Better Beer By Design

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You know as well as we, there’s no such thing as ‘a’ ‘beer’. It’s a false sentiment usually uttered in order to trick the brain before embarking on a session that ends up, shoes off, wading through the Colonel Light Memorial at 3AM. No. It’s beers, plural. Beers rarely exist in the singular and usually can only be enjoyed in succession; it is a six pack after all. But South Australia’s boutique breweries are crafting beers that have the potential to make one, solitary beer… enough.
 
Sitting at the bar of our local haunt one evening, we overheard a young cad introduce himself to the manager and hand him a rather interestingly packaged bottle. The bottle was the Gentleman’s Pale Ale (left / right) and is the first toe-in-the-water from Gentleman’s Brewing Company.  The Pale Ale is only distributed to a few select bars and is pegged very much as a premium ale with a retail price of around $8.00*. Its cheeky colour is somewhere in-between a Hoegaarden and Amber Ale and is quite an arty type of beer. But what really stands out about the Gentleman’s Pale Ale is the packaging. More and more, we’re seeing breweries putting increasing importance on packaging and the Gentleman’s label is the finest we’ve seen to date. The brewery commissioned Adelaide Hills artist, Ron Francis, and basically gave him free rein with the concept and execution. The label is actually an oil painting 100cm X 60cm and depicts a plump but not uncharming man in striped bathers looking slightly perplexed (hint: he’s lost his beer). Boutique beers are the breweries’ answer to the often more sophisticated slosh, wine. Here are three of the more interesting brews you’ll find in the fridge.

  

Knappstein Reserve Lager$7.50 approx.Knappstein is better known for its wines but the Reserve Lager is actually produced on the site of Clare Valley’s original Enterprise Brewery, circa 1878. One of the joys of cracking open a boutique beer is the surprising colour. Do yourself a favour and get it out of the poo-brown bottle and into a cold glass you obviously prepared earlier. The Reserve Lager, released in 2006, is surprisingly bright in its flavour and appearance and has a good alcohol percentage to retain flavour. The label is a three-piece design, including a neat paper seal at the top which isn’t annoying or messy like the one on Stella Artois bottles. This beer looks sexy in even the most sausaged-fingered gentleman/lady.

 

Barossa Valley BrewingBee Sting$7.20 approx.This beer is not to be confused with Matilda Bay’s Beezneez. And certainly tasting this brew reveals it has a far more subtle honey flavour. The Bee sting has a brilliant colour and gives good head as all good beers should. The minimalist label works well and achieves the sophisticated look without making you look like your clutching a naked bottle of homebrew… not that there’s anything wrong with that.
 
Port Dock BreweryGinga$7 approxClaiming to be South Australia’s “first true brewed alcoholic ginger ale” the Ginga is probably the most distinct and intriguing of the bunch. It’s definitely a love/hate brew, and while technically not a beer; technically smechnically. It was interesting to note however, that of the four total beers, both the Knappstein and Gentleman’s used the same bottle as did the Ginga and Bee Sting. So while the big labels spend a mint trademarking their bottles and producing quite arguably bland, boring beers, the boutiques use good label design to peg back the big company’s cash advantage with delicious results.
 
* All prices based on those of the Bull and Bear at time of print.