SLIPSTREAM BREWING G-FORCE
Sharing a convo could be the shot in the arm that we all need. So, whether your chosen 'vaccine' is a pale or a pilsner, administer one with a mate
Origin – Yeerongpilly, Queensland
ABV- 6.5%
Size- 375mL can
Style – Indian Pale Ale
“I kind of relate it to ‘Shake n Bake’,” said Hamilton, “it was really one of those slingshots out of the slipstream that Ricky was famous for.” The world-famous F1 driver was referencing Talladega Nights - a glorious send-up of petrolheads and motor-mouths – whose star Ricky Bobby is played by comic Will Ferrell. Lewis knows all too well that using the car's slipstream in front is one of the few ways to pass a competitor with just as much horsepower. In the single design arena of F1, where most cars can carry their driver to victory lane, slipstreaming can be the difference between first and last.
When it comes to craft beer brewing, while it's far from one design, the difference between winning and losing is also minuscule. While it hasn't always been this way, these days you'd have to search hard to find anything but a wonderfully well-balanced craft. It was a fact that the husband-and-wife team of Elisa and Deale Stanley-Hunt were familiar with when they began to envisage building a brewery in an old warehouse in Brisbane's southern suburbs. So, to gain as much advantage as possible, they jumped into the slipstream of the greats. Year on year they visited different US regions, following beer trails and going on brewery tours. 'With each visit, and every beer we tasted, we asked ourselves; what do we love and what would we do differently?" shares Deale. Bringing on head brewer Ian Watson of Murray's fame, the trio then took all those insights, innovations and hop-forward influences and made it their own, opening the aptly named Slipstream in late 2017.
It was an instant success, so much so that just over 3 years later, with the help of craft-drinks accelerator Mighty Craft, they were able to evolve from that charming old shed, replacing it with a gleaming modern brewpub, complete with a beer garden, open kitchen and 20 rotating beer taps. From them flows a selection of brewery-only beers and a popular core range, including this G-Force IPA. Low on bitterness and high on drinkability, there's a grapefruit sharpness on the tongue that mellows out with hints of pineapple and bubble gum, fruit blossoms and apricot.
Balanced with hop oil driven herbal and spicy notes, it shares the sort of greatness that Ricky Bobby summed up in his victory speech - 'Here's the deal. I'm the best there is. Plain and simple. I wake up in the morning, and I piss excellence.'
