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Thus Let Us Drink Beer – Urban Alley

Not unlike it would be the case in North America, specifically the craft beer industry in Australia is dominated by hairy males, with female fronted entities being the exceptions. Case in point: The only female headed brewery we have so far covered as part of our “Thus Let us Drink Beer” series was Two Birds – one of my favourite Australian breweries.

Having evolved from the local Melburnian Jewish community, Urban Alley is one of the breweries that pro-actively pushes for more diversity under the benign leadership of their head brewer Shaya Rubinstein.

With only having five years of existence under its belt, Urban Alley’s impressive range of brews runs the gamut from crisp mid-strength sessional ales like their All Nighter, which forms the triumvirate of core expressions with their passionfruity Slapshot and their traditional German styled Urban Lager.

Things get interesting with their limited releases, which are my favourites. One of those is their Man-Goes Nowhere “Isolation” sour ale and a highly aromatic one at that with a telling name as you might have guessed that mango is a dominant flavour, which rests on a foundation of Amarillo hops and passionfruit. Clocking in at 5.4 ABV, it is their newest creation.

Belgian beers are amongst my favourites, so I was keen to try Urban Alley’s take on a wheat ale. Aptly named “Blush”, Urban Alley’s take on the classic leans more towards the new world than Belgium as it has a carefully calibrated bitterness that counterpoints the raspberry aromas, which are framed by a soft maltiness with peppery highlights to round things out.

My favourite of the limited releases, however, is their Long Beach Dreamsicle Nordic Hazy IPA. Based on the accelerated and off flavour free Kveik fermentation approach using yeast that seems to somehow combine the best characteristics of Belgian and American Ale yeast strains, what tickles the palate is a melange of orangey hoppy fruitiness, which meets herbal and grassy notes, before it finishes with a crescendo of grounding earthy maltiness. Sounds like quite a bit of terrain that is being covered? It is, and masterfully so.

Given the way that Urban Alley channels its alchemy by honouring tradition methods and infusing them with their idiosyncratic DNA and flavourful, experimental twists without entering novelty territory, I cannot wait to sample their future emissions and hope to be able to visit their awesome looking taproom and bar in the Docklands of Melbourne once travel restrictions are lifted.

The Formative Years – Rockpalast

In times long before the advent of the internet and its algorhythmic echo chambers along with the possibility to check out any music and gain access to background information anywhere at any time via the push of a button, it proved to be a tad more difficult to experience a band in concert – especially when one was a pre-teenager in time long before MTV was made available in the old world.

However, there was a unique show that has existed for literally longer than I can remember: Incepted by Peter Rüchel, Rockpalast started broadcasting live on German television station Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) in 1974 and has to this day covered hundreds of individual live performances in all their glory, before it branched out to sponsoring festivals and covering them as well, often in the form of all-nighters.

What started as a mere TV show quickly evolved to become an institution with a fixed weekly air time afterhours and covering an array of artists and bands the selection of which was not confined to the dictate of mainstream media with an unrivalled open-mindedness no matter if was rock, pop, hip hop, heavy metal or anything in between. Rockpalast is one of the few TV shows where I very early on felt reassured that given the variety and turf they were covering, the only criterion for the selection of bands and performances was quality: It was obvious that they cared about the music, no matter if it was newcomers or established acts.

Given the dedication of the Rockpalast team, the presenters of which became inextricably linked to the show, most prominently Alan Bangs and Albrecht Metzger, they managed to convey the immediacy of a live show and more often than not, it seemed like the respective artists’ performances were elevated as well – watching the shows as a kid it felt raw, electrifying and intense, no matter if it was The Policy, David Bowie, Grateful Dead, The Who, The Kinks or Pattie Smith.

Watching Rockpalast became an event.

Rockpalast still broadcasts on a weekly basis and most of its fantastic archive is freely available. The mothership has also branched out to new formats, e.g. excellent documentaries that are produced in collaboration with  the European free-to-air television network ARTE.

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image from company website

Water of Life – Borders Distillery

The Borders Distillery is based in Hawick, which used to be the home of Scotland’s renowned plant hunter William Kerr, to which Borders Distillery’s gin is an homage. Honouring local produce such as barley and their own water for the base spirit, the creation of the spirit is barley-to-bottle par excellence. Given William Kerr’s profession and legacy, it should not come as a surprise that the gin is a complex melange of botanicals, which are then steamed to extract the delicate aromas that are dominated by strong juniper and floral notes and a refreshingly citrussy  orange tanginess that is accentuated by peppery spice.

On the palate, the herbal flavours are unveiled, infused by a honeyed sweetness that also incorporates a liquorish note with coriander coming through.

A high-quality flavourfully distinctive barley-based gin with an extraordinarily smooth consistency that helps hold the flavours of the botanicals incredibly well and the fact that the bottle along with the label design is an eye-pleaser does not hurt either.

On the Scotch end of the spectrum, The Borders Distillery has the Lower East Side blend under its umbrella. Clocking in at 40% ABV, what tickles the nostrils should please anyone who like to use the adjective “smooth” when it comes to whiskies as there are wafts of honeyed vanilla that is grounded by an earthy and toasty nuttiness.

On the top of the mouth, sweet marzipan flavours come through, bordering on the citrussy, tangy spectrum, which are counterpointed by minty, herbal and dark berry notes. The flavour nuances seamlessly transition into a medium-length floral yet earthy finish with banana notes that has more depth than other blends in a comparable price bracket.

