Bondi Blonde is a beer released from the Bluetongue Brewery in Sydney and is named after Sydney’s most famous beach, Bondi. It was released about 6 months ago with a huge bang… and a girl named Paris Hilton brought out to release it. And since I did the story the other day about Paris and her jail time I thought I’d better actually get one of these beers and give it a taste.

Bondi Blonde has been released as a ‘Low carb, full strength, preservative free’ kind of beer, and right now I bet most of you are cringing at the thought of a beer ‘low on things’. The blonde has only about 2g of carbs for every 100mL, that is around 7g for every regular beer you drink. Compare that with a normal full strength beer with around 3.1g per 100mL, or closer to 10g per beer.

Personally I don’t really care about the carb factor of beers as I really drink them for the taste and alcohol, if I wanted to stay thin I would drink water and lettuce. I have had many a beer in the past which is marketed as low, high, less, none, clear, ice, water and many other names which in essence just means crap beer… and this is no exception. I believe it must be marketed for the Paris Hiltons of this world that may want to drink beer and stay thin.

First thing I noticed about the Bondi Blonde is the clear bottle, and I hate clear bottles! Locally the only beer we get in clear bottles are the ice filtered beers, and if anyone has tasted them you will know why I hate the clear bottle. After opening you think to yourself, ‘where is the noise, where is the head’, and it just never seems to appear.. This continues on with the actual taste, I can honestly say that the Bondi Blonde is not a bad tasting beer, that is because I could not actually taste the beer. It has very mild slightly fruity flavours which gives you a bland finish and a rather disappointed palate. If you have tasted the low carb beers before you will already know what I am talking about here.

I seem to be putting rubbish on the Bondi Blonde like nothing else but I do have to say one positive thing about it. I have been very critical of other ‘low’ or ‘free’ beers for good reason that they taste like urine, the Bondi Blonde does not. Sure it has no flavor or glimpse of a head, but compared to many other ‘low’ beers on the market it is ahead of the pack. It is very drinkable if you want to watch the beer belly and at only a few bucks a pop it is much cheaper that other microbrewed beers.

As you see below I have a new rating system, I call it the BeerCations thumbs up thumbs down! (You come up with a better name then!!)


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Here are some of the beer festivals being hosted around the world in the early part of June;

• Cherry Tree Beer Festival: Woodbridge, England - June 1-3
• Pizza Port Real Ale Festival: Carlsbad, California - June 1-2
• Alton Beer Festival: Alton, England - June 2
• The Beerfest: Santa Rosa, California - June 2
• International Beer Tasting: New Orleans, LA - June 2
• Pennsylvania Microbrewer’s Fest: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - June 2
• Widnes Beer Festival: Widnes Rugby Union Football Club, Cronton, England - June 4-6

Get out there and enjoy them, and keep sending in some feedback!

Will Paris Hilton serve her upcoming jail sentence in Australia?

Marketing guru and beer lover Jack Singleton has come out in the press today saying that Paris should come down to “the world’s biggest convict colony” to serve out her sentence. Of course this makes no sense to most of you but remember that Jack is a marketer.

Earlier this year Jack bought Paris Hilton out to Australia to promote his new beer Bondi Blonde, this stunt alone is believed to have bought in up to $3 million revenue for the beer (although it reportedly cost up to $1 million to bring out Paris).

So this week Jack simply posted some ads throughout the American media urging them to send Paris Hilton down under to serve her sentence, this would make her and probably every male in the country rather happy.

By coming out now and saying this about Ms Hilton, Jack is simply receiving massive publicity from around the world for free.. Good one Jack!

I thought I’d start the new week with a few beer jokes;

Old man Murphy had worked down at the brewery for years, but one day , he just wasn’t paying attention and he tripped on the walkway and fell over into the beer vat and drowned.

The foreman thought it should be his job to inform the widow Murphy of her old man’s death. He showed up at the front door and rang the bell. When she came to the door, he said, “I’m sorry to tell you, but poor old Murphy passed away at work today when he fell into the vat and drowned.”

She wept and covered her face with her apron and after a time, between sobs, she asked, “Tell me, did he suffer?”

“I don’t think so,” said the foreman: “He got out three times to go to the men’s room.

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A grasshopper walks into a bar, pulls up a stool, and orders a beer. The bartender pours him a tall, frothy mug and says “You know… we have a drink named after you.” To which the grasshopper replies, “You have a drink named Bob?”

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A cop is staking out a bar for drunk drivers. At closing time, he sees a guy stumble out of the bar, trip on the curb, and fumble for his keys for five minutes.
When he finally gets in, it takes him another five minutes to get the key in the ignition. Meanwhile, everybody else leaves the bar and drives off.

When he finally pulls away, the cop is waiting for him, pulls him over, and gives him a Breathalyzer test. The test shows he has a blood alcohol level of 0.0.

The cop says, ‘How is this possible?’ The guy says,’Tonight I’m the designated decoy.’

I went into a bottle shop last night to pick up a few cold beers to watch the rugby test with (Wales probably deserved it) and some guy inside asks me if ‘I would like to try a sample of beer’. So what else could I do than taste it, it was just the polite thing to do! But I tell you I am glad I did as I found a great example of a small brewery putting out a beer that you can really enjoy the different flavours.

