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WIN 1 OR 3 X $100 VOUCHERS TO SPEND AT WESTPHALIA GOURMET FINE FOODS
Indulging West Australians for more than 40 years, Westphalia is well known amongst Perth chefs, hotels, restaurants and gourmet delicatessens. Traditional hams such as Black Forest and Continental Gourmet hams are cooked, smoked or cold-smoked in a European style with the special Westphalia recipe. Wiener, Weisswurst, Bratwurst, Chipolatas, Debreziner and Smoked Biersticks are some of the great range of sausages produced. Visit www.westphalia.com.au for more information.
FREMANTLE BEER FESTIVAL TICKETS (VALUED AT $30 EACH) Australia’s BIGGEST outdoor Beer Festival returns for its 10th year from 11-13 November at Esplanade Park, Fremantle. Fremantle BeerFest will take festival-goers on a journey of beer and food discovery; exploring rare brews, beer/food pairing and exclusive festival brews, ciders, cocktails and boutique spirits from WA, direct from the brewers themselves. Live music featuring Platinum selling dance music artist Jolyon Petch, plus comedy and masterclasses all weekend. Visit www.beerfestivals.com.au for more information.
WIN ONE OF 10 DOUBLE PASSES TO PERTH GIN & FOOD FEST (VALUED AT $140 EACH) Perth Gin & Food Fest will run from 26 – 28 August. Meet craft distillers from all States and learn about their gin as you taste your way through their products. All G&Ts, soda and Long Rays mixers are available FREE at all sessions for everyone. Grab a bite to eat in between tastings from our food vendors including Brendan Pang “Mr Dumpling”. Find a gin you absolutely love because all bottles of gin are available to purchase and take home. Gin, food, and fun – just add friends and you’re guaranteed a fabulous day out. Visit www.ginevents.com.au for more information. To go into the draw to win any one of these prizes, all you need to do is to subscribe to Menu Magazine, send us a picture of yourself at a cafe/restaurant, send us a letter, or send us a receipt from one of our featured venues that you’ve recently been to. Feel free to enter as many times as you like. Good luck!
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Terms & Conditions 1. Instructions on how to enter, prize details and other information contained within the promotional advertisement form part of these terms and conditions. 2. Entries using the above original coupon, as well as photocopied versions of the above coupon will be accepted. 3. Entries close on Friday 6 January 2023. Winners will be drawn on Friday 13 January 2023. 4. The first entry drawn will be deemed the winner. 5. The prizes must be taken as supplied and cannot be transferred or exchanged as cash. Any additional costs or requirements involved are the responsibility of the competition winner. 6. If unclaimed, the prizes remain the property of the promoters. 7. Staff of Eyers RockET, Menu Magazine, their immediate families and associated agencies are ineligible to enter. Immediate family shall be deemed to include mother, father, son, daughter, brother, sister, husband or wife. 8. Menu Magazine, a division of Eyers RockET, accepts no liability for accident, loss, injury or damage to any individual or property arising out of or in conjunction with the competition, either during or after the competition. 9. A parent or guardian must accompany winners under the age of 18 years when claiming or collecting their prize. 10. Entry into this competition signifies acceptance of all terms and conditions. 11. The promoter’s decision will be final and no correspondence will be entered into. 12. The promoter reserves the right to limit entry or amend terms and conditions if considered necessary.
How much would YOU pay for YOUR Coffee?
Iwas at a school meeting not long ago and went to make a coffee. There were no coffee options except for a giant jar of Moccona coffee. I sighed in disappointment and wondered when it was that I had become a coffee snob?
This got me questioning how much of a snob I actually was. I hadn’t given much thought to it before, but when faced with a choice, where would I go and how much would I pay for my coffee?
I was recently given a lesson in specialty coffee by Alessandro Carciotto at Nu Noir Coffee Boutique. That’s when it made sense to me - the quality of the coffee really makes a difference. I savoured that espresso and really enjoyed the experience. Now, would I make that every day first thing in the morning? Probably not. But how much thought do I put into the coffee beans I purchase? Honestly, not much. I’ve got a friend who bought a $5,000 machine for home use, the grinder itself cost nearly two thousand. My friend’s a trained barista so he can make his coffee at home, every morning, and he sources specialty beans. So back to the café scene. Why is it that our coffee costs more in some places than in others? Ampol Foodary sell coffee for $3.50. They claim they’ve sourced quality beans and locally roasted them, put them through quality testing and have baristas making the coffee – and I’m sure it’s all true. A small locally-owned business will charge more for their coffee as they have the day-today running costs to absorb into their pricing, staffing costs for trained baristas because quite frankly, people demand it these days. Let’s face it, a single origin coffee poured by a trained barista is a thing of beauty. Plus, when cafés offer free Wi-Fi, people use these locations as informal work spaces and barely spend a cent. But they do drink coffee. Which I guess answers the question – why do they charge? Because they can, the demand is there.
