‘na biretta Chiara and Young Alfred

There’s a new venue at Circular Quay. It looks to be an offshoot of Customs House Bar and is called Young Alfred, named because it is on the corner of well, Young and Alfred Streets – Circular Quay. Most bars in this neck of the woods tend to stock very mainstream beers at very upmarket prices. This is typically not the place to find an undiscovered beer. Blow me down, but Young Alfred had two uniques.

‘na biretta Chiara is made by an Italian Brewer called Birradamare. This is an Italian craft brewery that makes 20 varieties of beer. As is typical of many importers of foriegn beers, the beer chosen to import is the least adventurous of the range. I can’t read Italian very well, but we get the Blonde lager, whereas the Red Bock, the Black and the Double Malt stay at home in Italy. I do believe that something has been lost in translation because if this is truly a Blonde Lager then it is the tastiest Blonde Lager I’ve tried. This was a malt bomb – a Euro Lager on roids. The aroma was powerful – and there was plenty of malty bite. Appearance wasn’t too bad either.

Birradamare means Beer to Love. No shit Sherlock, but this wasn’t bad despite many warning signs – arty label, medicine shaped bottle, and worrying beer label hyperbole – “Raw, integral of pure malt, not pasteurised”. Quite a surprise really. The second unique will be described later.