The Little Creatures Pale Ale comes from a microbrewery in Fremantle which is near Perth in Australia. For any of you that have no idea where that is it’s in the far south-western corner of the country, miles from anywhere. I have heard of the brewery before because of the popular bar that is on the same premises, and a mate of mine lives in that area and he does enjoy a beer or two. The brew house is actually the site of an old crocodile farm near the water, some could say there beer comes with bite (I am not that funny!).

The Pale Ale itself has won numerous awards around the country, including the best Australasian brewery at the Australian International Beer Awards. These awards should not shock anyone after tasting the beer, it is one of those beers that you know you will enjoy the split second it touches your lips. There are strong citrus and fruity tastes in the beer and it finishes off with a nice bitter finish. It would be a perfect beer for a warm summers night with the refreshing flavors, I am just annoyed that summer is months away down here!

The price of the beer is a little more than your mass produced drops but that is to be expected from a micro-brewer. I only bought 1 bottle and that was around $4 aus, and I think I saw a 6 pack is around the $16 aus mark. I know you can easily access Little Creatures all over Australia, you are able to access it online in the UK (not sure about from shops), but I cannot find out if it is available anywhere else.

So for a favorite beer of the west coaster I can say that you can’t go past the Little Creatures Pale Ale.. enjoy

As the temperature gets warmer in the northern hemisphere more beer fests will be starting, there are quite a few in the next weeks and here are just a few;

• The Mondial de la bière: Montreal - May 30-June 3
• Connecticut Brew Fest: Hartford, Connecticut - May 31
• Fete de la Biere: Lausanne-Ouchy, Switzerland - May 31-June 3
• Stockport Beer & Cider Festival: Stockport, England - May 31-June 2
• Wolverhampton Beer Festival: Wolverhampton, England - May 31-June 2

So why don’t you get out there and enjoy some tasty boutique, homebrewed and specialty beers from all over the world.  And if you are going to an upcoming beer festival or organising one then swing me an email with details, photos etc and we shall let people know.

Cheers and enjoy!

I have been a big fan of using beer in cooking for a long time, only I have been really slack lately and haven’t had a good steak and Guinness pie in ages. Last night I figured I really should get back into the kitchen, open up a nice ale and start cooking. I flicked through a bunch of old recipes and books I had and found a nice one for a battered fish, perfect for a Friday night.

The preparation itself takes less time than cooking up a microwave dinner, just dump the ingredients into a bowl and mix. The recipe states that you should use about a cup of pale ale in the batter, but I always like to add a little bit more, this will bring out the fruity malty flavours of the pale ale. When you have mixed up all your batter in a bowl you should then add your fish and let it sit for a few minutes, this is a perfect time to drink another pale ale..

After about the 10 minutes then fry up your fish and thats it! Being a Friday night you should serve your fish with some nice chunky beer battered fries (I will tell you the best way to make

them later) and tasty beer tartar sauce. You should really be able to taste the flavours of the pale ale throughout your fish, it really was a delight to finish of the week with this dish.

Click here for the full recipe

Click here for more Beer Recipes

I have been pretty relaxed for the re-launch of BeerCations and my mind has wandered of the computer and on to the golf course. I haven’t played in so long and the thought of having a quick round and a slow few ales nearly bought tears to my eyes. Like most of you I have a job and can’t go for a swing like I used to (I hate mortgages), so I thought I would being the course to the office.

Beer golf is not exactly a full course golf game, it is in fact a putt putt game! But if you are anything like me you can sit there and play this game for hours and I really needed a few beers after the stress of the fourth hole (I got 8 strokes to games in a row).. The controls are simple, you just aim where you want the ball to go, control the power then putt.

The game is actually made by the Widmer Brothers Brewery in Portland, Oregon. I can’t say I have ever tried any of their brews but they have won a few awards including gold medals for their Original Hefeweizen beer. If anone has tried any of these beers please comment or if anyone knows how I can get my hands on some here in Aus please let me know. After hours of playing the golf game I need to try one!!

Play Beer Golf

Hi There

We have re-started BeerCations!!

Things where a little busy there for a while and I became really slack with the updates, I apologize to all the fans and beer festival lovers out there. And as you can see we are back with a change.. and a vengeance!

We have a slightly new design and we are now running with some blog software, so please feel free to comment, digg us and anything else that goes with the blog territory..

In the newer version of BeerCations we shall bring you all the old stuff like Beer, Beer Festivals, Beer stuff and other Beer stuff. But we shall also bring you more on Beer, like home brewing, Beer from all over the world, Beer competitions, Beer tours and other stuff. I shall be tasting out new beers from all over the world and giving them my review, and if you don’t like what I have to say about them well write it down.. So you will find heaps more stuff here in the new BeerCations..

As you can see to the left I have brought across a few pages from the old site like beer jokes and recipes, these shall be updated way more often. I may even add a bunch of online games and beer ads (thanks youtube).

So sit back and crack a beer..

Enjoy… And Cheers!

Hey guys,

Dont panic, we are just upgrading Beercations and everything should be running smoothly within the next 24 hours. We are still in the process of moving over the old content and getting the new stuff installed.

The good news is that we will have a ton of new features and new content. So in the meantime grab a beer and drop by shortly.