Border Barrels Podcast

A long summer has finally come to end (well sort of), and the Border Barrels boys have emerged from a gruelling pre-season, ready to sample beers from Australia's finest breweries once again! First up in round 1, we take on rising St Peter's stars Future Brewing. For our return to the podcast deck, Simmo brought extra goodies, with FOUR big limited release brews sampled. Alongside the delicious pilsner, hazy pale and IPA's, we consume a wealth of information about the brewery itself. We instantly became fans, and we're certain you will too. Thank you to Future for the fantastic selection of beers! It's good to be back!

After a late winter sabbatical, the Border Barrels crew returns to the Not So Good Shed for a deliciously malty afternoon, courtesy of Brunswick champions Co-Conspirators Brewing. Unlike our usual offering, this week's tasting paddle isn't full of hop-forward juicy IPAs. Instead, we confirm what we'd been suspecting for a while... dark Lagers rule. Simmo’s favourite Red IPA of all time is another highlight, as well as a chocolaty Baltic Poter to bring it all home. We also have a look at the history of the brewery, some interesting statistics from their UnTapped ratings, and give credit where it's due to their incredible graphic designer. Thanks to Co-Conspirators for the fantastic beers, The Lane Cellars for supplying them, and our fearless leader Simmo, for jumping back into the saddle after a difficult couple of months.

https://coconspirators.com.au/

The final stop on our trek up Beer Mountain lands us at the West Peak hotel in beautiful Mount Beauty!
We spent an afternoon tasting beers and shooting the cool winter breeze with our new friends at Mountain Monk Brewers.
Punky, Mick and Steph talk us through the rich history of the unique venue, the origins of their beer journeys, and give us a preview of things to come with an advanced taster of their coffee milk stout!
We felt as though we'd known these legends for years, which I'm sure will be quite evident throughout our conversation. Plus, their hypothetical beer and music festival line-up certainly tickled the fancies of our tastes!
Thank you to the team at Mountain Monk and the West Peak Hotel for their humbling generosity. This is just the beginning of what we hope will be an ongoing collaborative relationship between the Monks and the Border Barrels boys.

Check us out at borderbarrelspodcast.com for all your beer podcast needs. The place to go to find out how we scored todays beers according to the Border Barrel Beer Review System.

When starting this little beer journey, you could have knocked us over with a coriander leaf if you told us we'd be interviewing Mountain Culture for a Beer Deluxe tap takeover event.

Well... consider us floored by a famously Mexican condiment!
Sales superstar Jonny not only kept up with our typical motor-mouthed banter, he damn well eclipsed all of us for insight, opinion and banter on all things Mountain Culture and the wider craft beer scene.

Along for the ride was a tasting paddle consisting of 2 limited release IPAs, GABS hottest 100 winner Status Quo, a Double Red IPA and classic Moon Dust stout.

Thanks to Jonny for being so generous with his time, Mountain Culture for the incredible beers, and Beer Deluxe Albury for allowing us the space to record.
Please enjoy this final instalment (for now) of our Mountain Culture trilogy!

Okay, so we know the sequel is rarely as good as the original. However!...

Since this particular brewery resides in the remnants of a Civic Video store, you'll need to have some faith that our SECOND Mountain Culture showcase episode is just as good as its predecessor. The hops on show, including box office draw Citra, put in amazing performances worthy of recognition come award season. This single hop series from the Katoomba legends has tantalised our taste buds and enriched our beer education. Thank you to DJ, Harriet and the amazing team at Mountain Culture. Now, about that trilogy...

www.mountainculture.com.au

Enjoy.

Check us out at borderbarrelspodcast.com for all your beer podcast needs. The place to go to find out how we scored todays beers according to the Border Barrel Beer Review System.

Mighty Mountain Culture. Three words, chiselled into the refined palates of craft beer drinkers Australia wide. The Border Barrels team finally take the deep plunge into Katoomba's finest, with a series of massive, single hop IPA's. We learn about Sabro, Comet and Centennial, as well as just how close our very own Hudson is to joining Tom Cruise levels of cult worship. Not to be outdone, Simmo struggles to hide his affection for Harriet and her whimsical wordplay, which creates the true cult of personality for the mighty Mountain Culture. Best in Australia? You voted yes in this year's GABS hottest 100. Best in the world? Surely it's only a matter of time.

www.mountainculture.com.au

A massive thank you to our new friends at One Drop Brewing Co, who were nice enough to support the podcast with two massively unique, limited release beers. We had no choice but to record a sequel on these guys, and the glitter sour from the first episode MIGHT have been dethroned for taste and creativity. The Double Fruited Smoothie Sour poured THICC, loaded with mango, guava, banana and vanilla. A unique hop experience courtesy of a collaborative brew with Dogma (from Serbia!), greeted us warmly as well.

