I'm at Benchies, which is in North Melbourne, Australia as I often am because it's like 100 metres from my house. I'm sitting outside even though it's cold because this place has got way to popular and becuase they have some special on tonight - a tap takeover by Dollar Bill Brewing.
Here is what Dollar Bill have to say about themselves: Dollar Bill Brewing is a family-run brewery and blendery based in Ballarat, Victoria (me again: that's about 120km from Melbourne, home of the excellent Ballarat Foto Festival which I'm currently exhibiting in, but that's a whole other story), founded by Ed and Fiona Nolle in 2016. They specialize in Belgian-inspired barrel-aged beers, ciders, and meads, made using locally sourced fruit, honey, and wort, aged in French oak barrels. Known for their innovative wild and mixed fermentation ales, they have earned multiple awards and are regarded as one of Victoria’s cutting-edge breweries.
Their beers are generally weird and interesting, and rarely seen this these here parts so given the chance we had to grab a paddle of five beers and have a amazing journey. Let's see what we have
**Learning to breathe ** is a basil wild ale, barrel aged of course. The basil is really present and it’s very balanced herbaceous, slightly sweet, really very very good 4.4 out of five
Gold Teeth, is realeased every year slightly different due to the wild nature of things and bareels and whatnot. it's their standard beer, if standard is a exceptionally good wild all, tart but not too tart on the sip and then a slightly sweet aftertaste with lingering peach 4.2 out of Five
Cherry co-ferment this one is less successful. But the bar is set really high. In other company you would have this is great, I think in this company it suffers from being just a a little more run of the mill sour - 4.1 out of five
Framboise - a really fun beer, fruity sweet light everything you want from a Framboise, I wish it was like 10-15 degrees warmer (the weather not the beer) and then this would have been perfect. 4.2 out of five
Oh and it's haunted, seriously there was a ghost in here trying to get out
Blackberry stout - I had high hopes for this one. it’s odd it’s in between sour and stout and stuck in no man’s land, strange tastes kinda savoury none of the tastiness of a stout a bit of wet coffee but for no good reason, hmmmmmmmmmmmmm 3.8 out of five.
How nice to spend a hour or so enjoying some amazing beers and having a good old chat. Thanks Benchies and thanks Dollar Bill Brewing.