Long White Clouds

We're about to leave for the airport so I thought I'd keep my promise and just quickly make a holiday post. We've seen heaps. Done some awesome driving tours around the top of the North Island - Taupo, Rotorua, Coromadel Peninsula. Visited lots of geothermal thingys. Seen heaps of cows and only a few sheep?!? Paid an arm and a leg for petrol $2.17/litre - curse my right foot! Eaten great food. Drank a few tasty beers and a couple of decent espressi. All in all good times. See you very soon.

Beer Festival

Yesterday a group of us went to The Australian Hotel Beer Festival. It was very tasty! Stand outs included The Grand Cru and 2IPA both from Murray's Craft Brewing Co. A no-show from Grand Ridge and Cooper's decision to not have the awesome Vintage in their Festival line up (motivated by cost) didn't stop us from having a great afternoon.

L to R: Joy, Lach, Jimmy, Geoff, Turns, Me

New Tastes

The McDonald's 'Name It Burger' now has a name - 'The Backyard Burger'. I had one this arvo so I could park in the Macca's car park (and 'cos I wanted to try it). It's very tasty and I like the name.

I'm about to have dinner and try a new beer that I picked up in Leura on the weekend. We were up in Katoomba cooking on the Cumbo Uni Church weekend away. As we were there I felt it necessary to make a visit to one of the top beer selections in the Sydney metro area - Leura Cellars. The beer is made by Saltram's, a winery in the Barossa. It's called Pepper Jack Hand Crafted Ale and it has Pepperjack's Barossa Valley Shiraz in it. Should be interesting...

Beer Festival

A great evening with a cool crew from St Paul's. Unlimited volumes of Coopers Vintage on tap from an awesome dude who completely ignored the fill line on the tasting cup but had no idea about what he was serving. About 40 beers on show the mentionable ones including Leffe Brown (on tap) & Radieuse, Schofferhofer, Little Creatures full line up, Erdinger, Hoegaarden Verboden Vrucht (Forbidden Fruit). A few shenanigans on the way out making the night a bit more memorable!

Beer & Brewer Magazine sort of launched itself at this most auspicious occasion - we met the publisher (Dave) who gave me a free copy of Issue 1 that's going straight to the pool room.

We had planned to have dinner at the James Squire Brew House (I'm yet to visit this hallowed ground) but we decided we wouldn't appreciate it fully after what we had just sampled so instead hit the old time hangout of Sydney's coolest junior hoodlums: Macca's Darling Harbour for some tasty burgers.

Now I'm looking forward to The Sydney Food & Wine Festival where I'm told Redoak will have a stall. I might even see Jamie Oliver too. See you there Saturday.

Link Me Up Matty

Sydney Beer Festival

Funny Google Maps: Atlanta, Georgia to Paris, France (scroll down to direction #19)

Engage Conference (KCC) open for rego

Facebook: I'm loving it. Reuniting with old friends from Africa. Cool!

Let me know what you think...

It's Official

The Australian International Beer Awards were presented last night in Melbourne. The Grand Champion:

Weihenstephan Kristall

I haven't tried it... yet!

We're having dinner tonight with Chris & Nat Swann, friends from beach mission and I'm taking some James Squire Hop Thief to have with some curry. Yum!

What's your favourite beer?

Wedding + Beer + TV = ?

Some of you may know that one of my younger brothers (I have 3) is getting married the weekend after Easter - very exciting!

Lachlan is marrying Joy and they've just found a place to live which is great news as the rental market is a bit cutthroat at the moment - it's close to work for Joy and has easy access to Lachlan's job at his new school. Praise God.

The other exciting news is that Lach has been given the go ahead to make his own TV show to be aired on TVS (Channel 31). It's focus will be beer - everything from brewing to drinking. I have learnt a lot about the golden nectar from Lach recently - he's a bit of a guru so it should be great. I'll keep you updated.

As most of you bloggers are so interested in getting people to keep coming back to your blogs I thought you'd be able to contribute a few ideas for the show that will get people interested and keep them coming back to watch. So post a comment with ideas and I'll pass them on to Lach as my own - kidding :)

2313 beers in 121 countries

Check out beer.trash.net. It is huge, with a massive range of beers from all over the world with photos descriptions and ratings of 2313 different beers from 121 countries with an impressive range from Australia. Awesome resource for all beer lovers!