The Six O'Clock Swill

From here things get a bit easier, I think. Realising that I was not going to get around to blogging about these beers at the pace I was drinking them I started to take notes on a more frequent basis – and the purchase of an iPhone with handy “notes” feature helped facilitate this. That [...]

What Canberra is and how it relates to the rest of the country can only be understood by someone who has lived and worked in Australia for a while. The basic facts are that it is the federal capital, conceived in 1908 but not properly functional until the late 1920s, sitting in the Australian Capita

In Hobart I’ve been lucky enough to get to Hobart twice with work, but unlucky enough for both times to be in the dead of winter. Winter in Tasmania means daytime temperatures of 10 degrees celsius and the nights reaching freezing point. Mind you, the summers are hardly the blazing hot sunfests that

On my travels again, accompanied by NFFEF again, this time to the trendiest place in the world, Melbourne, where if your jeans aren’t tight enough and your haircut isn’t of just the right asymmetrical design they openly laugh at you in the streets and suggest you push off back to Surry Hills where y

In Darwin 38. Pure Blonde I’ve said it before, but one of the perks of working where I do is that I get to travel around Australia quite a lot, and get to places that I wouldn’t ordinarily get to. Having said that, doing Darwin in 24 hours (get in at 2pm after a five [...]

Well, back home in Sydney, not Blighty, but it’s always worth posting a picture of the 1970 England World Cup Squad playing “Touch The Truck“. Or touch the Ford Cortina in this case. 35. Coopers’ Extra Stout An old favourite, thick, black, roasted barley taste. 5.8% so don’t drink too many in a row.

32. VB 33. Carlton Draught 34. Platinum Blonde Perth’s a funny place, probably my least favourite of the Australian state/territory capitals. It just feels so…soulless. When I’ve been there for work I’ve always tried to spend my evenings in Fremantle, Perth’s port town, which has something approachi

It’s been ten months. And I’ve been busy. Busy working. Busy travelling. Busy presenting. And busy drinking too. But somehow the list of beers I’d drunk overwhelmed me and inertia took over as far as writing any of them up properly. But I kept that list going, and made some notes along the way. Rath

I was on my way somewhere else. That’s how you usually end up at The Paragon Hotel, one of two pubs at Circular Quay and the only one you’d really want to go into. The downstairs bar is pretty utilitarian but fine for a swifty when you’re waiting for a ferry, or as a starting [...]

Over at a certain Australian homebrewers’ forum people got very excited towards the end of last year about White Rabbit Dark Ale, a newish product from Little Creatures’ Victorian arm. I’m here to tell you that it’s nothing to get excited about. The brewery website may well go on about it not being