I traveled out to Taminick, near Glenrowan, to visit the Black Dog Brewery which is located at Taminick Cellars Winery. The brewer, James Booth, was away on business for the day and the brewery, winery and grandson had been left in the capable hands of Peter, his father. He was doing a wonderful job of keeping everyone happy and was able to tell me about the beers and the brewery. I would like to thank him for his time, patience and hospitality. I sampled some of the beers at the brewery and took some others away to review. Here are the reviews:
1. Man’s Best Friend, Session Ale, 4.0% abv, this is a straw coloured ale that is light bodied with a nice mild taste and subtle bitter finish. Very sessionable!
2. Drifter Lager, 4.7% abv, this is a light straw coloured Lager that is smooth, as the style should be, with a lovely clean crisp finish.
3. Lazy Dog Ale, 4.8% abv, this is a straw coloured ale with a lovely sweet floral aroma. It has a great strong citrus hop flavour and a good bitter finish that lingers.
4. Howling Pale Ale, 5.0% abv, this golden coloured pale ale has a wonderful fruity aroma. It has a smooth sweet malt flavour with a good hop bitterness on the finish. A very well balanced ale.
5. Leader of the Pack IPA, 6.0% abv, this is a golden coloured IPA with a strong fruity hop aroma. It gives a wonderful full palate taste of complex hop flavours that mellow into a beautiful bitter finish. A great IPA!
6. Dogs Breakfast Coffee Brown Ale, 5.4% abv, this dark brown Ale has an aroma of espresso. It should, considering that it has a good amount of roasted Four Rascals coffee in it. The taste is wonderful and smooth, it is very well balanced with a malt initial palate with great coffee flavour and then a mild hop bitter finish. Quite delicious!!
7. Eeldog II Imperial Black Rye Ale, 8.2% abv, this black ale was made in collaboration with Eel River Brewing of California, and has a great malt aroma with hints of liquorice. It has a wonderful, smooth, complex malt taste that slowly gives way to a gentle bitterness. This is a fantastic ale!! I want more!!
8. Dead Dog Stout, 5.4% abv, this black coloured stout has a lovely malt aroma with hints of dark chocolate and coffee. It has a great, rich, complex Stout malt flavour with hints of chocolate, coffee and raisins, and a beautiful lingering finish with a mild hop bitterness. Wonderful!!
9. Hell Hound IBA, 7.0 % abv, this is an India Black Ale that has a strong aroma of citrus hops. It has an unusual taste that is the result of the blending of the two beer styles, dark ale maltiness and IPA hoppiness. It starts off with a lovely, smooth, rich malt flavour and then moves into a huge hop bitter finish. Very well balanced, it gives you the best of both styles.
10. Blood Hound Lager, 5.2% abv, this is a dark amber coloured Vienna styled Lager with a sweet caramel aroma. It has a nice malty taste with hints of nuts and caramel and then a fruity hop bitter dry finish.
11. Aussie Terrier, 4.5% abv, this is a hazy golden coloured Australian style pale ale that has a strong, sweet citrus and fruit aroma. It has a mild initial biscuit malt palate followed by a lovely strong hop bitter taste with hints of passionfruit and a lingering finish. This is a quite sessionable ale.
12. Farm Dog Saison, 6.3% abv, this is a golden coloured farmhouse style ale with a sweet, spicy yeast aroma. It has a wonderful smooth mild malt taste with a subtle spiciness followed by a lovely clean, dry, refreshing bitter hop finish.
13. Junk Yard Dog DIPA, 9.0% abv, this is an amber coloured double IPA with a huge sweet citrus and cut grass hop aroma. This brew is all about the HOPS! There is a massive, complex taste of hop bitterness that lingers on and on. It is really a hopheads dream!
Black Dog Brewery has a very extensive range of beers of all descriptions, if you can’t find one to suit you amongst this range then you don’t like beer. Personally, I liked most of them and really loved the darker style beers. I think James, the man behind these wonderful beers, is doing a fantastic job. Black Dog are definitely worth a visit, if you are in Ned Kelly country go and see for yourself.