Good Beer Week

Beer Blokes Gold Medal Beer Dinner at The Terminus Hotel

Time for a little shameless self promotion.

Let’s face it; Good Beer Week is going to be bigger than King Kong’s bollocks and every self respecting beer lover will be hitting venues all over this marvellous town to indulge their passion for good beer and good beer company. But don’t forget to keep your stomach, as well as your soul, nourished.

What better way to kick the week off than with some of Melbourne’s finest pub grub matched with five beers which hooked Gold Medals at last year’s awards, served up in one of Melbourne’s nicest pub dining rooms in the company of possibly one of Melbourne’s top six or seven nicest Beer Dinner hosts?

The Beer Blokes Gold Medal Beer Dinner will showcase a range of beers designed to delight the experienced drinker while taking the novice on a giddy ride through the wonders of beer. From light, refreshing Pilsner through yeasty and earthy Saison, to malty English Ale and hoppy and punchy American style pale ale before finishing with the richness and depth of a big bold Stout this selection will highlight the flavour range, the aroma differences and the colour variation that beer offers.

Alongside the beers will be the culinary art of Chef Matt Merrick which he has crafted to match the flavours, aromas, bitterness and texture of each brew. Diners will experience the remarkable ability of the malted beverage to compliment or contrast the flavours and tastes of the dishes with the malt, the yeast or the hops or to cut through the richness and refresh with its bitterness.

Elements of the much loved Beer Blokes Beer Dinners will be included such as the Prof Pilsner’s Beer Trivia Quiz and BEERducation but a couple of surprises are also planned. After all, it IS Good Beer Week and this dinner needs to set the bar high for those who follow. What is assured is that those present will come away with a greater understanding of, and love for, the amber nectar. And the black gold. And the golden liquid. And the bronze beverage.

Seating is limited and just over half the spots are already sold so get your party together and book a table by contacting The Terminus Hotel on 9481 3182. Tickets are just $79 for five courses matched to five different beers plus all the fun of a Beer Blokes Beer Dinner. The Terminus is located at 492 Queens Pde Clifton Hill.

The Beer Blokes Gold Medal Beer Dinner at The Terminus Hotel is proudly supported by The Crafty Pint – ‘putting class in your glass’. And in between courses you are welcome to pop down to the front bar for one of the lovely Australian craft beers selected by The Crafty Pint himself, James Smith. Crafty will be curating the taps at The Terminus and its sister pub, The Royston Hotel during Good Beer Week. Tough gig, eh?!

Cheers

Prof Pilsner

http://www.terminus.com.au/www/content/default.aspx?cid=641 For more details, the menu and bookings.

http://www.goodbeerweek.com/ For everything your beery heart could desire in Melbourne between May 16 and 22^nd.

http://www.craftypint.com.au/ For everything from new beer news and venue and event listing to the musical and lighter side of beer. You might even end up ‘going on a march’. You never know.

Busy-ness

I've been a little slack lately. Actually, I've been flat out like a lizard drinking, truth be known but I've been slack as well.

I haven't been posting on the blog as much as I would like or need but that is not to say I haven't been giving the keyboard a thourough thrashing either. It seems like I am writing something all the time and then I look at the blog and wonder where it all went.

To keep (or put) you all in the loop here's the short version of what Beer Blokes is up to.

I have been writing pretty frequently for Australian Brews News which is a very fine online publication managed by good beer bloke and friend Matt Kirkegaard (Beer Matt). Matt is a proper journalist with years of real experience and he is certainly taking a huge risk allowing my drivel to pollute the webosphere, but that's the kind of mate he is. We are always talking about our writings and he also kindly provides editing and feedback on my stuff you might even see an improvement in the crap that reaches these pages in the future.

I'll try to be more proactive and run a post here when Matt publishes my pieces on ABN but for now, here is a link to his very good beer site.

Also sharing some of the time-and-written-word activity of the Prof is James Smith over at The Crafty Pint. Another fine friend and proper journalist (what is it me suddenly attracting journo mates? Still, if I had to pick a couple, these Word Merchants would be top of the list!) Crafty is as busy as a Benghazi bricklayer at the minute making sure the site is promoting everything to do with craft beer in Australia. And that's no small job in itself. He is also part of the steering commitee organising Good Beer Week which will take place in Melbourne from May 16 to 22 and centres around the AIBA Awards.

We have been working on a few specific projects together including some Beer Dinners and The Great Beer Debate and a couple of other little projects which should allow us to make an absolute shedload of cash and retire by the end of the week. Or not. I'll let you know.

So, between that and more than a handful of Beer Dinners I've been hosting at various venues and the new venues wanting to get on board and do dinners I've been writing menus and trivia questions and tasting notes and matching suggestions and whatever else. No excuse for not writing heaps here, but there's your reason! I think that's about it. What else ...? Hmmm?

Oh, I remember! The Book!! The Critcs' Choice ... it is a lovely little book which hits the shops on April 1st and attempts to gather together the cream of Australia's finest beer experts to put together Australia's best beers of 2010 and sort them into order from one to one hundred. No mean feat, let me tell you.

I have been fortunate enough to be involved from the start and have been busily assembling the Voting Panel and sorting the Criteria and then sorting it all into some sort of legible format. It's harder than you think to sit down and sort beers into any order and harder still to write comments on some of the beers to express your admiration for them. I'll keep you informed about the various goings on of the book and the controversy it is bound to generate. Keep an eye out for it in newsagents and bookshops from next Friday.

Back to work now.

Cheers
Prof Pilsner

The Crafty Pint

In the words of the Southern Army Officer from one of my favourite M*A*S*H episodes;
“Well strap mah face to the side of a hawg and roll me in the mud, where ARE mah mannaers?!?”

In all the post Home Show excitement, the second meeting of the recently formed Australian Beer Writers Guild (NTBTTS)* and running a family, I completely forget to give a very large shout-out to a mate and his labour of love website, The Crafty Pint.

Conceived, designed, created and driven by freelance journo and beer lover, James Smith, The Crafty Pint is something of a one-stop site for all your Craft Beer needs. It provides plenty of easy to read information on the beers, the breweries who brew them and the good beer people who sell them to you, all in a really tight, quick-loading format.

At this stage The Crafty Pint covers just Victorian craft brewers and their beers and focuses on in-house brewers rather than contract brewers or other beer on-sellers but hopes to expand over the coming months to promote craft beers around the country.

Regularly updated, the site gives readers a heads-up on new beer releases and beer events around town. With links to the breweries it’s an easy job to find out more from the source and maps and locators make it easy to plan a night out, a pub visit or a trip away and satisfy all your beery needs.

There are plenty of other feature pages keeping you well informed about all things craft beer – even a very entertaining section which features a Beer Blogger of the Month (well worth checking out the first offering!) – making The Crafty Pint a great source of information as well as entertainment for the craft beer lover.

Cheers
Prof Pilsner

*Not To Be Taken Too Seriously