classic sour, stunning. Taste is a vinegar balsamic style of sour, pleasantly tart and refreshing. A little bit of citrus bite coming through after the initial vinegar bite This beer put us back on track, worth seeking out.

Craft beer people like to drink local and our next beer was closer to home, from about 5km down the road it was Mountain Goat’s Double Steam Ale which was brewed to celebrate their 20th birthday (Mountain goat are one of the earliest craft brewers in Australia, even if they are now owned by Asahi) It was brewed by their three former head brewers and is a ‘imperial’ version of their very popular steam ale.

It poured a hazy very light yellow with a great creamy head which was solid. It smells grassy, like you fell down in the grass catcher whilst mowing the lawn. The taste is amazing, slight sweetness in it, moreso than the standard Steam Ale, which I find a little lame. Made a late run, a very late run given it was about 11.40pm for my Aussie beer of 2017.

Finally this post is my entry to Beer Saturday, which is a great contest run by @setlev, if you have a interest in beer, then enter it, all detail can be found here: https://steemit.com/beersaturday/@detlev/let-s-celebrate-the-30th-steemit-beersaturday-challenge-with-you-as-an-attendee-join-and-win-from-15-sbd-prizes

If you like this post then voted/comment below or if you want to help me win the contest upvote my comment on the main post.

Oh and here is a shoot of the fireworks