The other side to this though is the issue with increased shipping costs and global shortages of coffee, causing coffee prices to increase.
As we see our coffee prices rise, do we mind paying for it? People are generally happy to pay for quality coffee. My friend says he’d pay $15 for a specialty coffee, but once a week and it has to be perfect. Fair call I’d say. We can actually trace how the coffee scene has changed our behaviour. Remember shows like Ally McBeal, every morning as she walked to the office she’d stop at her local Starbucks and walk around with a giant cup in her hand. It became a status symbol. It opened a whole new market and suddenly, takeout coffee became cool. And ‘Friends’ with their Central Perk created ‘café culture’. Nespresso brought real espresso into people’s homes in a way that was fast and efficient, like instant coffee – only this was ‘real’ coffee. People’s taste developed and they started seeking more. It shaped our coffee culture dramatically. This brings us to Specialty Coffee. The coffee industry has a grading system for beans, whereby they are awarded points up to 100. Grade 1 is your speciality grade coffee, free of faults with specific attributes,
scoring 80 points or above. Then there’s grade 5 which is what you would compost your garden with. According to Alessandro, the best way to judge the quality of the beans is by price. “If it’s less than $40 per kilo, then you can be pretty sure it’s average coffee”. A specialty café uses the highest grades of coffee and you should be able to see the SCA numbers next to the coffee on offer. What is an SCA number? The SCA is the Specialty Coffee Association, an international association who set the global quality standards of coffee. The café will also have more than one coffee offering and a choice of coffee making processes. Out of curiosity, I did a little research on which coffee is the most expensive. We all know about the cat poo coffee – Kopi Luwak. The beans are fermented as they are digested by the kitty (Asian palm civet), then picked out of its droppings, cleaned up and roasted. It’s a specialty of Indonesia, however, with Western demand, the civets are battery farmed and it’s become an inhumane and tarnished process. When you get ethically sourced Kopi Luwak coffee, it’s meant to be better tasting and more nutritious than other coffee beans, and the high price is due to demand and limited supply. If you’re looking to buy, expect to pay around $190 for 100g. Black Ivory Coffee is a Thai coffee company who make elephant poo coffee. I kid you not. They feed the beans to their elephants and the digestive process gives the coffee a more ‘robust’ flavour. Expect to pay around $50 a cup, and that’s simply because of limited supply, and makes it higher in price than Kopi Luwak.
As exciting as animal excrement coffee sounds, there is actually a coffee bean doing the rounds that’s causing all sorts of kerfuffle in the coffee world. It’s Eugenioides coffee. Considered to be one of the parent beans of modern Arabica coffee, it is rare and very difficult to grow, yielding only 150 grams per tree of unmilled coffee. It contains about half the caffeine of Arabica coffee which causes the coffee to have almost no bitterness, and it has fruity and sweet flavour profiles. This bean was long forgotten until recently when it was used in the World Barista Championships 2021 by three winning baristas, throwing it onto the world stage. If you want to get your hands on this coffee bean, you can expect to pay around $1,495 for 250grams. Now I’ve got you thinking about your next cup; how much are you prepared to pay for it? While the demand of our addictions is there, prices will continue to rise; so why not consider exploring the world of specialty coffee? It’s fascinating and you won’t look at your morning cup the same, that’s for sure. By Sarah Schmitt Unit 3, 34 Prestige Parade WANGARA, WA www.dantescoffee.com.au Ph 1300 664 290
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Oktoberfest
Going to the Munich Oktoberfest is surely on every beer lover’s bucket list. It was certainly on mine and in 2010, Oktoberfest’s 200th anniversary, my brother and I flew to Germany and spent four glorious days at the festival. For most, the mention of Oktoberfest conjures images of cavernous beer halls, great noisy crowds and buxom beer maids carrying great foamy steins. From experience I can say that is a fairly accurate depiction of the modern Oktoberfest, but it hasn’t always been that way.
