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| A bunch of scruffy-looking homeless chaps at Pt Walter. |
Two weeks ago, post paddle, Bad James lived up to his name and at 9.20 am pulled an Esky out of his car, and five of us sat at Pt Walter, under the shade of a pine tree, drinking beer for breakfast.To be honest, there wasn't any sort of quantity involved, merely a six pack of different beers that we attacked like Oprah does a chocolate cake.
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| The signs behind do not relate to Bad James. |
Last summer we had had the idea of brewing our own beer, and Billabong Brewing in Myaree had been mentioned, but like many of our CORGIs (Chimpanzee/Orangutan Really Good Ideas), quick as a flash, nothing had happened. This summer, it's different. So after a filling breakfast at Cafe 58, Mean Gene, Bad James, Westy and I met Travis the Beetle at Billabong Brewing in Myaree to lay down two brews - a Wheat beer and Nelson Sauvin Ale (N.S.A. - not to be confused with N.S.U.). M4P is also in on this gig but at the last minute he had to return to Adelaide to do some serious smashing of faces into the dough, working himself into a Bad Boy Bubby clingwrap-frenzy in the streets of Port Adelaide ("That be cat! Be still!").
The team at Billabong were very helpful. We knew what we wanted so they pointed us in the right direction and a knowledgeable bloke called Andrew pretty much held our hands (in a manly way of course!) through the process. We separated into two teams, one on each brew and set off on our work. Luckily brewing beer involves a lot of waiting, and what better place to wait than in a brewery. At each interval, we grabbed a six-pack and headed up to the mezzanine level where like lords of the manor we were able to survey our creations brewing.
The thing that immediately struck us was that of all the blokes in the place every single one of us was sporting a big cheesy grin. What wasn't there to be happy about?
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| Mean Gene can't stop paddling. |
It only took about ninety minutes to make about 12 cartons worth of beer, and the total cost was $360. Where can you buy beer for $30 a case these days? Sure we still have to bottle it soon (BYO bottles or buy them for $75 per batch), but we'll be bottling it IN A BREWERY. One for the case, one for me, one for the case, one for me...
Billabong have a shedload of different recipes you can brew. Check out the web site. They also have a 'beer bank' where you can deposit one of your sixpacks and swap it for a different kind. Ingenious!
If they did hot food and had big-screen TVs with sports on, I'd never leave the place. Now all I need are midgets and Shetland ponies.
I'll do an update on this post once we bottle it. Cheers!
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| Australian Safety Boots. |
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