Plus a surprise third beer hand picked by us! Thanks again to One Drop for allowing us to get our hop Drop on again, and all the new listeners and viewers who are supporting our journey through the wonderful world of Australian (and Serbian) craft beer.

Humbled by the generosity and inspired by the quality, this week's episode of Border Barrels is the first ever sequel showcase.
The absolute legends from Hargreaves Hill supplied us with a decadent bounty of IPAs and 2 MASSIVE stouts.
The Team World IPA is the Grand Finale of our initial Hargreaves Hill showcase POD. A combination of 6 incredible hops, brought together like a United Nations of flavours.
The annual R.I.S is a heavy stout release, with pure indulgence its intention. To add an extra boozy wrinkle to our Sunday afternoon, we then sample the bourbon barrel aged version of the same beer.
We cannot thank Andrew and the team at Hargreaves Hill enough for a wonderful afternoon of exploration.
Be sure to check out all the suppliers that we reference during the episode to get your hands on the beers sampled this week.

(https://hargreaveshill.com.au/shop)

(https://www.beer360.com.au/)

(https://carwyncellars.com.au/)

Enjoy!

HOW LUCKY ARE WE?! A wonderful experience for the Border Barrels lads, as Jodie and Barry from Murray Towns Brewing Co. joined us for a relaxing Sunday afternoon session at The Woolhouse in Albury. These generous gentlemen supplied us with all the exclusives!

We upgraded to the REAL Goods Shed this time, to bring you a special showcase episode on local legends Bridge Road. We chat with even bigger legend Rhiannon about her role at Beechworth's finest establishment, as well as tasting this year's Hop Harvest releases.

Rhiannon talks us through her journey from craft beer drinker to Bridge Road rep, and gives us the backstory behind the Hazy Harvest and Dark Harvest which we taste tested live. SPOILER ALERT: Both were absolutely delicious.
Thank you to Rhiannon and Bridge Road for allowing us the opportunity to talk all things beer, and The Goods Shed for hosting the evening.

Have you ever had watermelon glitter?

Gratzy clearly stayed up all night howling at the Moon, because along with some delicious Shapeshifter beers, he brought a strained, raspy voice to the POD this week. The cure? How about an IPL, a Nordic Hazy, a big Oat Cream and a WILDCARD entry?! We take a look at the history of Adelaide's Shapeshifter Brewing Co while sampling some of their finest new releases, straight from the source itself courtesy of a special delivery driver. We also continue with our list of beers to look out for at this years GABS festival. Thank you to Shapeshifter Brewing, Jason our delivery man, plus new and existing subscribers for showing an interest in our journey. Tell your friends, because we have plenty more breweries to explore and we want more friends to take on the ride with us.

We like to think we're a professional, well organised trio. This week's Brewery Showcase doesn't necessarily change that, but there are more twists, turns and genuine LOL's than we ever could have expected. It's Gratzy's turn to supply the beers, but through coincidence (or telepathy) Huddo inevitably brings extras as we dive DEEP into an unprecedented FIVE limited release brews from Queensland's Lost Plams Brewing Co. In other words, WILDCARD BITCHES. IPA's, Sours and the very first Flemmish Red Ale greet our tastebuds this week. The crew from Miami floor us with some of the most unique beers ever sampled on the POD. Thanks to Lost Palms for an extraordinary afternoon and My Beer Dealer for being our beer dealer. We certainly lost our Palm Trees at times during a chaotic, hop filled hour.

It's gotta be Friday somewhere! To be more specific, it's a very Foxy Friday in the Not So Goods Shed. A sweltering March afternoon called for some big, fun beers, courtesy of soon-to-be jugganaut Fox Friday Brewing. Our little hiatus came to an end thanks to Simmo supplying the BB crew with a Pale Ale, Hazy IPA and West Coast IPA, all part of the Fox Friday core range. The major lesson we learnt from our afternoon of discovery was that quality counts for everything and we're likely doing a sequel at a later date. Thank you to Fox Friday for the brews and to My Beer Dealer for making it possible. Be sure to check out Fox Friday's very own podcast, which is sure to be far more informative than our heat-stroked ramblings.

[Border Barrels back at it again]

We felt it was important to work our name into the title this week, in honour of our favourite new Queenslanders, Working Title Brew Co. Hudson provided this weeks POD with 3 MASSIVELY unique beers, ranging from an Ice Cream sour to a Coffee ale and a Lime puree Milkshake DIPA. We manage to successfully make amends for our GABS top 5 gaffe from last week. What exactly did we vote for? All is revealed!

