I really liked Redoak, though most of the Australian beer geeks seemed to think it was too expensive and their beers too conservative. I had great food there and had two of the best Australian beers I’ve ever tried in their English IPA and Baltic Porter.

I’ve not been over to Manly for a long time but there is a Murray’s bar there as well as 4 Pines. Seems like a must visit. I’ll check it out when I’m over in February.

That should keep you pretty busy but if you need more then check out: The Lord Nelson, Harts Pub, The Pumphouse and The Australian.

I ended up asking the guys at The Local Taphouse in Darlinghurst if they had any suggestions. I would definitely swing through this bar as they have a great range of beers from the area and staff are really helpful.

They had this to say…

“The best option within Sydney would be the 4 Pines Brewery which is located in Manly.

Catch a ferry from Circular Quay & enjoy a 30 minute cruise across the harbour to this craft beer haven.

If you have time I would recommend paying Murray’s brewery a visit. It is a 2 hour drive to the North of Sydney at Port Stephan’s.

Amazing beer & beautiful country, well worth the effort to get there.”

I wasn’t able to visit Murray’s brewery, as we were exploring Sydney by foot, but the 4 Pines had some really good beer and food. Plus you get to ride the ferry which is always an experience.

I hope that helps!

Agree about ageing purposefully as opposed to a fail by a pub with an ice bank keeping a keg at ambient. Raises another question… if a pub/bar has 40+ kegs, surely they won’t be using ice banks and will have a proper chiller. Do these places exist?

Still think there are more issues with bottled beer quality in NZ than there are with kegs sitting at ambient. Another issue for another day maybe

I think there is a big difference between a brewer aging up a keg , probibly in a cool room, and a bar with one tapped and sitting warm under the bar next to an ice bank.

I do worry about the freshness of beer in large multi tap pubs. I’m not necassarily saying there is a problem at the moment but the trend to more and more taps does offer up some concerning possiblilities. I know some of the the big tap bars in the states have a reputation for consistantly serving stale beer. Small and perfectly formed has its pluses.

Short lines are probably the key but are we ready to see taps on the wall behind the barstaff? I’d say we are if there bar is good enough.

Regarding beer quality in keg, if the beer has been filtered, whether coarse (5-10 microns) or fine (0.45-0.6 microns) it should last longer than 2 weeks. Even at ambient if there are no sources of infection.

Cask ale is generally kept in cellars that may have seasonal variation between 5-15 degrees C and cask brewers will generally out 4-8 weeks shelf life on their casks. If unbroached, casks can last upwards of 2 years (one of the best Saint Petersburg Stouts I tasted was one I kept for 2 years before putting it on in the pub) at these temperatures.

It could be argued that a sterile filtered beer may struggle to have the legs for this period of time due to the lack of any yeast activity, but we’ve had good success with Epic at ageing kegs and I know of numerous brewers that do this and get interesting results. Saying that though, pubs that keep their stock in direct sunlight during the summer months aren’t gonna be helping the beer in any way, shape or form!

The major issues come with line-cleaning. If you have 40 kegs and you clean your lines every 2 weeks (which you should) and each line holds a couple of pints, you lose close to a keg of beer every couple of weeks just to keep the lines (and by consequence the beers) fresh.

Bound to bite into the profit margins!

Kelly