Little Creatures Pale Ale, Freemantle, Western Australia
€3 for a 33cl bottle
Can a large brewery make a craft beer? The difference between the two, according to Seamus O’Hara of Carlow Brewing is ‘big brewers get holidays and micro-brewers don’t’. We like the idea of small artisan brewers who produce, sell and market small batches of their own unique hand-crafted beer. But is there any reason why a large brewery cannot perform exactly the same function? Most beer nuts (and wine anoraks for wine) would argue there is. Yet they both have access to the same water, hops, yeast and cereals. Larger companies can buy in expertise and can afford to experiment in a way that micro-brewers cannot.
But when you make large quantities of anything, you have to appeal to a much wider group of consumers, which in turn often means dumbing down. Hence most mass-produced beers are not exactly brimming with flavour. Yet some of the American craft brewers such as Brooklyn, Goose Island and Sierra Nevada would be considered large and still produce some very interesting beers. Maybe you just need to have a big enough group of real beer lovers.
Little Creatures was set up as a micro-brewery in Freemantle, Western Australia by three investors including Phil Sexton, winemaker, brewer and serial entrepreneur. Sexton moved on to the Yarra Valley near Melbourne, where he now has a vineyard and busy winery/brewery/coffee shop/pizzeria/cheese shop/visitor centre/restaurant all rolled into one. His beers are very good too. You can find his wines - Innocent Bystander and Little Steps - but not his beers, in wine shops over here.
Little Creatures is now part of the Lion Group, a very large beer, wine spirit and food producer, who in turn are owned by giant Japanese company Kirin Holdings. So not artisan then, but still craft? The beer is hazy, with light grassy, hoppy aromas, and a clean fresh palate with citrus and apple fruits, finishing dry. Very pleasant crowd-pleasing pale ale.
Antão Vaz da Peceguina 2014
€19.95
The Alentejo is the big, empty, baking hot centre of Portugal, home to millions of cork oaks and very little else. Temperatures rise up to the forties for much of the summer. It is the least populated part of the country. A hot climate usually means red wines, but here in Alentejo, they have a few local white grape varieties that work amazingly well.
Picked early, Antão Vaz (pronounced sort of like Anton Vash) produces fresh crisp fruity whites; leave it on the vines a little longer and you get a rich, textured, rounded wine, perfect for ageing on oak, or just leaving it as is. Either way, it makes for a very tasty wine.
The Soares family run Herdade de Malhadinha Nova, a boutique hotel, restaurant and farm in the Alentejo. They rear black pigs, cattle and horses. And make wine. Luis Duarte, a much admired wine consultant oversees the winemaking. The Antão Vaz has appetising peaches, bananas and custard, with a good backbone of acidity – a very nice wine. The white wines are very popular and generally run out half-way through the year.
For the moment, the Antão Vaz is available from The Corkscrew, Chatham St; La Touche, Greystones; Fresh Outlets and Donnybrook Fair.