The first festival was a much smaller affair, held in October 1810 to honour the marriage of Prince Ludwig and Therese of Saxe-Hildburghhausen. The event, which included horse races and a performance from a student choir, was held in a spacious meadow near Munich’s centre and has since been named Theresienwiese (Therese’s meadow) after the royal bride. The decision to repeat the celebrations in 1811 began the annual Oktoberfest tradition.
Today, Oktoberfest holds the title of the world’s largest Volksfest (folk festival) and the numbers truly speak for themselves. The 42-hectare meadow is covered with 17 colossal beer tents. Unlike your camping tent, these are non-permanent wooden structures, which, combined with several smaller venues can seat up to 100,000 people. Over six million visitors attend Oktoberfest every year and in 2014, a record 7.7 million litres of beer was consumed across the 16 days of the festival. To take advantage of the warmer spring weather, Oktoberfest is now mostly held in September, running for the two weeks leading up to the first weekend in October.
Such an enormous event obviously takes a lot of organising, but with over 200 years of experience, it’s not surprising that Oktoberfest runs with Teutonic efficiency. The entrances to the festival grounds are wide open – entry is free and you generally won’t be checked by security unless you carry a bag or pram. Something many don’t consider, to their chagrin, is that you must be seated to order beer and during busy times, finding a seat can be rather tricky. Tables can be booked through the local tourist board, but if you arrive early – before 11am on weekends or mid-afternoon on weekdays, you should have no problem finding a seat.
My first impression of Oktoberfest was of a ‘Royal Show for grown ups’. In addition to the beer tents, there are food sellers (the smell of Oktoberfest is a delicious combination of roasted almonds and gingerbread), and dozens of rides including a huge Ferris wheel, rollercoasters and the largest mobile drop tower in the world. In the daytime, the festival grounds are full of young families; children are well catered-for and those under six are permitted until 8pm.
Only six breweries located within the Munich city limits are permitted to supply beer to the festival: Augustiner, Hofbräu, Löwenbräu, Spaten-Franziskaner, Paulaner and HackerPschorr. Each tent is supplied by one brewery, with most offering a weissbier (wheat beer) and a festbier, the latter being a strong, malty golden lager of approximately 6%
alcohol-by-volume. It’s worth noting that a one litre serving of festbier can contain as many as five standard drinks, which explains why I was so inebriated after only four beers. Most tents also offer a radler, which is half and half festbier and lemonade – and an alcoholfree beer.
Beer geeks might be disappointed by the lack of beer variety at Oktoberfest, especially when compared to local craft beer festivals. I think that’s missing the point. Oktoberfest is more than a beer festival – it’s a celebration of Bavarian culture including music, traditional regalia, food and yes, the beer too. Embrace it for what it is and you’ll be too busy singing ‘Ein Prosit’, and trying to finish a steeringwheel-sized pretzel to care about the lack of kettle-soured, fruited and dry-hopped beers.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Munich Oktoberfest was cancelled for 2020 and 2021. Oktoberfest 2022 is currently scheduled to run from 17 September to 3 October. For those who want to experience Oktoberfest a little closer to home, there are plenty of good options. Oktoberfest in the Gardens holds the title of Perth’s biggest Oktoberfest event. Held at Langley Park, the 2021 event featured two massive beer halls, live performers, a sideshow alley, silent disco, dodgeball arena, a wood chopping demonstration and a mix of entertainment and competitions held across multiple stages.
Many local craft breweries run their own Oktoberfest-themed events and brew an annual festbier or Märzen (a malty, amber lager) to mark the occasion. Pubs and restaurants like to get in on the Oktoberfest action too. Seven Sins Perth Hills plates up some of the best German cuisine in the city and in 2021, held their Oktoberfest over four Saturdays in October, with a special menu, best dressed competition and traditional music.
Perth’s longest-running and arguably most authentic Oktoberfest is held by the RheinDonau Club in Myaree. The Rhein-Donau Oktoberfest, or as they call it ‘Oktoberfest Perth’, runs every Friday and Saturday during October. The event is strictly 18+, except for the free family day on the last weekend of October. Here, you can drink imported German beer and enjoy German food, live music, traditional dancers and musicians on multiple stages. Dressing up is not compulsory, but highly recommended if you don’t want to be the odd one out.
By Jeremy Sambrooks
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Is Wheat Beer Dead?
