Beer Radar<\/p>\n
By John Kr\u00fcger<\/p>\n
Beer Interviews #2 (First published in Wine Business Magazine in 2010)<\/p>\n
This month we continue our insightful series of interviews with people we admire and respect about \u201cThe beer that changed my life.\u201d We\u2019ve chosen these two people because of their respected palates and award winning contributions to the wonderful world of food and beverages in the Barossa.<\/p>\n
Mark McNamara<\/strong> is Executive Chef at Appellation restaurant.<\/p>\n I can guarantee that the beer that changed my life wasn\u2019t the first beer – getting smashed with friends as a young teenager in the early 70\u2019s on longnecks of Southwark \u201cGreen Death\u201d as it was then known. In fact this (and my dad insisting I have a beer with him the next day \u2013and I thought at the time he was unaware of the night before) pretty much put me off of beer for many years \u2013 a kind of aversion therapy.<\/p>\n In fact it wasn\u2019t until I moved to the UK to work about 10 years later that I discovered what I think beer is all about, micro breweries, cask conditioned real ale, hand drawn beer engines, real beer stored in cool cellars and dispensed unrefrigerated at 8\u00bac, in pints on cold nights, in front of an open fire\u00a0in small free houses,. The key to this door was a small brewery called Rayments in a village called Furneux Pelham on the Herts- Essex border near Bishops Stortford. Unfortunately the brand owner \u201cGreene King\u201d closed the brewery in 1987.<\/p>\n The beer I was introduced to was Rayments BBA (variously referred to as Best Bitter Ale or Best Burton Ale) and I spent a very cold winter trekking around the nearly 30 independent pubs, located in tiny local villages (as these were the only stockists \u2013 no bottles only draught) . It was a revelation that beer could be savoured and flavourfull not frozen and bland, that hops were fragrant and floral, that beer doesn\u2019t have to be gassy yet this was certainly not ever flat.<\/p>\n And the beauty was that each pub was responsible for cask conditioning their own beer, it was always hand drawn, no gas or temprite or superchillers anywhere near it. Because of this there was a slight variance in pint from pub to pub with the best batches being enjoyed closest to the brewery, but the beer didn\u2019t travel much wider than a 30 mile radius anyway. Over the years other British Beers have come close but nothing has ever equaled it.<\/p>\n Maybe it is simply a romantic memory or the fact I can never again compare this beer with any other but Rayments converted me and I have been seeking out great beers ever since.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Darryl Trinnie<\/strong> is owner and brewer of the Barossa Brewing Company<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The eyes were opened when German decorative iron worker\/brewer Harry Hennig introduced me to full grain mashing, however the lights came on when visiting Sydney for an engineering conference in the mid nineties.<\/p>\n Gaye and I were aimlessly wandering around the Rocks precinct looking for a decent bar, when we stumbled upon The Australian Hotel. Gourmet pizzas, a fantastic old pub, pretty much unmolested, and only two beers on tap, Scharer\u2019s Lager, and Scharer\u2019s Bock. Absolutely fanfuckingtastic. Both beers clean, unfiltered, free of preservatives and flavoursome. We stayed for the duration and taxied back to our digs.<\/p>\n I ditched the engineering conference to return to the Australian.<\/p>\n We traced the beer back to its source, Geoff Scharer\u2019s George IV Inn at Picton. The copper clad brew house was on display in the front bar, and only two beers on tap.<\/p>\n We made regular trips to Picton to meet with Geoff and enjoy the beer.<\/p>\n He wouldn\u2019t ship as he was afraid of spoil. So we would fly to Sydney from Adelaide, hire a car, drive to Picton, fill the vehicle with Scharers\u2019, and drive back to the Barossa. I believe this was the best Lager and Bock in the country at the time.<\/p>\n Beer<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Beer Radar By John Kr\u00fcger Beer Interviews #2 (First published in Wine Business Magazine in 2010) This month we continue our insightful series of interviews with people we admire and respect about \u201cThe beer that changed my life.\u201d We\u2019ve chosen these two people because of their respected palates and award winning contributions to the wonderful … Continue reading Beer Interviews #2<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beerradar.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beerradar.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beerradar.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerradar.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerradar.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerradar.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":168,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerradar.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43\/revisions\/168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beerradar.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerradar.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerradar.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}