You might have heard of Torquay, certainly if you are a surfer you would have. Torquay is the home to Bell's beach with hosts one of the more important surfing competitions in the world. It was one of the birthplaces of surfing. The Birthplace of the surf brands Rip Curl and Quiksilver.
Now if you are not Australian you probably have a vision of blue skies, hot days and big waves, and although the last one is true we are on the south coast of Australia done here and it's cold for most of the year - so it is truly amazing that this was home to two great surf brands.
But we are here to talk about beer not surfing. Torquay is about an hour and half's drive outside of Melbourne, so it's not somewhere I would normally pop into for a quick beer but we were staying at a place about 10 minutes down the road and we needed some dinner so where else would you go but the local brewery.
Now it was a typically wintery night. Although it had been a lovely winters day without a cloud in the sky by dinnertime a storm had rolled in so were were very happy to get inside and nestle ourselves between some stainless steel tanks and open fire for a few beers and a pizza.
In terms of beers we managed to fit in two rounds. The first round was all sour. A Barrel Aged Chocolate Beery Gin sour Dark Ale - which sounded pretty compex and interesting, but really wasn't quite there. Although I must admit it was served far too cold (bars always do this is Australia - damn mainstream beer and their 'ice cold' rubbish) by the end it was starting to warm up and open up the flavours, but I was left a little disappointed.
The Patsy Wildberry sour was more successful - it was a more standard and less ambitious beer but it hit the spot nicely - perfectly balanced sour that was right in the refreshment zone.
The pause for food was meet with Mac and Cheese croquettes and a Spicy Chorizo pizza which was quite a surprise it had a mayonnaise base, honey walnuts and leek on it as well as the chorizo - it was certainly different than the standard pizzas you get at most places.
Post Dinner we discussed getting the Cinnamon Nachos with Apple sauce and ice-cream - clearly their chef is an alternative thinker but instead decided to just have a IPA course.
First up was the Tropical Hazy IPA, called Ernie which claimed to have Mango, pineapple and coconut in it as well as Citra, galaxy and Idaho 7 hops - A yeah it had all of those things, and it was the refreshing fruity fun beer you would expect it to be - not sure it was made to be drunk in front of a fire as the rain poured down outside but it still worked for me.
And last up - the Red Rye IPA - now this is one of their standard beers, and I've had it before but I always love a Red IPA and Rye IPA's - so combine them and I am a very happy little fellow.