WOOLSHED BREWERY AAAM
Our dogs will be there in the most challenging times of life. To ensure the the same could be said of us, grab this craft, start up a conversation, and be a man's best friend.
Origin – Murtho, South Australia
ABV- 5.2%
Size- 375mL can
Style- Amber Ale
I assume when Clive Palmer said, “make Australia great again”, he was talking about the golden years of the 1950s when Australia rode on the sheep’s back. A time when wool prices were at record highs, and the golden fleece was selling at ‘a pound for a pound’. It was a time when a good shearer could get a job in any shed. With a few good ones even known to travel between outback farms in a Rolls Royce! Any ringer worth his salt will still recall the names of legends such as Ted Reick (326) and, Kevin Sarre (327), who in 1955 and 1956 earned themselves the coveted Golden Shears for the most jumbucks clipped in a day.
And after working hard with a handpiece, you can bet a pretty penny that Ted and Kevin would have spun a few yarns over a hard-earned brew in the Wilkadene shearing shed, on the banks of the Murray River. The station, first built in the early 1900s, has been in Tom Freeman's family since 1988 and is now home to Woolshed Brewery. However, it wasn't until over a decade after the last official shear in 1996 that Tom and wife Sarah began transforming the old woolshed. With the work complete in 2009, the first tap flowed in time for Tom's 30th birthday. And like the river itself, it hasn't stopped since.
It was the Amazon pale ale that kicked it all off, taking its title from a small creek that runs into the Murray nearby. Up next was this amber ale. First produced to mark the centenary of Wilkadene homestead, the name is a throwback to the intense shearing sessions of yesteryear. AAAM, a classification attached to only the finest Merino wool, a fine reference on this amber of the consummate skill shown in combining locally grown crystal wheat, the best of Aussie hops, and rainwater harvested from a shearing shed roof. The result is a full-bodied amber with citrus hop aromas, rich toffee characters and a prominent, lingering and drying bitterness.
With beers this good, it’s not surprising there are so many dyed-in-the-wool supporters of Woolshed.
