Beer Review – Leather Jacket Lager – from Fish Rock Brewery in Australia.
Yet again, I have been very busy, and yet again I have not had the time to enjoy a good birthday beer. So, planning ahead, I put Beer Number 10 of my Forty Beers into the ‘fridge, and waited for an appropriate moment.
The moment that I have all been waiting for has arrived. Welcome to my humble beer review of the mighty Leather Jacket Lager.
As you may have seen in the above video, things did not go too well during my beer review. This, however, was not the fault of either the beer or the brewery. Let’s just pretend that I had “technical difficulties”.
After the beer was actually opened and tasted, all was well within the world once again.
Leather Jacket Lager was/is certainly a good beer. It has a strong hop flavour, and quite a spicy and bitter aftertaste. The label itself suggests it is “a true pilsner style” beer. It would appear to be suffering from a small identity crisis – Lager ? Bitter ? Pilsner ? Even without a definite pigeon-hole term/style/type to define it (although the Fish Rock Brewery call it a Lager, and they should know), this beer would make an excellent liquid refreshment accompaniment to a curry of some sort – think vindaloo, think gaeng keow wan (thai green curry).
Side Notes:
For those who are interested, a “Leather Jacket” is a fish found in waters off the coast of Australia. You can catch them off the local jetty / pier, or go out a fair way on a boat to get them. A simple Google search for the term “leather jacket fish recipe” revealed approximately 130,000 results.
Also, my friends Phoebe, Simon and Chris who gave me these birthday beers obviously remember the leather jacket I used to wear when we were sampling a few of the local ales at various and numerous fine drinking establishments.
And I can’t use the Monty Python “with the worlds great taste of fish” joke here, because I’ve already used it in a previous beer review.
Back to the Beer Review:
To borrow from the impressive metallic and green label:
“A true pilsner style beer, using centuries old decoction mashing techniques, and incorporating hop flowers from the fields of Zatec. Sweet barley flavours quickly recede, revealing the emphatic spiciness and characteristic aftertaste of the Czech Saaz hops”.
To me, the fields of Zatec is perhaps a little Star Trek-esque…. or a good name for a band. Perhaps I am showing my ignorance here, but I have no idea what/where Zatec actually is – but apparently it has flowers, so I’m sure it’s a pretty place.
I enjoyed this beer. Having said that, it is perhaps, in my opinion, a little too “hand crafted”. I enjoy making my own home brew on occaision, and while I’m sure that there is heaps of love and care in Leather Jacket Lager, it reminded me a little too much of a home brew. This is not necessarily a bad thing. I guess I sort of expect a beer from a “real” brewery to taste like it came from a “real” brewery, and not out of some foolish Melbournians kitchen/laundry/shed. Please do not take this as a big plug for my home brew (given I have many more failures than successes), nor as a minus points position for Leather Jacket Lager either. The Fish Rock Brewery people are very clever at what they do. I guess that while this is certainly a good beer, to me it’s just not my favourite – that’s all. But I certainly enjoyed the one I had. And if someone gives me another one or two, I’ll say “Thanks !!” and enjoy them too.
So – on the Forty Beers Cheers O Meter – I give it a 7 out of 10.
Thanks,
Matthew
Beer Reviews , Beer Review , DIY Website
Tags: Australian Beer, Beer Review, Lager
