Tipples Beer Review #7 and Beer Saturday entry Week 14 - 2Brothers American Growler Brown Ale (Aust)

2Brothers are one of the earlier craft breweries on the scene in Melbourne, which is to say they are maybe 10 years old. Back in the early days of my craft beer journey they were an early favourite, I sort out their beers regularly, hell I even made pretty good friends with them, got invited down to the brewery, they used to leave free beers for me at my local pub around the corner. It was a amazing time.

I could tell you their story at the drop of a hat, how they are in fact two brothers, how they fell in love with craft beer when they were working in the US, the amazing story of the first brewery tanks, bought in 2006 from the times square brewery in new york, smuggled through the streets of Manhattan at 2am with a shipping permit, shipped literally half way around the world to Melbourne, Australia, first appealing to the factory workers who worked next to the brewery before expanding out.

Hell there brown ale (which is what I’m drinking tonight) was even the inspiration for my home brewed brown ale, called Grrrr! – which was described by Australian pre-eminent beer writer as ‘Actually surprisingly good’ If there are any Australian beer lovers reading this – Yes I mean ‘Crafty Pint’. It’s a long story as to why he was drinking my home brew, but he was.

Untappd tells me I’ve drunk hundreds of their beers, but I’ve had a grand total of 1 in 2017, and 4 in 2016, so what has happened? We used to be so close, we used to get drunk together. Was it was night that Sydney beat Hawthorn in the Grand Final and my Hawthorn supporting friend turning up at what should have been the end of the pub crawl, in an effort to drown his sorrows bought pint after pint of Voodoo (a 6.5% Baltic porter) and I ended up far too drunk for my own good.

Or is it simply the common tale of craft beer (scorned) lovers everywhere, there is always something new and shiny to try and the old favourites fall by the wayside. Or more likely is that their distribution is not great and I just never see it anymore, living as I do about 25km for the brewery and all.

So how do I come to be drinking this beer, American Brown Ale called Growler, a beer I’ve drunk 60 times before, tonight. Well I’ve got into the routine of going to the local bottleshop to find interesting beers for these here steemit posts, and I say the Growler sitting there and thought ‘Hey that’s got a new label.’ Then I thought ‘Hey that’s got a new bottletop.’

Why are bottletop’s important? Because I have a bottletop collection, and autobiographical bottletop collection, a couple of hundred bottle tops taken off beer which I have drunk, just one of each, all displayed on the wall, all with there own little story.
But I never had one from 2 Brothers, this brewery that was so important to my craft beer journey, but this gap is no longer, I now have a new bottlecap, and a new story to add to the book (seriously I have a book tell me the story of each beer, I know it sounds dorky, but you have to remember I wrote a blog , called tipples beer, from 2008 to 2013 so most of it existed anyway)
So enough with my self indulgent trip down memory lane, let’s get this show on the road...

It poured a deep dark brown, which hints to the chocolately taste that I know is coming. It has a thick tan coloured head, which does lace very well down the glass . The smell is fresh malt with a hint of toffee in it. The taste is everything I remember, sweet and refreshing all at the same time, Amazing well balanced with strong, and very familiar Cascade hops coming through.
All in all I was so happy to drink this (actually I drank a couple over the night) it was like catching up with a old friend who you hadn’t seen in years, and you just pick up where you left of.

If you get a chance (you are likely to need to be in Melbourne) and you see this, pick up a bottle, a pot or a pint, you will not regret it.

Also if you want to read my original review of growler and my trip to the brewery, back in 2011 here:
https://tipples.wordpress.com/2011/03/03/2brothers-brewery-trip-guvnor-and-growler/

And check out all the details for beer saturday here:
https://steemit.com/beer/@detlev/whoooot-the-14th-steemit-beersaturday-challenge-comes-with-10-sbd-and-100-whaleshares-to-win

And if you like this post vote for it here, and if you would like me to win the comp then on my link comment on that main post.