OCEAN REACH BREWING REDSHIFT HORIZON
Rebuilding an old pub from rubble is a big job. So is creating trust in which a mate feels he can talk to you about the feelings inside his head. But beer by beer, you can do it. Whether your mate is already a pile of rubble or still standing tall, share this beer and a conversation that can, and will save a life.
Origin – Cowes, Victoria
ABV – 8.8%
Size – 500mL can
Style – Double Red IPA
Empty frames still hang at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston more than three decades after one of the world’s biggest art heists saw masterpieces ripped from them. The paintings by Rembrandt and Vermeer might have vanished, but the intrigue about the robbery has never faded. The same can be said about the unsolved heist of the Kunsthal museum in Rotterdam, where under cover of a moonless night, a team of Romanian criminals broke in and snatched $65 million worth of Monet's and Picasso's.
They are just two of several gallery robberies to have become the subject of blockbuster Hollywood films. But why is it we are so seduced by an art heist? Maybe it's all the sex, money and power. Perhaps it is our perception that art is an elitist, exclusive club that the rest of us never get access to, making this our chance to barrack for the underdog? For me, it's the intrigue of master criminals doing masterful acts. While they might not be criminals, I am intrigued by this 'art heist in a can' by the masterful Simon Bismire and his team at Ocean Reach Brewing.
With artwork by Aiden Howes, it is not just the workmanship on the label that makes this latest Artwork Series release superlative. A pour of the Redshift Horizon reveals a deep autumnal hue that draws you in like a piece of art and demands a moment of reflection. While it's got all the glistening glory of a Belgian Dubbel, any such thoughts are soon dispelled courtesy of the intensity of its sticky citrus-and-berries-soaked toffee aromas. Nimbler on its feet than it has any right to be - the carbonation and bitterness play their part here – the intense upfront fruitiness gives way to a lingering, toasted and fruitily acidic finish.
The latest heist film, The Duke, is about a London Cabbie who climbed through an open bathroom window at the National Gallery in London and made off with Francisco Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington. With a can of Redshift under our belt, perhaps even someone as ordinary as each of us could attempt to pull off the spectacular!
