This week we continue with our Canvent advent cellar - each day we get to reveal and drink a great Australian or New Zealand Craft beer as we countdown to Christmas. In a tradition almost as old as the advent calendar itself it's been an insanely busy week - work is ramping up as everyone decides everything needs to be done by Christmas and of course I'm already behind in all my Christmas Shopping.
But on with the beers - not all of them, just the highlights
Early in the week was a beer called "all of the Lights' from a brewery I'd not heard of called Shapeshifter. Now these beer is going to cause some trouble. As you can see from the shot above I was being all fancy with my photo taking, what is not pictured is about 5 second later when a gust of wind blew this empty can off this fence and landed it on my next door neighbours balcony. Now he has been away for months now, and when he gets back I imagine he is going to be quite confused at the empty beer can that rolled under his outdoor table.
But the beer itself - well it was a pretty darn good double dry hopped hazy, certainly refreshing, wonderfully balanced, nothing gimmicky about it, but just a good well crafter brew.
The next beer is from the Australian king's of Gimmicks - Moondog and this beer is the (not really christmassy at all but has Santa on the can) Matcha, Matcha Man - which claims to be a Match Kit Kat strong ale, because that's a thing. Moondog get the gimmicks right and this no exception - it genuinely tastes like Matcha Kit Kats, it's a little dank and sweet, I imagine it has some lactose in it -it’s an unusual beer but really interesting.
Then it was back to a classic style with Xmas in LA from another new brewery (for me) Spotty Dog breweries from Hobart in Tasmania, Australia. This is the type of thing this pack is meant to do - This is a stunning beer, fantastically balanced in a old school way, nice bitterness, it’s the type of bitterness that you remember drinking. It sits in your cheeks in a old school way. It will make me remember the brewery too, and I will seek out more of their beers. Marketing Job done.
While we are talking marketing let's have a look at this one - It's 3 Ravens Tropical Wild Ale who are a local Melbourne brewery and one of the older players in the Melbourne beer scene. The beer was actually very good - great classic sour but what is with the packaging. Now maybe it's that it's not for general release so won't live of shelf but how am i meant to know what this beer is even called
And Finally Pudding time....
The beer is called Stocking Stuffer from Melbourne Brewery Bojak and is a Christmas Pudding Stout - and all of those things sound very English to me and very traditional Christmas. This is pretty good and yeah I get the cinnamon on the first taste but you want your pudding to be a bit thicker and sweeter than this, it should be more indulgent.
But all in all it's been another fantastic week of beers in the countdown to Christmas and now I'm thinking about making Christmas pudding.