Last Rites Brewing Co

For this week’s brewery, we go back down to Tasmania and Last Rites Brewing Co.  Tasmania as a whole, and Hobart in particular, churns out some really excellent and innovative beers.  In my humble opinion, Last Rites may well be the best of the lot.

Last Rites Brewing Co is located in Cambridge in Hobart’s eastern suburbs. Like many other up and coming craft breweries, it’s situated in an industrial estate.  But behind the unassuming roller doors is a den of delicious brews.  It’s a very simply laid out area with the primary focus on brewing with large silver vats dominating the seating area.  The only food on offer are chips from behind the bar or a rotating roster of food trucks that set up shop on Fridays.  Don’t get me wrong, I love a comfy cellar door or tasting room or brewpub. But there’s still something really nice about a spartan, beer focused venue.  It just feels like, for a small operation, they know exactly where their focus should be: tasty tasty beer.

Naturally, the ascetics of a brewery mean absolutely nothing without that tasty beer.  But there’s no need to worry on that front.  Last Rites has one of the most consistently good repertoires of beer that I’ve encountered in a brewery I’ve visited.  The very first beer I ever wrote about on this blog was Last Rites’ Puddle Maker, a fantastic imperial red that still ranks very highly on my favourite beers list.  Alas that was a limited-edition beer and I recently finished the last delightful can from my stockpile.  But lucky for me (and anyone partial to really good craft beer), Last Rites also has a delicious line-up of other offerings, and a steady stream of other limited-edition releases.

Given the across-the-board quality of the offerings from Last Rites Brewing, as well as the constantly changing array of limited-edition offerings, I doubt I’ll be able to do the beers justice with my descriptions.  So I’ll try to focus on a few (several) that are particularly excellent.  Other than the tragically no-longer-available Puddle Maker, my personal favourites are the She’s No Bette Midler Tasmanian Red Ale, Dead Man’s Revenge Black IPA, Tell Us The Time Tom Double Stout, and Love Country Tasmanian IPA.  It was a bit of an effort to narrow the best-of list down that far as well.

She’s No Bette Midler is an excellent rich, malty, caramelly, warm red ale (warm in taste not temperature).  It’s got just enough hoppy kick to balance out the maltiness, but the caramelly flavour is the key feature here, and it’s really really tasty.  And that is coming from an avowed hop-head.

Dead Man’s Revenge is definitely close to the best black IPA I’ve ever had.  The emphasis is on the hoppy IPA side of the equation, which, in my opinion, is squarely where it should be.  The hit of darkness comes in as a complement to the hoppiness.  This is rather than trying to make a half-and-half combo that I reckon tends to make many black IPA’s not quite work.

When I think of drinking a stout, I think of a crisp autumn or winter day with a bit of a chill in the air. Perhaps sitting inside by a fire, while drinking a rich, meaty black beer.  As Tasmania fits that description for much of the year, it’s no surprise that Last Rites does an absolute knockout of a double stout. Tell Us The Time Tom is super rich and instantly gives you a lovely warm and fuzzy feeling inside.

The final Last Rites Brewing beer from my ‘short’ list is the Love Country Tasmanian IPA.  There’s very little subterfuge about this one.  It is hoppy, gloriously hoppy.  And therefore, it is right up my alley.  It’s also got a bit of a citrus-coconut tinge to it. While tasty, that might not be the first flavour to spring to mind in a Tasmanian IPA.  I don’t know the details of what specifically constitutes a Tasmanian IPA, but I definitely can say that this beer just absolutely works.

Hobart is a great place to visit even if you’re not super into craft beer.  However, if you are, it’s that much better.  Last Rites Brewing may not look like the fanciest establishment from the outside, and it isn’t.  But what it is, however, is a place filled with people that seriously know how to make a good beer.  It’s very much worth a visit just for the opportunity to sample their entire varied and delicious range of brews in one place in one sitting.  Plus the opportunity to get in early on their ever evolving range of limited-edition beers is pretty darn appealing as well.  Furthermore, I know that literally every time I go to Hobart from here on out, I will not be leaving without a visit to Last Rites Brewing.