People always ask us “what is your favourite beer?” This is truly a hard question to answer. Being surrounded by so much beer we don’t really have one beer that we favour above the rest. Instead we have many favourites. What we drink can depend upon mood, time of year, price and strength (alcohol and taste). So we decided to each choose what we thought was our personal top 6 session craft beers.
What is a session beer? We would define this as a beer that is easy to drink but offers more interest than the mass produced commercial crap – you know the ones…….
The beers would be fairly straight forward and uncomplicated. Not extreme in any way. They are a beer that you can sit down to a “few” of and not feel overcome by a particular flavour or feel challenged. These beers would be able to be consumed without needing to think about it too much but be completely enjoyable.
After much debate, raised voices, occasional tantrum and one of us storming out of the shop we finally came to a consensus.
These are what we believe to be our top 6 Australian session craft beers, in no particular order:
McLaren Vale Ale. A lightly malted clean and fresh tasting beer. Popular amongst the South Australian winemakers after a hard day in the vineyard or winery.
Bridge Rd Brewers Beechworth Australian Ale. A pale ale that is a perfect starting point if you are just starting to expand your horizons. Malty with delicate spicy and fruity aromas and a hint of pepper. Beautifully malty, soft and smooth in the mouth malty with subtle hop bitterness and balanced carbonation.
Little Creatures Pale Ale. An Australian classic. Fruity orange and passionfruit aromas with obvious floral hops. Again quite malty on the palate with citrus and spicy fresh hops that dominate towards the finish.
Arctic Fox Lager. A serious lager.A pleasing nose of orange peel, malt and herbal hops (albeit quite subtle). The flavour has a definite refreshing character and fullish and round through the middle palate. Again orange peel comes to mind with a touch of spice, a soft malty mouth feel and good carbonation.
Mountain Goat Steam Beer. New from the Goats. Aromas of subtle malt and fresh grassy hop character. The palate is soft, mildly malty on the front and mid palate, slightly grassy with crisp carbonation and a nice drawn out hop bitterness lingering at the end.
Red Angus Pilsner. A cracking malty, mildly hoppy and completely refreshing pilsner. Has enough interest to be a cut above commercial brands.
Let us know your top 6 Australian “session” craft beers here.
Holgates Mt Macedon Ale and Boatrockers Alpha Queen make my list
Not so sure about LC Pale Ale being a ‘sessional’. After about 2 or 3 I’m searching for something a little less, shall we say, complicated. LC Pale has a lot going on in the glass.
In terms of easy drinking, their Bright Ale is like the Pale, but without the steroids for mine.
Yep fair argument, but I can sit down to a few of the Pale Ales. It’s my bog standard drink at home, and yes it does have bit going for it. I find the Bright a bit wishy washy but then I’m not really a golden ale fan.
Good blog gents!
Being a pom, session beer is preferably served from a tap in a warm, friendly pub. Mine would be:
Bridge Road Celtic Red Ale: Above the 5% mark but this toffee tasting treat just goes down so smoothly & in vast quantities…more pubs/bars should stock this on tap!
Holgate ESB: reminds me of many an ale from back home, nutty finish and the cask conditioning does this justice.
Temple Special Bitter: nice bitter, reminds me of a Pride.
Barons Pale Ale: Doesn’t have the same ABV as a Little Creatures which makes it a top drop for bulk consumption, with a nice citrus finish making it a great summer thirst quencher.
Hazards Ale: Only seen this on tap in Freycinet, much better draft than out of a bottle, this is a hearty, dark malty ale.
3 Ravens Bronze Ale: nice hoppy (can’t beat the old fuggles), golden english style ale, surprisingly probably better out of a bottle.
A couple of very short session beers are the Holgate Double Trouble and Bridge Road Chevalier Biere de Garde…both strong Belgian style beers that kick bigtime!
Thanks for your comment Mark, and a good beer selection too. Some people would probably find some of these beers a little strong (flavour more so) but they are right up my alley. You and I could easily sit on a few of these in a “warm, friendly pub” as described.
Hi blokes,
Good call on the LC Pale Ale and Red Angus Pilsener, both fine sessional beers. Not so sure about the beechworth ale, I was halfway through one and it started to wrench the old tastebuds around, following fruity through to that peppery hint wasn’t quite my deal.
With a little warm weather this week I thought I might throw in my favourite sessionals for the current clime into discussion: Trumer Pils of Austria and the James Squire Sundowner. For a celebration, the Hoegaarden Grand Cru.
Finally, alas for our collective lack of unibroue! Their entire range is smashing, especially the la fin du monde and chambly!
Thanks for your input here. The list is a little old now so we may need to do another and maybe get the general public to vote on their favourites.
And yes it will be a shame to no longer see Unibroue here in Australia. Stock up while you can…!