NINE FINGERS BREW SMOKE ON THE PORTER
Two red telephones, one in the White House, the other in the Kremlin, allowed Kennedy and Khrushchev to talk each other down from the brink of nuclear war! Perhaps now during such critical times, the best way to divert a crisis is to pick up the phone and check in on a mate over this ‘virtual’ cold craft.
Origin – Sydney, New South Wales
ABV- 5%
Size- 330mL can
Style- Porter
These days Deep Purple's 'Smoke On The Water' is such a universal rock anthem that it seems as if it has been around forever. Yet the story of how this metal track, with perhaps the greatest guitar riffs in history, ever came into being is shot-through with chance incidents. Not the least of them the event that forms its central theme - the smoke spreading across Lake Geneva as a result of fire tearing through the Montreux Casino during a Frank Zappa concert.
Although it started with a circular saw accident rather than a fire, it seems the stars have also aligned for this 'Smoke on the Porter'. David Anderson was only 25 years old when the budding young bass player's music career was cut short after removing his left pinkie on a job site. To fill the void, Dave redirected of his energies towards home brewing, an art, that as luck would have it, his father Mark had introduced him to years earlier. Despite it being a long shot, Dave tried his hand at the Sydney Fresh Harvest Beer Festival. At arguably the biggest celebration of fresh hops, an event at which both pros and amateurs vie to impress, he entered his Manuka smoked porter. The public voted. The judges concurred. He won! The major prize was a chance to brew his winning beer on a commercial scale at Frenchies Bistro & Brewery. He gave it the catchy, Deep Purple-influenced name “Smoke On The Porter”. It was kegged, canned, sent to some of the best bars across the city, and Nine Fingers Brew was born.
That was 2018. Perhaps it was a series of chance, luck or fluke that gave him his big break. But none would argue that, along with wife Kate, it's been nothing but hard work and determination that's grown that opportunity into what it is today. So, with five beers – an IPA, pale, pilsner and cracking black XPA – and half a dozen beer awards under his belt, Dave has returned to where it all started, to add a little nitro twist. Pouring perfectly black, both aroma and flavour are packed with chocolate, coffee and delicious smokey maple bacon. As a surprisingly sessionable dark ale, this Smoke on the Porter finds that great balance between the sweetness of the seven specialty malts, including two kinds of smoked malt, namely Manuka and Peat, and the bitterness of traditional English hops. Poured from a nitro filled can, you can literally see the 'smoke' on the porter.
Deep Purple was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 43 years after releasing their biggest hit. I'd suggest Dave's induction will happen much sooner if he keeps producing craft this good!
