Tipples Beer Review #17 & Beer Saturday Week 20- Westside Ale Works

One of the things I really love about craft beer is the local nature of it, I love the big American or European beer as much as the next guy (maybe more) but I do love supporting the little local breweries.

Kim Jong Bruin and an artfully placed coaster

This is the story of one such brewery – Westside Ale Works, which confusingly is in South Melbourne in Australia, about 1km from the main CBD area. It is called Westside (even though it’s South side of the city, the north, south and west spilts of Melbourne are an important thing) because it’s it makes west coast American style IPA’s in the main.

This was my local brewery at my old job, and we were know to sneak off in the afternoon for a few quick beers, safe in the knowledge that tucked in a back street and ramshackle as it is we weren’t going to run into any of the corporate work people.

The Brewery is small to say the least

I love the personal nature of the place, pop in during the week and Casey the owner/brewer will be brewing, he will serve you beers between steps in the brewing process, there is every chance his daughter will be sitting at a table drawing and the brewery dog – Spud will certainly come a plonk himself at your feet. It's a real drinking in someone's house type atmosphere

Spud, as always under our feet looking for a pat

But enough of all that, let’s talk beer – just a quick visit today and three beers to work through.

Astrodog pale ale - a single hop IPA, that hop is comet - the beer itself is lovely golden anber colour, cyrstal clear, a very slight carbonation, tiny lazy bubble floating through it. It is a onoffensive standard Pale ale, not challenging, but also very refreshing, some would text book perfect example of the style, wonderfully balanced - very impressive.

Kim Jong Bruin, I am tempted to take this brown ale and combine it with their Trumped american strong ale, create a black and tan and see if we can create world peace.

I can confirm this beer is much more likeable that it's namesake, never once did it threaten to drop a nuclear bomb on me, which was nice. rather it was pleasant with a touch of toffee, I'd like it to be bigger, more chocolately perhaps.

Weekend Juice NEIPA - Now I have issues with a brewery called Westside producing a New England IPA, it just feels wrong. This beer takes hazy to a whole new level, it doesnt so much look like orange juice as orange mango juice, it is so incredibly drinkable, honesty it smells and tastes like mango juice. I'm very, very impressed.

The Weekend Juice, in front of the Shout board - anyone want to shout me a beer?

Where can I get these beers? Almost nowhere, basically you have to go to the brewery, as I said if you are visiting Melbourne it's about a 1km from downtown Melbourne, they do growlers and do bottle so you can buy online here: http://www.westsidealeworks.com.au/

And last but not least - Beer Saturday - @detlev's great competition is growing by the week - check out all the details here:
https://steemit.com/steem/@detlev/celebrate-the-20th-steemit-beersaturday-challenge-enjoy-great-content-and-stories-around-beer-and-fun
and vote there (on my comment) or here if you liked this post and Drink up peoples