When winter comes can spring be far behind?

The truth be known, the cold Sydney winter has brought some small respite for the Malt Shovel crew after what has been an exceptionally busy & very successful summer & autumn.

 

 

The exceptional growth of Golden Ale plus the successful launch of Sundown Lager as a summer release followed by the Ten20 Ale & Hop Thief Ale (III) winter release have left the both the brewers & our national the Craft Specialist team looking for a

quiet place to lie down. 

 

The phenomenal growth of Golden Ale, which is selling well over last year’s volume, has brought its own problems compounded by a shortage of Amarillo hops (sourced ex the U.S.). This forced us to introduce a back up locally grown aroma variety as a small percentage of the total hop load in order to eek out supplies until the new season Amarillo hops arrived in early January.

For the benefit of the enthusiastic home brewers who have been avidly speculating about this I can confirm that it was definitely not Pride of Ringwood that we used as a substitute.

We are glad to report that with our hop stores now bursting with the newly acquired and very characteristic US hop, the distinctive Golden Ale aroma  is now back to its brilliant, stone-fruity best.

 

There is little time to rest however our innovative brewing team continue to tinker with the Hopperator to determine how we can both make improvement to our existing brews, and introduce some more tasty treats via our limited release program.

So all in all as you can see there is no such thing as a quiet time in the beer year.

 

Cheers for now & may the Yeast be with you,

Tony Jones

Chief Brewer