It was my wife's birthday earlier this week. We are also still in lockdown in Melbourne Australia (by global standards we have almost no cases but by Australian standards it's heaps) which makes celebrating difficult as you can't really go anywhere. We had plans that keep getting scaled back reality set in - eventually we settled for 'having the day of work and drinking during the day' which was actually really nice.
Over the course of the day things arrived from family and friends. One of these is the beer we will talk about today. It came from my Mother in Law, my Wife's Mum. I knew there was something coming, she had texted me a few days before to ask what at their local bottleshop my partner might like. I had a quick look at the website, threw up a few brewery suggestions and left her to it.
And this is (on of the beers) she choose Jester King Grisette
She had warned me 'It doesn't look like a beer' and she was right - it absolutely doesn't, the clear glass doesn't help, but also the label doesn't look like beer, and of course beer isn't normally a peach colour.
For those who don't know Jester King is a US brewery - from just outside of Austin Texas. The specialise in farmhouse ales, sours and alike. I don't believe they are that widely distributed even in the US - so we are pretty lucky that they have distribution in Australia.
The other part of the birthday celebrations was to get some fancy food delivered. Normally this wouldn't be difficult - the Pandemic has seen plenty of amazing restaurants pivot to delivery options but it was a Monday and it appears no one else is day drinking and eating fancy food so the options are limited.
But then we stumbled on an amazing Japanese restaurant called [Ishizuka] (https://www.ishizuka.com.au/) and an amazing selection of Sashimi.
So now we have a Grisette which is a cherry infused farmhouse ale which is quite light and subtle and some Sashimi which was also delicate and light - there were an amazing compliment to each other
The beer itself, as you can see is a peach colour, as much as it was cherry infused it a very subtle Cherry flavour, more just a hint of sweetness from the fruit, what really shines through is the yeast characters - it you can feel the depth of the flavours and it's all very sophisticated, and yes it went amazingly well with the fish and seafood on that plate.
Oh and here is a flat shot which the kids love
And finally - this post is part of Beer Saturday where the Hivian beer community gets together and tells stories of the beers they have drunk that week - it's always a good way to find out about other beers around the world.