Australia’s reputation, when it comes to beer is, let’s be honest, pretty poor.  Having Fosters as your most famous brewing export isn’t great but the USA has Anheuser-Busch’s excrementally poor Budweiser, compared to which the “Amber Nectar” is actually not that bad.  The US, however, also has a tremendously strong craft beer movement, which has been well established for over 25 years.  Sierra Nevada, one of the standard bearers for the US craft beer movement is now a supermarket beer in the UK.  Most British towns have a speciality beer shop which will feature beers from great craft brewers such as Stone, Dogfish Head and Lagunitas.  I had, until recently, assumed that Australia was still the land of Fosters, VB and Twoheys, with some light but inconsequential relief provided by the pleasant but anodyne Little Creatures.

Preparing for this trip, however, I became aware that there was, indeed, even here, a craft beer movement.  I have, therefore, made every effort to try Aussie craft beers.  Whilst those I had tried so far had not been bad, none of them had excited me, or want me to tell my beer loving friends about them.  Even at 4 Pines in Manly, I had a couple of very passable but not terribly interesting pale ales.

Tonight, I visited a bar on Oxford Street in Darlinghurst by the odd name of Bitter Phew.  Oxford Street itself is an experience, with its mix of fast food outlets, convenience stores and outlets catering to a mix of sexual tastes.  Not, necessarily, somewhere to take the mother in law.  I liked Bitter Phew as soon as I entered.  To get there you have to climb a dark, slightly forbidding staircase.  Inside, it is lit, but only just.  A narrow bar area extends into a slightly wider area with a few sofas and a couple of tables for larger groups.  An Australian take on some of the better US craft beer bars. The list of draft beers (poured, in the American style from a number of anonymous taps on the back wall) was, however, slightly disappointing, since only two or three of the 14 beers on offer were Australian.

As a result, I started with a schooner (the 330ml glass size seems standard here, and very welcome that is too) of a Pacific Pale Ale from 8 Wired, a really high quality New Zealand brewer, some of whose beers I have seen in the UK.  The beer was a text book example of the style.  For my second (and last, if my family are reading!) schooner, I chose a Double IPA from Hope Estate, a brewer based in the Hunter Valley, New South Wales.  Double IPAs are a popular style with brewers in the US and UK but are very difficult (in my opinion) to do well.  The best (Stone’s Ruination, the excellent Magic Rock’s Cannonball) are very, very good, intensely hoppy and bitter but balanced with just enough malt.  Most, however, fall into the trap of being too much of everything and the result, so often, is an over-sweet, over malty soup.

I was very pleasantly surprised to find the Hope Estates version to be beautifully balanced, intensely hoppy, with typically southern hemisphere notes of tropical fruits but not too intense, nor overly sweet.  It carried its 9% abv extraordinarily well.  A delicious beer which I would positively seek.  I look forward to trying other beers from an obviously very able brewer.

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