We drink at a bar called Benchwarmer a lot, in fact almost all of my meagre posts in Beer saturday this year my have been set at Benchies.
This is a tale of their year of year celebration, which involved a tap Takeover by an Australian brewery called One Drop, who are right up there as one of the top 5 breweries in this country.
Now Benchies is named Benchwarmer because it was opened about 5 years ago supposedly as a sports bar with a focus on Basketball, but it was never really that, it's more just a very good craft beer bar with awesome Japanese inspired food. It is perhaps ironic that I missed the daytime version of the party because I was playing Lawn Bowls which is a sport but not a really, real sort of one, I'm not saying it's not difficult, but there is less sweating than most sports. We did not make it to Benchies until about 7pm so we missed the owner, the free beer and thus the crowds but there were still plenty of amazing One Drop beers to get our hands on.
We started with what would turn out to the the beer of the evening - Blow the Whistle which is a Colloboration with 450 North Brewing Co in the US and it A Smoothie Sour with Manfo, Guava, Coconut Ice cream, sugar and Banana and is the right in the picture above and if you think it looks like a Milkshake well it certainly smelled exactly like a Banana Milkshake, and tasted a little bit more like a Manjo Lassi drink, I know this will be controversial, but I loved it, yeah it doesn't taste like beer in the true sense of what beer should taste like but gee it was enjoyable and isn't that what beer should be.
On the left in the pic about is a way more sensible Californian IPA, again a Collab this time with fellow Australian brewers Banks and it proves that One Drop can do more than gimmicks, as you can see this is lovely a clear, and had great west coast hops and nice and clean.
On the right this time is a Double IPA called Bottom Line with bunch of NZ Hops including some unreleased experiemental hop - called NZH-109. This one was just okay, still good, but not the rollicky good time that some of the other beers where.
The cloudier one on the right is 'Jacked Up' a 10% Triple IPA, and it was also very good, not the best Triple IPA I've had but still one of the better beers of the month or maybe year, not sure.
and to end it - Well Benchies always have on a Stout, so half way through the IPA round we went a good a single glass of Shizzert so it had time to warm up (although it is summer here in Australia so it doesn't take long Shizzert is a Pastry stout, becuase of course it is and it's a collaboration, because of course it is, this time with Browar Pinta from Poland and it was pretty amazing, big chocolately, sweet, waves of cocoa, and a hint of maple syrup, it was very impressive and a amazing way to finish the evening and the year with Benchies (although with 2 weeks still left in 2024 I reckon we might head down there again)