Wheat beer is dead. This seems to be a popular opinion in the modern craft beer scene. When it comes to packaged beer, bottles or cans, it appears to be true. Look at the results from the 2021 GABS Hottest 100 Beers of 2021. There isn’t a single wheat beer to be seen and there isn’t a non-sour wheat beer in the top 200. The list is dominated by pale ales, IPAs and everything hazy, with a few spots left for lagers, sours and stouts. How did this happen? It wasn’t long ago that most craft breweries had a wheat beer in their core range and Matilda Bay Redback was one of the most popular craft beers out there. Where did the wheat beers go?
In researching this article, I discovered that one of my favourite wheat beers, Feral White, once the brewery’s flagship brew, had been discontinued. Feral’s Head Brewer Dr Ryan Harris told me: “Over the past 15 years, Feral White went from being our most popular beer to one of the least popular. Despite the beer being one of our all-time favourites, we were left with little choice but to discontinue its production and distribution on a large scale. Wheat beers as a style simply are not popular anymore, which is surprising considering most hazy beers have wheat in them.”
Despite what the name might imply, wheat beers are rarely made with wheat alone. Unlike barley (the primary grain used in most beers), wheat does not have a husk, which makes it difficult to lauter, so most wheat beers are made with a ratio of around 50:50 wheat and barley malt. Most wheat beers are ales made with very little hops – with resulting low bitterness, and expressive yeast strains which provide much of their character. They are typically highly carbonated, which coupled with wheat’s higher protein content, results in a towering, long-lasting head of foam.
There are several different wheat beer styles, with the most popular being German Weissbier and Belgian Witbier. Interestingly, both style names translate to white beer, owing to the beers’ hazy, opaque appearance. Weissbier refers to a group of beer styles originating from Bavaria, where the style remains popular to this day. Weissbier, also known as Weizen (wheat), refers to a group of Bavarian wheat beers including the hazy hefeweizen (yeast wheat), kristallweizen (crystal wheat), dunkelweizen (dark wheat) and weizenbock (strong wheat beer). While these beers vary in colour and strength, all have low bitterness, little-to-no hop flavour, high carbonation and distinctive fermentation character, with notes of banana, clove, vanilla and bubblegum. Good local examples of the style include Beerland Wheat, Billabong Wheat, Cowaramup Hefeweizen, Homestead “Blastaweizen was one of the original beers available on tap when we opened four years ago,” says Mike Moran, the WA State Sales Manager for Blasta. “It’s made with all German malt, noble hops and yeast – there’re no twists here, we wanted to nail that classic flavour profile of nutmeg, clove, and banana. The style isn’t as popular as 10-20 years ago, but it has its place in the myriad of beer options. It’s certainly popular at the brewhouse which sustains more than 90% of the consumption of what we make.”
Belgian Witbier differs from its German cousin due to the inclusion of spices, usually including coriander seed and orange peel. They are typically made with raw wheat rather than malted wheat, which adds to the cloudy appearance. The rise in popularity of lager in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, made Witbier extinct, with the last brewer of the style closing shop in 1957. Thankfully, Witbier was revived by a Belgian milkmanturned-brewer named Pierre Celis, who started brewing in his shed, releasing his first white beer to the public in 1966. Today, the most popular witbiers in the world include Hoegaarden and Blue Moon (the best-selling non-lager beer in America). A couple of good local examples are Artisan Malabar Witbier and White Lakes Wit.
There is one more style of non-sour wheat beer worth mentioning: American Wheat Beer, which is a relative newcomer compared to its European counterparts. Of all the wheat beer styles, American wheat is the closest in character to the pale ales that dominate today’s craft brewing scene. The appearance of these beers can vary from clear to hazy, but where they differ is in their yeast and hop character. American wheats are usually fermented with a cleaner, more neutral yeast strain and are moderately hopped, resulting in notable hop aroma and more bitterness than a weissbier or a wit. Otherside Lo-Fi is a good, locally brewed, mid-strength example of the style, although not marketed as a wheat beer.
So, is wheat beer dead? No, I don’t think we can quite say that yet, but there’s no denying wheat beers have long been on the decline in the Australian craft beer scene. If the style is to survive locally, it will need to be driven by demand from drinkers. If you enjoy a well-made wheat beer, do your bit by buying them where they are available and asking for them where they aren’t.
By Jeremy Sambrooks
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