Hope Brewhouse Nelson Bay

Had our annual holiday in Shoal Bay, couple of hours north of Sydney.  It's a couple of clicks east of the main centre of Port Stephens, Nelson Bay.

Until recently, the immediate area lacked any particular beer-worthy subject matter, other than the pleasure of having early beers in the local pub with a newspaper and little else to worry about.

But the Hunter Valley-based Hope Estate now has an outlet in Nelson Bay, and it's worth dropping in.  Arrived on a Thursday afternoon with Libby, Chris and Jillian. Chris and I went to the tasting paddle, naturally, while the ladies hooked into some Hope Estate chardonnay (located at the old Rothbury winery in Pokolbin).

The paddle beers we selected included lager, pale ale, Indian Red Ale, Rye IPA.  Afterwards we had a tin each of Imperial IPA.

The lager seems to be a fairly dumbed-down offering, similar to a lot of Aussie lager that's being offered to the masses... not too fancy, and not too different from macros. Drinkable on a hot day, it's an everyman's beer.

The pale aligns with the typical 'Aussie Pale' style i.e. US-pale with Southern Hemisphere hops. i.e. fruit cocktail.  I'm a bit miffed that brewers have decided to use this name for this style. The term had previously been used for the Australian ales that were derived from English pales, but adjusted to use local Pride of Ringwood hops (read Coopers, Kent Town). So 'Australian Pale' now refers to bastardised Yankee beer, rather than bastardised Pommie beer.  'Southern Pacific' might be a better term.... with the connotations of tropical fruit and all that.

Anyhoo I digress..... the Indian Red is a good drop. I'm becoming quite the fan of hopped-up Red Ales, as demonstrated by this one and the richer Former Tenant from Modus Operandi.  Good balance of malt, hop flavour and bitterness.

The Rye IPA is pretty good too, with a decent spicy backbone.

For me, the can of 2018 Macedon Harvest Imperial IPA was the duck's nuts.  This is a style that I think most teams are getting right. Bigger in all dimensions, with an additional sweetness that is a good counterpoint to the increased bitterness. I'd drink this all day, were it not for 9.5% ABV.

The view's pretty good, looking out across to the marina. The vibe is quite funky/music venue, although the opening hours could be a little bit more progressive than Thursday afternoon through to Sunday night. These are ostensibly Winter hours, but there wasn't much allowance for Spring school holidays.

But worth the wait, and worth the visit.

I should point out that to get to Nelson Bay one needs to drive past Murray's Brewery, which I have covered on many occasions.  Didn't get there this trip, but plan to visit the post-fire, newly rebuilt venue early next year.