We also live up to our word by providing a loyal listener with a delicious collection of beers. All it took was some interaction via social media. Could you be next?

https://workingtitlebrew.co/

The boys return for the first brewery showcase of 2023, but with a last minute twist.

Gratzy is the beer dealer this week, supplying the pod with the first ever Border Barrels Battle of the Breweries. If you manage to say that last part 3 times in a row you've unlocked a delicious journey of beers designed by Queensland legends Aether and Revel.

IPAs, sours and stouts are on the menu as we put both breweries under the microscope with our unique rating system, as well as deciding which brewer ultimately takes home the chocolates.

Forgive our rustiness, as the silly season clearly took a hold.

Jump in with us and discover 6 banging brews from two of Queensland's rising stars.

All beers purchased from www.mybeerdealer.com.au
https://aetherbrewing.com.au/
https://revelbrewingco.com.au/

It's Simmo's turn to supply the goods this week. Being the thoughtful, nostalgia fiend he is, he transported us back to a friends holiday on the front steps of Torquay's Blackman's Brewery.

You might think this is 'just another IPA' Beercast... And you'd be correct. However we have a very justifiable reason. Today we sipped and savoured 3 beers from Blackman's JUST ANOTHER IPA series, enjoying some unique hop combinations in BIG BOY 500ml cans.

Like always, we looked deep into the history of the brewery, gave some super amateur tasting notes and waxed lyrical about ocean piss, East Kent Golding origins and Goanna parties. (It'll make sense when you listen).

Thank you to Blackman's for a delicious afternoon and The Lane Cellars for access to the brews.

It's Thirsty Devil launch week and we couldn't be more excited! Well... A couple of us at least. Simmo was rude enough to attend a friends wedding instead.

In the real world, we discuss the important news making waves in the craft beer world. The 'consolidation' between Wayward and Batch, the GABS can art countdown, the revelation that is Spectrum hopping, plus initial reactions to a few new beers from fresh local legends at Thirsty Devil.

For taste testing this week, Simmo required an old faithful entry level pale to assist his wedding  induced hangover.
The dynamic Hudd dives into a 500ml Modus Hazy and a Belgium barrel aged sour.
Gratzy enters the third dimension courtesy of a super special 11% IIIPA from our overlords at Hope.

All this and some hints at future plans for the BB crew on a brand new episode.

After a 5 week hiatus the tripod was finally whole again. Gratz returned to the desk with a Badlands limited release, while Simmo and Hud brought their A game with 2 MASSIVE beers that ensured chaos reigned supreme.

From a serious standpoint, we discuss the origins and legitimacy of Selzter in the craft beer world.
Huddo has a financial gripe with a special beer event and we tend to agree with his sentiment.
A SUPER EXCITING (potentially) EXCLUSIVE reveal about the Albury/Wodonga craft beer scene. Let's just say it appears good things come in 2's...
Plus a battle as old as time breaks out in the Not So Goods Shed, as Simmos laptop goes one on one with a spilt 9.5% stout. Who comes out on top? Definitely not Sime, we know that for sure.

The aforementioned Badlands Brewing, Sunday Road and Banks provide the liquid gold on this week's episode of Border Barrels Beeercast  

Gratzy: Badlands Brewing - Acronym Abuse Neipa
Huddo: Banks - Addicted to Pies Imperial Pastry Sour
Simmo: Sunday Road - Laptop Stout 

Huddo and Simmo sit down with Ryan LIVE @ The Goods Shed, Wodonga. We talked footy, beers and Ryan's craft beer journey. If you're not into craft beer and don't know where to start, come down to The Goods Shed and ask for Ryan. He's the craft beer Yoda and will put you on the right track.

Beers:
Stomping Ground - Czech Pilsner
Stomping Ground - Gipps St Pale Ale
Stomping Ground - Raspberry Smash
Stomping Ground - Hop Stomper IPA
Stomping Ground - Hazy Sexy Cool Hazy IPA
Stomping Ground - Bunker Porter

As BT would say, Boy Oh Boy Wowe it's getting down to the wire now! Huddo and Sime give you their hot takes for the games from the weekend and their gf predictions. Looks like it could be a divided pod with Simmo backing Geeeeeelong and Hudd favouring the youthful exuberance of the Sydney Swans. I've never used exuberance in a sentence before. How did I go?

This COULD BE the worst beercast we've ever done. We're sorry.

In this episode, much like the title suggests, we preview the AFL finals. We talk about who like we like and don't like and make a huge call about one of the usual members of our podcasts hypothetical AFL career.