SUNDAY ROAD BREWING CO. COFFEE LAGER
Unlike the Corona advert, life’s not one long summer - particularly not right now! Here’s the perfect beer to share honestly between mates about where you're both at…and, where you'd rather be!
Origin – Kirrawee. New South Wales.
ABV – 5.2%
Size – 375mL Can
Style – Lager
‘God’s Country’ – as the locals south of Sydney know it – has had much more than it’s fifteen minutes of fame since first being introduced to the rest of Sydney and wider Australia via Australia's first reality T.V. program, the infamous 1990s hit Sylvania Waters. Unfortunately, to this day it's still widely associated with the 2005 global headlines created when 5,000 local lads with their Southern Cross tattoos, Lara Bingle look-a-like girlfriends and 'F... off, we're full' stickers gathered on the shores of Cronulla beach and started another first for Australia, a race riot.
While perhaps not quite as disgraceful, the Shire was again in the media for all the wrong reasons in 2013, when their entire NRL team was embroiled in a performance-enhancing peptides scandal. As an act of redemption, three years later it was that same football team that filled the sports pages, when after 49 years of misery, misfortune and missed opportunities, the Sharks managed what no team to wear the sky blue had done before, bring home a premiership. One in the crowd that night, that's captured more fame for the Shire than any lad before him, or likely after, is the 'bloke from next door' who went on to become PM.
Yet while Scott Morrison continues to capture the attention of the nation, there’s been another local lad, Brad Walker, who is in the spotlight of the beer world following a prestigious Gold Medal win at both the AIBA’s and The Indies late last year. Despite it being the first beer brewed in his new facility, the Blackwoods Pale Ale rose high above the competition. It was some earned recognition for Brad and head brewer Mick O’Rance, formerly of Bentspoke and Goose Island. It confirmed that not only did the Shire locals have what it takes to play on the world stage, but was a salute to the hard work required to transition from years of gypsy brewing to giving Sunday Road a home of its own.
The latest beer to come out of the new brewery, which is also likely to hit the headlines, is this collaboration with another Shire favourite, White Horse Coffee. Taking their traditional German lager, O'Rance has blended in single-origin Kenyan cold drip coffee. The result is a lager boasting a bold coffee nose with hints of berries and currants, and rich, creamy Tiramisu flavour on the palate. Unlike your typical coffee stouts or porters, the base lager delivers a bright acidity with a refreshing finish.
Given how easy drinking it is, perhaps the lads could combine with the PM to make more headlines by toppling Bob Hawke’s 11-second yard glass record?