Trout skin & oysters.

Welcome blogees. Tonight we're talking food matching for beer.
Some beers are just flat out unreal. I'll have a bit of a chat about them, and recomend a snack to go with.

Coopers Extra Strong Vintage Ale.
Coopers of South Australia is the only mainstream brewer in the country that actually makes real beer. By that I mean bottle conditioned, and with a best after, not best before date. This means that the beer is naturaly carbonated so it's still alive, therefor it will continue to age/improve under cellar conditions for years to come. If you don't beleve me try this one: Take a six pack of any coopers beer. Bung it in the cellar, or under the house for six months. Now after the ageing process has passed, go out and buy a fresh sixer of the same type of Coopers beer. Stick em boath in the fridge so as to be the same tempreture. First crack the fresh one and taste, now try the aged version. There will be no argeument as to wich brew is the better one!

Coopers Extra Strong Vintage Ale is a beer that has been designed around not just excellent drinking, but cellar ageing aswell. I'll start this review by including what was writen on the lable.

This naturally conditioned ale experences interactions between the robust malt, hop and yeast characters, to exhibit an intriguing journey of flavor development over a period of five years. This grand ale should be savoured in moderation.
Coopers vintage has been brewed with choice malts and an extended top fermentation to provide a strong flavorsome ale.
When stored under cellar conditions the rich & full flavor of Coopers Vintage becomes more complex with a smooth, warming finish.

In my opinion the above discription is totally accurate. But I add:
Dark and amber in colour. Showing the classic Coopers lack of head retention, but with a small, slow and fine bead. The nose is complex, malty and slightly floral. To taste, the malt is upfrount, well roasted but with possible lighter components. Jasmin and corriander seed come next as florals. The bitterness comes last and is supperbly ballanced. The lingering after taste is dark bitter chocolate and truely wonderfull.

As a food match I chose Tasmainian Spring bay oysters. (Supplyed by 'Kitchen & Butcher' main st Healesville). Good beer means good oysters. (Fresh is best). This lot were flown in from Tazzy haveing been picked fresh that morning.
Spring bay oysters are somewhat smaller than the average southern ocean variety, not to mention fucking hard to open. But once you've savoured the freshness, and ocean essence flavor you'll know it's been worth the trouble.
We won't mention the price to the wife..

Flomell pears. Flomell is Felmish for trout skin. (Still tastes like pears.)

Snow Day

Just a few photos this posting. Had an absolute blast romping about in the snow. A real winter wonderland.
I love this time of year!

Woke up this morning. This was the view from the verandah.

Was a big dumping of snow over night.

Dry, crisp, powdery, fluffy, lovely. Snow.

Archer and Ivy had a fantastic time playing in the snow.

Forest Fruit Green Ant.

Some of my core philosophies regarding food are: Fresh is best. Go for locally grown. Eat in season.

While hollidaying in north Queensland I was very fortunate to stay on a property that was allmost bursting at the seames this tropical fruit. Right out side the frount door of the guest house were coconut palms and banana trees. Within site were pawpaw, mango, avocado, star fruit, pasion fruit, and custard apple. Then there were the real exotics with names like lemmonades, (tasted like lemmonade) and chocolate pudding, (tasted like chocolate pudding). Ofcourse there were so many others that I wont mention here, except to say that each one looked and tasted more amazeing than anything I have tasted before.

The garden of Eden.

In the morning I would leave the house and wander through out the grounds plucking and sampleing fruit at leasure. After haveing eatin my fill I would return to the house with a choice selection of the ripest most suculent fruit for my family to breakfast on. A real paradice.

Liveing within the fruit trees were a speices of ant known to the locals as 'Green Ant'. They make there football size nests out of the living leaves by binding them together with a silk like thread. I'm told there a type of bush tucker/ medicine. I beleive it's because of their extreamly high asorbic acid (vitamin C) content. A good remedy for colds and flu, would protect against scurvy aswell.

Green ants are the most agressive arachnid I have ever seen. There strategy when thretened is to swarm the enemy, where they inflict a painful bite with there massave and powerful jaws. They use chemical signals to great effect. When a food source is detected the message is sent back to the nest with amazing speed. Within moments it seames the whole nest has arived to consume the avalible food. At the food source consentric rings of guards are posted, heads and anteni held high looking for and sign of danger. Scurrying between thr guards are messenger ants sending and receveing chemical masseges from the guards and workers. Further out from the rings of guards are the scouts. The job of a scout is to rush back to the guards at the first sign of danger, the threat message is passed along the line, and the hyper agressive guards swarm the area where the threat was detected. Meanwhile the workers make short work of the food, ferrying it back to the nest flanked the entire time by squads of guards and reconnecence scouts. The rest of the time groups of five or six prospecter ants spred out looking for more food.