BrewCult Milk and Two Sugars has another accolade to go straight to the pool room.
In 2015 the coffee-infused imperial milk stout received top honours at the Great Australasian Beer SpecTAPular (GABS), winning the festival’s People’s Choice award out of 350 craft beers on display.
Just last week, it was revealed the coffee-beer was placed 14th in the annual GABS Hottest 100 Australian Beers of 2015, the largest public poll of its kind in Australia, and the top placed coffee beer on the list.
“It’s not first place, but it’s a win for us,” BrewCult Director Steve ‘Hendo’ Henderson said. “I’m pretty stoked with that outcome given that the competition for the top 100 beers is becoming more fierce as the number of new breweries increases.”
The top or ‘hottest’ rated beer went to Stone & Wood’s Pacific Ale Australian-style Pale Ale.
BrewCult’s imperial milk stout was created with the collaboration of Axil Coffee Roasters’ Dave Makin. They used Axil’s Seasonal Espresso blend which combines 50 per cent FAS Bobolink Coffee in Brazil with 50 per cent Colombian Narino Select coffee.
“I remember doing bench testing of all different types of coffee with different brewed methods, before Dave suggested combining espresso and filter coffee to the beer,” Hendo says. “I think we made the right choice in terms of base beer and mixing the two different types of brewed coffee. The result was great depth and complexity.”
It took Axil’s baristas about a week to produce 3000 shots of espresso and 120 litres of filter coffee in between café orders.
Out of the 125 new beers launched exclusively at GABS in 2015, Hendo says his coffee beer stood out because of its unique flavour combination – and the city’s love for coffee.
“Coffee beer is appealing to a broad range of people, coffee lovers and beer lovers,” Hendo says. “We were lucky that when we put it altogether we got the flavour balance right. I love the aromatics of the espresso we used, and the flavour of the cold drip. We had to keep in mind that the consumers would be drinking out of a 50-millimetre plastic cup, so aromatics and taste were important to get right. I think we achieved the best of both worlds.”
GABS is a beer and food festival celebrating the diversity of craft beer and the creativity of the breweries with some of the best craft breweries from 150 Australia and international breweries.
Celebrating the diversity of craft beer, GABS will return in 2016, featuring hundreds of beers, brewery stands, food vendors, beer and food experiences, educational seminars, fun activities and great musical and circus performers. More than 30,000 people are expected to attend the event, which will run on May 20 – 22 (Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne), May 27 – 28 (Australian Technology Park, Sydney) and June 18 (ASB Showgrounds, Auckland).
GABS organisers can confirm more coffee-inspired beers will feature at this year’s event, and as for BrewCult, Hendo says it’s going to be tough to top last year’s entry, but he’ll certainly try.