So life in Melbourne in the last couple of weeks has been a bit of a drag. After many months of no COVID related outbreaks and a life that was pretty much back to normal - going to events, not wearing masks and importantly life in the pubs and bars of the town all humming along nicely we had a small (by global standards) outbreak and we went into lockdown again.
Thankfully it was only a 2 week lock down and cases are back under control now and importantly it got the government to kick into gear and actually start vaccinating people against this thing. Prior to this they keep saying 'It's not a race, there is no need to rush' largely to cover for their incompetence. They were only vaccinating over 50's and even then, incredibly slowly. Not helped by the over 50's also having no sense of urgency.
Well all of a sudden everyone wanted vaccinating and they opened it to over 40's which means I managed to secure an appointment (no easy feat) and got my first shot about 2 weeks ago - so I am on my way to being invincible or something.
Anyway that was a tangent, let's get back to pubs, and beer. After 2 weeks in lockdowns bars were allowed to open again with some rules, we have to stay seated, if you are moving about you have to wear a mask and there is a limit to the number of people.
So it was off to our favourite neighbourhood bar - which is called Benchwarmer. With a name like that you'd think it was a sportbar and yeah they show NBA a lot but really it's a beer bar before anything else. And a very good craft beer at that.
As you can see in the shots it was a busy little place on Saturday - we arrived early (about 5pm) to beat the rush and sat around for 2-3 hours, over that time we had some amazing izakaya style food - The karrage chicken is amazing and I think 6 beers maybe.
The highlights from these beers were certainly the the FKA Mango sour (pictured above) from Hope Brewing (which is in Sydney Australia) this was a wonderfully mouth puckering sour beer - it was super refreshing and interesting - sort of like a Yuzu Sour if you have ever had one of those.
The Oatmeal Stout by One Drop (also out of Sydney) was a cracker as well - nice and nutty and very warming for a winters night. And I finsihed the night with Stone Brewing (USA) Xocoveza which is a Mexican hot chocolate inspired stout (Pictured up the top of this piece) . Now I normally don't like
Chilli in my beer, but this one really really works, it's warming without being overpowering and complements the cinnamon in there really well.
It was so nice to be back in our local bar with all the other people just happy to be out and about again catching up with friends - and that is what beer does people - it's brings us together.
This is part of #BEERSATURDAY organised by @detlev - the main post will everyone's beer soaked stories can be found here
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