Beer #10 - W/C 4 May 2015
BREWERY //
“Really Ridiculously Fun Beer”
Moon Dog beers are created under the benevolent gaze of John Candy (in the form of a beautiful painting) and a ceiling of dodgy looking chandeliers. Brothers Josh and Jake Uljans and Karl van Buuren started Moon Dog in 2010 with a plan to brew “Really Ridiculously Fun Beer”. Their Melbourne brewery is equidistant between Carlton United Breweries and the Duchess brothel and has been built up bit by bit with the help of eBay. Parts from seaweed-based cosmetics production sit alongside an open fermentation tank from Wagga Wagga which hadn’t been used in 80 years. They’ve used a stock feed crusher as a grain mill and dairy milk vats as brewing tanks. Moon Dog is not your average brewery.
TASTING NOTES //
Skunkworks was probably an excellent double IPA even before it was decanted into Hennessy XO Cognac barrels to age for a couple of months. The Moon Dog mantra is “experimentation but keep it well balanced” which is true here as the cognac component is rather subtle and, along with the hints of oak, marries well with tropical fruit hop flavours and sweet toffee malt. Thanks to the blends of malts, this is a full bodied beer with a smooth and slightly oily mouthfeel. Skunkworks smashes together a lot of components, any one of which would likely result in a tasty beer- big passionfruit & mango flavour from the hop combination with pronounced bitterness from the dry hop additions, sweet caramel from the malt and stewed fruit, oaky warmth from those Cognac barrels.
Skunkworks is a fine beer and unlike anything we’ve tasted before. Which is the whole point.
BREWERY // Moon Dog
BEER // Skunkworks
STYLE // Cognac Barrel Aged Double IPA
ORIGIN // Melbourne, Australia
ABV // 9.1%
BITTERNESS UNITS. IBU // 105
MALT // Pilsner, Pale, Wheat, CaraPils, Dextrose
HOPS // Summit, Horizon, Amarillo, Chinook, Citra (dry), Cascade (dry)
YEAST // Whitbread
OTHER // Aged in French oak cognac barrels for over 2 months
TEMPERATURE // Room temperature. 14-16C
FOOD MATCH // Blue Cheese, Salt and Vinegar Crisps, Pork Chops, Crème Brulée
GLASS // Tulip, Snifter