Tipples Beer Review #91 - Special AFL Grand Final Edition

It’s AFL Grand Final day, which is the Australia equivalent to the Superbowl. This is huge for Australians, there will be over 100,000 people at the game (just down the road at the MCG) and millions watching the telecast. Which of course means a BBQ and quite a bit of Beer.

For me this means drinking games, but in a craft beer sort of way. The rules are simple, there are four quarters to an AFL game (of about a half hour each) so we are drinking a beer for each quarter.

How do we choice the beers? Well we have four matched to one of the competing teams – Collingwood and four matched with the other team – The West Coast Eagles.

Collingwood is a suburb of Melbourne in the state of Victoria, which is where I live, so we have four beers from Melbourne, two in fact from Collingwood’s Stomping Ground brewery – The Pale Ale, and The Guava Squash, Then two other Victorian breweries, Two Birds Jucius Caeser NEIPA and Sailor’s Grave Forest Ale.

West Coast are from Perth on the other (western) side of Australia for them we have Colonial Brewing's Porter and South West Sour, WA’s biggest craft brewer Feral Brewing’s War Hog and the last beer is not West Australian is from Mr Banks in Melbourne, but it’s the West Coast IPA so it had to be done.

All the Beers on offer

It should also be noted that although Collingwood are the ‘Home’ team for me, like the rest of Melbourne I hate Collingwood so I want the interlopers from Perth to win. (My team is North Melbourne, who beat Collingwood in the 1977 grand final)

The Rules are simple, whoever is ahead at the start of each quarter we drink their nominated beer, and for the first quarter it’s whoever scores first, so let’s go…

Quarter 1
First up is Mr Banks West Coast IPA (WCE) vs Stomping Ground Pale (Coll)
West Coast open the ledger about a minute into the game with a behind, so it’s Mr Banks – this pours a light straw colour with a fluffy head, it’s very fragrant with grassy hops, it’s a pretty good beer, could do with a little more body to balance the hops but really enjoyable.

Quarter 2
Two Birds Jucius Ceaser NEIPA (Coll)
So after that first shot at goal West Coast have been dominated by Collingwood, so as we enter the second quarter Collingwood are ahead 5 goals 1 behinds = 31 pts to WCE 2 goal 2 behinds = 14pts. (and those 2 goals both in the last 3 minutes). So it’s Two Birds Jucius Ceasar NEIPA. It pours a nice dense yellow, not much haze for a NEIPA and with a pillowy white head. Smells tropical and a touch sweet, this promises a lot. The taste is very good, as promised tropical, fruity and very very drinkable.

Quarter 3
Stomping Ground Guava Sour (Coll)
So West Coast have come back in the second quarter but Collingwood are still ahead 6.6=39 to West Coast 4.3=27, which does mean we are still drinking Victorian – namely a Guava Sour from Stomping Ground. It’s also time for another tradition – the Lamington – this is a throw back from a old Grand Final tradition of a pub crawl which saw us go to a new pub each quarter, in the half time break we would pop into the shops and get some lamingtons. (It seems logical when you've been drinking for half the day) So sour beer and lamingtons it is for the third quarter.
This beer is a pinky yellow and definitely hazy, it smells a little bit of yoghurt, it very sour at the start of the sip but then melts awat to general fruitness, it works, I like it a lot.

Quarter 4
Sailor’s Grave Forest Ale (Coll)
So I hadn’t considered this – it’s a draw at ¾ time, 55 pts each, so I guess we are going to have to go back to first score in the fourth quarter to determine what to drink. Collingwood scores in the opening minute so Sailors Grave it is….
I have no idea what a forest ale is – this is a brew brewed with foraged mushrooms, turns out it’s dark, sort of a caramel brown. It doesn’t smell like much, the taste is interesting, like a sweet brown ale.

So after all of that drinking of Collingwood aligned beers West Coast ended up winning by 5 points. 11.13.79 to 11 goals, 8 pts = 74.

So maybe I need to go back and drink all those West Australian Beers that a lying on the ground.

Drink on people, and next year will be North Melbourne's Year.
And check out the awesome Beer Saturday competition run by @detlev here: https://steemit.com/beersaturday/@detlev/68-weeks-of-beersaturday---what-a-challenge-and-what-a-community