Saturday, 8 April, 2017
Today we do NOT have a MFWF event on. Instead, our primary activity is a boutique beer tasting. But first, we head into the City to the Victoria Market to show J&H our favourite market and also buy some food for a BBQ tonight.
The plan had been for me to take the produce home while Julie provided a short tour around for Jan & Hugh. However, Hugh was keen to go to a specific exercise class. It was pointed out that the main one he wanted to go to would conflict with the day’s main event so he found an alternative one in the morning timeframe. So I dropped Hugh off at Victoria Gardens while Julie and Jan did some touring. When Hugh finished his session he took an Uber into the City to meet the girls from whence Julie took them to Southern Cross Station to meet me – I took the train back to the City after unloading the produce from the market.
So we took off on the train to Spotswood – a new location in Melbourne for me.
I had booked a tour of the brewery which is only conducted on Saturday afternoons. We were a little early so ordered a beer and wait for the tour to start.
For those of you who do not know what an IPA is, it stands for Indian Pale Ale. This did not mean that IPA was invented in India. Actually, it was a special beer made to withstand the long sea trips to India and it was done by adding extra hops and extra alcohol to the beer -hence it is Hugh’s favourite.
After the informative tour, we go back into the restaurant area for a tasting of some of the beers.
The methodology was our guide would get a full jug (pitcher) of a particular beer type and we would then pour it into our glasses. Typically there was over a large glass of beer for each.
I think there were 11 beers for tasting, including a double IPA for Hugh. Tremendous value as the tour only costed $10 a person. Very worthwhile and highly recommended.
We had something to eat as Hugh had not had much at the market. We then jumped back on the train and, although there were a couple of misadventures by our tour guide, me, we managed to make it home I to meet Julie. After the late snack at the brewery, we were not super hungry so we only did the Kangaroo in a frying pan BBQ and a few salads. At that stage we were pretty much ready to call it a day.