When I left the house on Friday night I had no intention of going to Subculture brewing, partly becuase I had plans to catch up with some old friends at a Pizza place but mainly because I had no idea that Subculture Brewery existed.
It is like 6-7km from my house, so you know it certainly possible that I should have heard of it, and it's been around for maybe a year or so, but alas there are too many breweries in Melbourne and I'm not paying enough attention.
So how did I find it. Well as I mentioned I was meeting some friends for dinner, pizza specifically as a place called Madonna Electric in Sydney Road, Brunswick. Now Brunswick is the epicentre of hipster culture in Melbourne, and Madoona Electric is the personification of it - Amazingly good Pizza in a place that looked like a reasonable Facsimile of a Nonna's kitchen in 1970's but it's all ironic.
Beer options weren't great but I grabbed a beer and as I checked it in on Untappd I noticed in the nearby venue something called SubCulture brewery 0.0km away, interesting I thought. As the evening progressed we were facing a problem - As MAdonna Electric is is so hot right now, it was packed full of loud people and we were struggling to hear each other across the table, we started discussing finding a second quieter venue. I thought - I know a place.
So we stumbled outside and realised Subculture was two doors up, so off we wandered and yeah it was a lot quieter, there were a few locals scattered around the place, but it was also long and narrow so they were all in their separate areas. - We took a big table at the front, found some beers and started our journey.
The beer on the right was Bitter and Twisted a West Coast IPA brewed about 10 metres down the corridor and I have to say I was pretty impressive, it was exactly what it says on the label, a punchy resiny west coast style IPA.
It suited the decor of the place - this place is a mix of 90's influences, movies, music definitely, think a bit of punk, alternative, maybe some violent femmes that sort of thing, thewre was a street figther arcade machine out the back and it all had a lounge room type vibe.
This is not my photo - but it's from Will @ Crafty Pint so he'd be happy enough for me to steal it
also - how Cool are those t-shirts and the Logo, it really appeals to this Gen Xer, as you can see 8 taps of goodness (6 of which were SubCulture and two guest taps) and harder to see is rows of vinyl and shock horror CDs which where being played.
So far so good, one good beer, a cool vibe, good venue it was time to get another couple of beers and see if they can produce quality beers on the reg as the youngsters would say
This is a Hazy IPA called Cloud of the Unknown which was again exactly what a Hazy IPA should be, easier and more approachable than the WCIPA it was playful and fresh and a little bit fruity and all in all as great little beer, and again that Logo so good.
Which brings us to the last beer which I didn't take a photo of - it was a Stout called 'No Logo in the Foam' an obvious dig at Guinness, it was another solid beer, but I would have been more impressed if somehow they could have poured it with the Subculture logo in it.
I was so happy with this find, there is something about discovering something new, and better still they have a deal with Madonna Electric so you can order their Pizza and eat it here which is the best of both worlds.