Welcome back to a beer-loving instalment of the Boothby Melbourne briefing from Fred Siggins. In this briefing:
- Jaine Eira’s beer-based cocktail list at Tallboy & Moose;
- Modern takes on classic Euro shandies from some of Melbourne's best bars;
- A beer cocktail recipe from Pendant;
- Scarf’s Do More Than Drink campaign kicks into high gear.
Beer-based cocktails are a bit of an outlier in the bar world, but I’ve always had a soft spot for a bit of brew-adjacent mixology. One of my favourite travel memories is sitting at the ancient docks at Marseilles in the south of France, watching the fishing boats bob on the harbour as they have done for thousands of years while drinking a Picon Bier as an accompaniment to a big dish of moules-frites. My first time in the World Class Australia finals was also thanks to a cocktail topped with American Pale Ale, and a favourite recipe from Black Pearl days was the John Lee Hooker Flip topped with stout (so named because it features one bourbon, one Scotch and one beer).
So when my friend Jaine Eira took over the bar at Tallboy & Moose brewery in Preston and decided to launch a full menu of beer-based cocktails (which she calls ‘hoptails’), I was interested to say the least. The timing felt right because in the same month, Melbourne’s hottest restaurant opening of winter, Cote Basque, is also slinging a variation on the Negroni Perfecto (essentially an Americano with beer instead of soda) that they call a Panache. So I took to social media to ask the hive-mind about what other drinks were being topped with suds in our fair city, and the responses came thick and fast, proving I’m far from the only booze-hound in Melbourne with a passion for beer-based cocktails.
Jaine and I worked together at The Catfish in Fitzroy for a time, and while it’s one of the best craft beer pubs in the city, the cocktail list there only featured beer occasionally. I asked Jaine why, then, had she decided to lean in so hard at Tallboy. “At Catfish the cocktail list is there because the venue has a broad customer base,” she says. “There are a lot of staff from the hospital who come in because it’s the closest venue, and a lot of tourists come for the cheesesteaks, so as much as it’s a craft beer bar, not everyone who comes in wants beer.
“Tallboy & Moose is a brewery. The whole point of the venue is to highlight these great beers, so it makes sense for our customers to make the cocktail list beer centric.”
Jaine wanted to use actual beer across the list, rather than beer-based syrups and reductions. “I wanted to do something a bit different than what you would usually get at a brew pub,” she says. “I also visited a lot of great beer bars when I was in Europe recently, and hoptails are really a thing over there, especially in the Netherlands, so that was a bit of inspiration.”
While the Tallboy & Moose list does feature standard beer classics like a Lagerita and a Shandy, there are also less obvious numbers. This winter, the favourite has been the Hot Buttered Beer featuring a spiced butter blend and Tallboy’s hand-pumped English-style real ale, served warm. There’s also the Hazy Colada where hazy IPA takes the place of pineapple juice in a traditional Piña Colada. “I used the hazy for this one because stout and lager are kind of obvious for cocktails, so wanted to showcase a wider range of our beers,” Jaine says. “The tropical fruit notes from hazy IPA in a Piña Colada make a lot of sense, too.”
At Tallboy & Moose (a deliberately casual, suburban brewpub) and at Cote Basque (the latest stylish and pricey restaurant under the Trader House banner), there are beer-topped Americano variations on the list. At Tallboy, Jaine uses Aussie vermouth and amaro, while at Cote Basque, the Panache cocktail leans into the Mediterranean theme with Vergano Americano Rosso Vermouth and Cappelletti Aperitivo topped with Peroni.
Meanwhile, at Pendant Public House on Brunswick Street, one of their perennial favourites is the Czech Spritz with coffee liqueur and Braulio topped with pilsner (you can see the recipe here; it was on the Drink of the Year Top 50 last year).
At Babine’s on Smith Street, they’re serving up a bright red twist on the Monaco (a French shandy spiked with grenadine), featuring pomegranate vermouth, Rhubi mistelle, Babine’s house-made Picon, and raspberry-infused vinegar topped with both lager and saison beers. Next time I’m missing Marseilles, I think this will be my solution, but of course I can always rely on Oska Whitehart at Bar Bellamy to drop a shot of something bittersweet into a beer for me whenever the craving strikes.
I also have to give a shout-out to Shaky Pete’s Ginger Brew by bartender Pete Jeary at London’s Hawksmoor restaurant as one of the few modern classics based on beer. Several people who have worked behind, or sat in front of, London bars over the years reached out to sing this drink’s praises. Having never had the pleasure of sampling this combination of gin, lemon and ginger syrup blended to slushy consistency and topped with English ale myself, I’m hoping someone in Melbourne puts it on the list this summer so I can try it.
Around the Bars
Scarf’s Do More Than Drink campaign kicked off last week in bars around Melbourne. The fundraising campaign runs through to September 30, and will help Scarf in their work supporting hospitality trainees. There are heaps of great bars involved like Gin Palace, The Lincoln, Whisky & Alement, and Death & Co., so get in and have a drink for a good cause.
Speaking of Trader House, they are looking to hire a bartender at Gimlet — see more information on the role here.
