The final months of the year are an excellent time for enjoying as well as learning about beer with numerous beer festivals throughout Australia. Here at Beer Cartel we have been making sure we attend our fair share!

The first was the 5^th Australian Beer Festival at the Australian Hotel in Sydney. This beer festival brings hoards each year to try the different brews on offer and 2009 was no exception. The pub and adjoining streets were chokka with beer tents for 18 breweries and thousands of beer fans keen to get into the beer action.

Armed with our beer tokens and tasting glasses we made our way through the crowds to sample some new and unusual beers. The Red Angus Summer Ale went down a treat and is one to get your hands on if you can, as did the Prime Beer from Fusion Brewing. The Prime beer is designed specially to go with meat – if only we had a good steak on hand while! It is definitely one to re-visit for our next bbq. Also of note was the Akuna Ginger Beer from the great team at Akuna Brewery, their beers were immensely popular with the crowd as they took out the people’s choice award for best stall.

Two weeks later we made our way further north to the Maitland Bitter and Twisted Festival. It was our first chance to take part in a beer festival as an exhibitor and was a lot of fun! It was great to have a chat to various beer fanatics as well as those keen to sample a few different beers. While we were busy manning our stall, we made sure we had time to have a yarn and a beer with some of the different brewers.

The Murray’s Brewing Co. and Matilda Bay beer tents appeared the most popular of the weekend, regularly generating queues of thirsty beer lovers. The Murray’s seasonal beer was extremely flavoursome, as was Matilda Bay’s newest beer Big Helga. Also of real interest for the weekend was the Liquid Bacon made by the brewers at the Hunter Beer Co. The bacon flavour courtesy of smoked malts was very recognisable and polarised the crowd, with beer fans either loving it or hating it.

It was a great weekend despite the Sunday downpour and one we will definitely be looking forward to next year!

PS. For those in New South Wales that haven’t had a chance to get to a beer festival yet this year, check out the Coogee Beer Fest (28^th & 29^th Nov) and Warners at the Bay Beer Festival (29^th Nov).

Cheers,

Rich and Geoff

Launch of the Beer Cartel website is not far off and so preparations for the launch are well under way. We have begun purchasing stock and have had the chance to meet a few great people along the way.

One of the stops we made was to Greg Facer at Akuna Brewery in Mona Vale who makes a top Ginger Beer. When I met him he was busy with his son bottling the Ginger Beer for an order to the US. Greg tells me that their Ginger Beer is one of only two alcoholic versions made in Australia. The Ginger Beer is brewed with real ginger, rather than brewing it as a beer and then adding ginger essence at the end. With a hint of lime the Ginger Beer goes down perfectly. Having given a sample to a couple of non-beer drinking girls it was a real hit. Greg tells me it also goes down well mixed with Vodka.

In between buying, tasting and thinking beer Geoff has been trying to  keep any potential beer belly to a minimum. Two weekends ago he took part in the annual City to Surf running 14kms from Sydney to Bondi in Beer Cartel apparel. As well as getting a few cheers Geoff whipped through in an hour and 30 minutes, good going running among 70,000 other people without any training and running in pants!

Refusing to stop there Geoff is also set to embark on the Oxfam 100 km walk. This involves a potential 48 hours walking through Sydney’s bush from Brooklyn to Mosman on the North Shore. The walk is a charity fundraiser for Oxfam and is completed in teams of four. As a guide in 2007, 502 teams undertook the mission with just 40% finishing as a complete team! We wish Geoff all the best in his big walk this weekend. If you would like to follow his team’s progress, or make a small donation to the cause you can check out the Oxfam website.

Cheers,

Richard