You get to a new town you'll want to sample the local craft beers right?
This is how I found myself in an industrial estate in the amazingly well named suburb of Coconut Grove in Darwin on a Friday night at the amazingly well named Beaver brewery. Why it called Beaver brewery, given there ain't no beavers in Australia let alone Darwin. My guess (although I can't prove this) is the family that own it surname is Brown (that I can prove) and they guy is of the right age to get the nickname Beaver from the Primus song 'Wyona's Big Brown Beaver'
*Yeah there is Palms in Coconut Grove *
As mentioned Beaver is in an Industrial estate, and is only open on Thursday and Friday for after work drinks. I've been to plenty of these type of breweries before, and the vibe is normally good. Combine that with the fact that it is always 32 degrees in Darwin, and we are here in Dry season where it doesn't rain for about 4 months and as you can imagine the fact that we are drinking in the front driveway is not a problem in the slightest.
There are about 12 or so drinks on tap including some ciders but we quickly work out you can do tasting paddles so we order up the first four beers on the list. They had us four beers, 200ml each which is the largest tasters I think I've ever seen, and there also seems to be a absence of an actual paddle. So the tasting paddle is more correctly 'Buying four slightly smaller beers all at once'
First up was a Lager, which is not normally something that appeals. But as mentioned it's 6pm at night and 32 degrees so a Lager will be perfect and this one appeals to me becuase it's called 'Boofhead lager' Now I'm not sure that Boofhead is a term used in other countries but here in Australia it's a term use to friendly tease someone doing something stupid - i.e. Stop being a boofhead. I used to here this a lot when I was young.
The beer it's is very very good, easy drinking, perfectly balanced, refreshing, exactely what was needed.
The other highlight in these four beers was the Mango Lager, Mangoes work pretty well up here in the tropics and this beer works pretty well too, it adds a sutble sweetness to the lager, somehow making it even more refreshing.
Now the other thing I love about these types of brewery set up is the concept of 'food truck in the driveway' I imagine it keeps things fresh for the locals, we were lucky enough that it was BBQ night so it dinner was a 'plate' of meat - there ain't much better than sticky sweet smokey BBQ on a hot night and a few beers to wash it down.
On ordering the second 'paddle' which of course we know doesn't involve a paddle I was asking 'do you want all four beers now or do you want two and then come back for the other two?' so it turns out it's not even buying four beers at once there seems to be some sort of Buy Now Drink Later scheme going on.
Because I don't like walking I took all four a once
The highlight of this round a beer called 'Dougie' I should mention all of their beers are named after people, either by name - We also had 'Big Chickka' the 'Rayo's' or description, the aforementioned Boofhead, Silvertail (maybe this is an Australian term, it mean 'fancy guy') Anyway the beer was a really solid brown ale, with a nice little malt backbone
All in all I really enjoyed my time at Beaver, maybe not the best beers I've ever tasted but it isn't always about that, it's about the vibe, and the time you can have and the right beer for the how you are feeling, and how I was feeling after 24 hours of holidays on a 32 degree night (I know I sound obessed but you need to understand it was 4 degrees in Melbourne where I live at the same time) I wanted to sit back, people watch and have a light refreshing beer, and Beaver gave me that, in fact they gave me 8 of them and a few cans to take away.
What else can I leave you with than This music Video
