For the last year or two I have become a huge fan of Micro brewed beer, and it just happens that there has been a huge increase of micro brewers popping up over the last few years. All over the place specialty microbreweries are opening up and quite often use the local area and environment as the name of their product.

Last night while browsing through my local liquor store I came across a good example of a micro brewed beer using the area to promote the beer. Outback Pale Ale is made by The Outback Brewery which make their beers in an area to the west of Sydney. They make their beers to traditional methods that where used at an old brewery in the area, and by using the name ‘Outback’ they have portrayed the beer as a one made in the desert.

The Pale Ale itself was actually a very nice drop, it has a nice pale ale taste but is so smooth that it goes down a treat. The flavors itself are not as strong as other pale ales I have taste, but fruity flavors and a toffee taste come through to make the beer a top one.

I did find that the head was a little weak probably due to the fact that it seemed a little under carbonated, and this pale ale like many other micro brews comes in just a 330mL bottle. Why can’t they produce them in tall boys! On the price front we picked up a 6 pack of the pale ale for about 15 bucks, and I believe at this stage it is only available around the Sydney area.

Overall the Outback Pale Ale is a good package, nice marketing and a well rounded pale ale gives me no choice but to give it a thumbs up. They also produce an award winning chili beer which I will have to taste and review soon, not that I have ever tasted any other chili beer to compare with.

I have been a fair bit lazy with the updates lately but there have have been a few things going on I couldn’t avoid. But I have come back with a vengeance with a beer that does just hit you for six it gives you a king hit to the face.

I have heard about the Grand Ridge Moonshine for a while but just had not got around to tasting it so when I had the opportunity last night I grabbed it. The beer itself it a dark scotch ale which packs a mean 8.5% alcohol, and unlike other high strength beers I have tasted you can really taste it here.

The beer has a strong ale flavor which reminded me much of a homebrew I made a few years back. It is of a very dark choclity color and a multitude of malty caramel flovors hit you when you consume this almost syrup! It has a nice creamy head which you would expect from any dark ale, and it also can pack more of a punch if you drink more than you should in the one night.

The makers of this beer from Grand Ridge are very proud of this beer which has won numerous awards at various beer festivals around the world, they even suggest that we use the moonshine as a marinade (I will have to get back to that later).

The amazing thing I found out later is that the moonshine isn’t even the big daddy of ales at Grand Ridge, they have a beer call the Supershine which has an alcohol content of 11%…. nice!

I had to overall give a thumbs up to the moonshine, I just wouldn’t advise you drink it all night..

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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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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