On Friday the 8th of December I visited Pirate Life Brewing in Hindmarsh, South Australia. This brewery was started three years ago by Jack and Michael Cameron and Red Proudfoot. Red had previously been at Cheeky Monkey in Western Australia. Their aim was to build a brewery that would become internationally recognised as quickly as possible. Red and Jack had always been brewing since the time they left high school. Pirate Life was their first combined attempt at doing what they really wanted to do.
They have rapidly reached the capacity of their Hindmarsh site and were in the process of considering expansion to another site in Port Adelaide when the recent takeover offer came out of nowhere. The takeover will not affect the way the brewery is run or the beers that they make. In fact the founders have been retained as directors and all the staff have continued in their usual roles. What it will mean is that they now have more money to play with. There has been $10 million put aside just for the development of the new Port Adelaide site. It has a floor space that is the size of a football oval and will include a bar area with thirty taps and a restaurant capable of seating three hundred people.
The present brewery consists of a three vessel 2500 litre brewhouse and twenty six fermentation tanks of 5000 litre and 10000 litre capacity. They brew twenty four hours a day from Monday to Friday. They have their own canning line capable of handling 100 cases of beer in forty minutes. 85% of their production goes into cans. They are also doing a bit of barrel ageing with some of these brews gaining some interesting additives in the way of figs or strawberries. The brewery also produces a lot of their own power requirements via an 80.8 kilowatt solar power system.
The beers that I sampled were:
1. Nelson Pilsner, 4.5% abv, this has an eight week lagering period, it has a golden colour and a sweet malt aroma. It has a nice malty flavour and a clean, crisp finish.
2. IIPA, 8.8% abv, this has a golden colour and a fruity tropical aroma. It has a sweet juicy fruit taste and a nicely balanced flavour of malt on a good, lingering hop bitterness.
3. Mosaic IPA, 7.0% abv, this has a golden colour and a sweet citrus aroma. It has a great sweet citrus fruity flavour. Delicious!
4. IPA, 6.8% abv, this has a golden colour and a citrus fruit aroma. It has a well balanced flavour of sweet malt and then a fruity citrus taste on a nice mild bitter finish.
5. Stout, 7.2% abv, this has a black colour and a roasted coffee malt aroma. It has a wonderful sweet malt flavour of espresso. Very nice!
I enjoyed all of the Pirate Life Brewing beers that I tried. They are making some really delicious brews and when their new venue is constructed next year they will be able to produce a lot more of them.
I would like to thank Ed and Matt for their time and hospitality when I visited.