The Borders Distillery’s Puffing Billy Vodka completes the triumvirate of spirits and with a focus on taste, stands out in the sea of vodka that seem to have flavour neutrality at their core.

The unique production process of using unfiltered malted barley vodka before steaming it through char coal, adds an idiosyncratic creamy texture to the mouthfeel that harbours herbal and citrussy notes as well as fruity berry nuances, counterpointed by a nice maltiness.

If you are in the market for a flavourful vodka, you would not want to go past Puffing Billy.

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image from company website

Thus Let Us Drink Beer – Akasha Brewing

Akasha has been one of the breweries that almost got away as it has been on my to-cover list for the longest time and as they have very recently undergone a rebranding exercise, it was high time for a feature as part of our series.

Founded only five years ago, Akasha quickly established itself firmly on the firmament of quality craft breweries and an array of accolades decorating their liquid emissions. Having set up their brewhouse in record time, Akasha Brewing has become a benchmark for beer aficionados looking for quality hop-forward brews.

A favourite of their line-up is Akasha’s flagship Hopsmith IPA, which despite clocking in at a punchy 7.2% ABV, is a well-calibrated hop-heavy West Coast style ale with deliciously dominant pine and citrussy grapefruit notes, which seamlessly transitions to a crescendo of malty bitterness  towards the finish, which beautifully counterpoints the juiciness.

I love Akasha Single Hop IPA series, which saw them release the same base beer infused with different hop varieties on a monthly basis, the first of which, i.e. the Mosaic IPA, is to this day one of my favourite components of a good boilermaker. Needless to say that I was enthused when I saw it being elevated to become a permanent fixture in their line-up. This should help to tide me over as their fantastically bullishly fruity double IPA Korben with its excellent finishing bitterness  is only released a few times a year in a very limited fashion.

While quite a few of comparable craft beers, Akasha Brewery’s portfolio can be simmered down to the common denominator of having clearly defined, clean cut taste profiles, which seem to have been intentionally created instead of being a random lucky outcome.

Akasha’s rebranding exercise follows their brewing expertise as their new look portrays the designed equivalency to the premium, sophisticated hop-driven beers they have become known for, i.e. aligning their branding with their idiosyncratic secret sauce, i.e. magical Akasha element, that makes their brews stand our from the sea of epigones and unifies all elements of their craft cohesively under the ever watchful gaze of a hoppy eye.

Apart from Akasha’s fantastic core line-up, what has now been rebranded as “Akasha Projects” will keep me on my toes as its endeavours will focus on limited, seasonal special and experimental releases.

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image from company website

The Formative Years – Falco

Talking about formative years, the influence Johann "Hans" Hölzel’s exerted long before my exposure to punk cannot be overestimated. I do not believe in the concept of “guilty pleasures” and to this day, I enjoy music from the Eighties independently from the confines of any genre.

I remember vividly the first time I heard Falco’s Der Kommissar on the radio and I was fascinated by the exciting paranoia ridden tune about thinly veiled drug consumption from the get go as it had something that went beyond the music and it spurned an interest in the man that was to last for many years. It also constituted one of the first times I heard someone “rap”.

Having been socialised in the alternative lefty scene of Vienna and with sound musical pedigree having attended the Vienna Conservatoire, Hölzel honed his craft playing bass in bands like the eccentric shock value performance group Drahdiwaberl, before he reinvented himself and gave birth to his arrogant, nouveu-riche, clean-cut Falco persona, with his provocative song  "Ganz Wien" about the omnipresence of heroin in Vienna sort of marking the direction he was going to embark in. The song was banned and caused the controversy he must have hoped for, which got him exposure and seemed to reaffirm his decision to go solo.

What followed was his fantastic first album Einzelhaft, which featured the catchy and dry Der Kommissar, a song whose chorus perverted a nursey rhyme and one that marked what veritably constituted his first major hit, surfing the Neue Deutsche Welle.

His next album Junge Roemer shows the evolution not just as far as his Falco persona goes, but also musically as it gives insight into his musical prowess and diverse abilities.

Things were about to change with his third album, as he was going to join forces with the Bolland Brothers to broaden his appeal and channel their pop alchemy into harnessing Falco’s idiosyncratic approach to make it mass compatible. What resulted catapulted Falco into global stardom with his cliché laden tribute to Mozart in 1986, i.e. Rock Me Amadeus, a song that could be considered as one of the first rap songs to not only enter but top the US and other charts the world over.

The album, which marked the peak of his career, also harboured one of my favourite Falco tracks, i.e. the fantastic ditty Vienna Calling as well as what was perceived as one of the most scandalous songs of the era in the new world, i.e. the highly controversial Jeanny, a song written seemingly from the perspective of a rapist and murder.

The Sound of Music followed, another great song and album, followed by Data De Groove, which took some deliberate artistic detours, and Wiener Blut, which saw his fame taper off - comeback attempts with interesting but not commercially successful albums and him eventually moving to the Dominican Republic, where he died in a car crash days before turning forty-one.

To this day one of the more interesting intelligent, charismatic, entertaining, difficult and eccentrically complex personalities Europe has produced and whose specifically early oeuvre had a massive on me and one that reverberates to this day.