With the roof terrace hurtling towards completion, Paul, Cam and Les have been busy recruiting some great new 'Beertenders' to cope with the extra bar that will need to be manned. I've been spending a fair bit of time there liaising with builders and making sure everything is on track, so I was really glad to have the opportunity to take 6 new staff through some beer tasting paddles and discuss all things beery!
A little while before, Des Mulcahy contacted me to let me know that he had recently returned to Sydney after having spent the last 10 years in the UK (mainly Scotland) and was delighted to see how far the beer industry had come along in Australia since in his absence. He was working with BrewDog there as well as doing a bunch of other beer related stuff and offered to share a few special brews that he'd brought home with him because he knew we'd appreciate it.
So it was a real treat to combine a staff beer training session with some pretty crazy beers. In addition to the beer we were tasting on tap, Des took us through their Zephyr (which is a big IPA that is aged for 21 months in whisky casks with a bunch of fresh strawberries), their Tokyo Intergalactic Fantastic Oak Aged Stout (a massive imperial stout brewed with Jasmine and Cranberries that comes in at a huge 18% ABV) and their famous Tactical Nuclear Penguin which I'll let you read about here.
I absolutely loved the first two! Like a great work of abstract art, it was great to hear how everybody's interpretation of the flavours differed and to discuss some of the characters that each person was picking up. The TNP was massive and smokey like a burning Scottish peat bog. Not something you can really drink a heap of but certainly an experience!
Needless to say, it was a great training session and one I'm sure Mark, Olivia, Alex, Lucie, Andrew and Georgie will remember! Thanks a lot to Des for thinking of us! Here are some pics of the day:
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