Category Archives: Uncategorized

Tipples is Dead

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Tipples is dead. Long live Drink, Pluck Yell.

After almost three and a half year TipplesBeer will be no more. This blog was started to allow myself and a buddy taste craft beer and write our thoughts about it. Back then craft beer was a novelty, hell beer blogs were a novelty as well.

I’ve had a lot of fun over the years and I’m grateful to everyone who has read this blog, and especially to those who thought my writing was good enough to feature elsewhere. But I feel my journey is complete, I don’t need a reason to seek out new beer, they seem to be everywhere now and although I still enjoy writing, and beer I find the restrictions of TipplesBeer frustrating.

Never fear I will be continuing to blog, in fact I have a brand new and very exciting blog over at http://drinkpluckyell.wordpress.com/ I will still write about beer, but I will also write about other topics that concern a not as young as he used to be man about town in Melbourne.

So, time Please Gentlemen and see you over at the new blog DrinkPluckYell.

Butter(ed) Beer

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The finished Product

In my quieter dorkier moments I have been known to don my Gryffindor scarf and enjoy the magical world of Harry Potter and his tales from his time at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Now if you know anything about the magical little scamp you’ll know that he often escaped through a magical tunnel/caught the school bus to the nearby village of Hogsmead. Like all good teenagers when at Hogsmead he would sneak into the local drinking establishments, namely the Three Broomsticks and the Hog’s Head (the latter of course being a great name for a pub as a hogshead is cask of beer).

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Writing Elsewhere Part V

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If you find yourself in Melbourne town in September and you find yourself in a pub or cafe in the inner city you should pick up a copy of GRAM magazine (pictured below)

Why? Becuase I have a review in it. It’s called Portland Brewery, even though it’s actually about the James Squire Brewery at the Portland Hotel rather than a brewery in far western Victoria, although I have been to Portland and it could probably benefit for the having a Brewery.

So pick up the Magazine and read the article, or of course read it here. As an added benefit if you read it on this site you get a bonus joke about Superman III, for some reason they cut it in printed version, although my killer Ghost Dad joke did make it through, which pleased me.

Anyway in summary pick up GRAM it’s awesome, and I promise I might actually write something on this site at some point.

Moondog & Yeastie Boys Peter Piper’s Pickled Pepper Purple Peated Pale Ale.

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Work drinks are a place fraught with potential disaster for the beer geek set. Thankfully I work in a vaguely enlightened workplace, certainly enlightened enough to still have work drinks. In recent weeks these drinks have been creeping earlier and earlier on Friday (now commencing sometime around 4pm) and have been accompanied by cheese and crackers, which I find very civilised, if not a little wasted on the 22 year olds and their cider-drinking uselessness.

Beer choice is normally pretty good due to a manager who drinks only Little Creatures and a PA who thinks Coopers Pale is a good ‘mainstream’ choice, even though she doesn’t drink it. It all went wrong this week though when said PA was busy and a receptionist was sent to get the beer. She returned with Pure Blondes and Crownies.

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Writing Elsewhere Part IV

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GRAM issue 18

If you pick up the new issue (Issue 18) of GRAM magazine which is available in Cafe/Bars/Pubs in the inner city of Melbourne you will see are story about my trip to Holgate Brewery.

Here’s the electronic version. If you see the old skool paper copy you should still pick it up though, and support some of the best food and drink blog writing in Melbourne.

The unbearable lightness of BEEing

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Bees in Space

I was reading Draft magazine, which is a beer magazine from the mighty US of A when I came upon a small article entitled ‘Above the Rim’ – here is the online version of said article.

The basic concept is that you turn your beer into a margarita by coating the rim of the glass in some sort of dry ingredient, upon drinking the beer flows over the adjunct and you either improve or ruin the taste of the beer.

I needed to try this. I needed to write a blog post about it. I was going to title it ‘My first dry rimming experience.’ but concerned about the type of traffic this might attract, thought better of it. Instead I’ve invented an acronym, because well who doesn’t love an acronym? Well maybe these people, but everyone thinks they are rad. I’ve elected to call this Beer Edge Enhancement or BEE. My house is now the BEER(esearch) institute.

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Crabbie’s Ginger Beer.

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Crabbie’s went very nicely with the hummingbird cake.

Like all good craft beer nerds I have a particular distrust and loathing for cider and the people who drink it. I am fully willing to label all cider drinkers a) Gen Y’s, of course as a Gen Xer I consider this to be a huge insult, b) Hipsters, which they probably aren’t but this is another of those catch-all insults that just roll off the tongue and c) Cordial loving weirdos, I will then suggest that if they wanted a sticky sweet alcoholic beverage why don’t they just drink passionfruit vodka cruisers with the 15 year old girls in the park.

But I am willing to concede that beer is not perfect for all circumstances and occasionally you need a different taste to ‘reset yourself. Or you need a cold refreshing drink with ice and maybe a slice of lime in it (and maybe some Frangelico but that’s another thought). In these circumstances you need the beer you are having when you are not having a beer.

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The Beer Academy

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Uni students between pints of Geelong Bitter might try to convince you otherwise but beer and education aren’t generally the best of friends.  This isn’t how the Beer Academy sees it though. The Academy was started in the UK in 2003 and has recently launched in Australia, in fact I was lucky enough to get invited down to their first event in Melbourne town.

Hosted by the appropriately monikered Professor Pilsener (AKA Pete Mitcham) and held at the James Squire Brewhouse, the event was part 90 minute introduction to beer tasting session, part intro to the Beer Academy, part the biggest collection of beer bloggers and associated beery people this side of Good Beer Week.

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