On May 27th I visited the Purple Mango Brewery, which is out towards Corroboree Billabong, about 85 km from Darwin. They have only been open for just over a year and are just a small batch brewery but still have a good range of beers to try.
The beers that I sampled were:
Ginger Beer, 4.4% abv, this is a cloudy ginger beer with a mild ginger aroma. It has 5kg of pure ginger per 50 litre keg, this gives it an unusual taste that is somewhere between the usual ginger beer and a ginger wine flavour.
Lightning Bolt Steam Ale, 4.6% abv, this is a cloudy straw coloured ale with a subtle malt aroma. It has a fruity malt flavour with a mild bitterness and then a slightly sour finish.
Monsoon Belgian Pale Ale, 5.2% abv, this is an amber coloured ale with a subtle sweet aroma. It has a sweet malt taste and a gentle bitterness on a crisp finish.
Build Up Blonde, 4.2% abv, this is a hazy golden coloured beer with a subtle fruit aroma. It has a tropical fruit like flavour with a slightly tart finish.
Mango Mango, 4.6% abv, this mango infused beer has about 12% of its volume as mango fruit in the Steam Ale. It is a cloudy, dark straw colour with a strong mango aroma. It has a wonderful malt initial palate followed by a lovely fruity mango taste to finish.
Black Friday Wheat Beer, 4.6% abv, this is a hazy, light straw coloured beer with a fruity yeast aroma. It has a great wheat beer taste of bananas and tropical fruit and tastes delicious by itself or with a small squeeze of lime.
This brewery may be small but they seem to be doing a good trade. If you fancy yourself as a brewer this could be for you as the brewery will be going up for sale in late June or early July this year.