Critic's Choice Top 12

2. Pacific Ale. Who would of guessed....

 

https://www.beeradvocate.com/ratebeer/?path=/beer/country/australia/14/
RB list
http://beeradvocate.com/lists/top-au
BA list

Really more of the 12 more accessible beers in Australia. it is not a slam at critics but most are easy to find. Two are pretty much one off's.
A top 12 list without Wild Thing is like a US list with out PTE, or a Belgian list without Westy, Chimay, or St. Bernardus.

 

I see Hop Hog nabbed the top spot.

Bit of a sidenote: I was going to buy some Hop Hog on Monday night and couldn't find a bottling or best before date on it. Is there anyway to tell how fresh it is? The store wasn't a prominent craft beer place, so i wasn't sure they'd turn it over that quickly.

 

Thanks, i know my eyes are rubbish, so that is reassuring

I had a feeling that packaged beer was supposed to have best before date on it at the least; and that the date of bottling was something that brewers chose to do.

 

From what i can gather, Murrays had 8 beers featured in the book:

Angry Man Pale Ale
Punch & Judy’s
Grand Cru
Icon 2IPA
Shawn’s Fault India Black Ale
Anniversary Ale 5
Heart of Darkness Oak Aged Belgio Imperial Stout
Angry Man Brown Ale

So not only did Wild Thing not make the top 12, it wasn't in their top 100...

 

I suppose it depends on the voting system a bit, but that is quite surprising.

 

The voting system worked on the basis of each person picking their top 50 beers. number 1 got 50 votes all the way to number 50 getting 1 vote.

The system does lend itself to the more accessible beers. It would be difficult for me to vote for Murray's Wild Thing as I'm yet to have it. Sadly due to the nature of the craft beer beast, some brewers (Wig and Pen esp.) are just not going to be able to win things like this.

The whole idea of the book/competition is to get people to talk and experiment with things that they havent tried before. There were a couple of beers in there that I have never even heard of. The tyranny of distance I suppose....