a beer romp in wine country
Matt Kirkegaard embarks on a Sideways-style beer romp in Western Australia, an area more commly associated with wines.
GO WEST YOUNG MAN Oddly enough for a nation with a permanent place in the top five beer drinking countries, Australians are just starting to discover beer.
It’s true that beer is a backdrop to our social gatherings and it is integral to our national obsession with sport, but for all that we drink it can’t really be said that we have a national beer culture.
Look to the traditional pub and cask ale cultures of Britain, or the everyday reverence brought to beer by the Belgians and you see something very different in Australian beer life.
Instead of a culture built around beer, we have a culture lubricated by and a national self-identity awash in it.
And, truth be known, this beer that we drink in great quantities isn’t that great. Australians will speak louder in defence of their brews than most expats but the Australian national drop is a fairly timid creature. Developed in an arid country baking under a parching sun, the beer has evolved into a pale and fairly innocuous refresher; something to keep the heat of the day at bay, not something to savour and reflect upon.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It serves this purpose admirably. The beers are good in that they are impossibly consistent and no doubt conform to every definition of quality thrown at them by the International Organisation for Standardisation.
But culture doesn’t evolve around a convenience product. Passions are rarely as stirred by perfectly processed, plastic-wrapped cheese slices as they are.....
To read the rest of this article you can buy this issue
or subscribe to Beers of the World to have every issue delivered direct to your door.
By Matt Kirkegaard
Section : Beer Journeys
Page number : 58
