Otherside Brewing
For the first brewery of the year, we go back over to Western Australia and Perth’s Otherside Brewing. I’ve already written about Otherside’s DDH Hazy IPA this year and I’d previously had their Anthem IPA, but I was probably unprepared for the breadth and quality of the beers they are putting out. I’ve been on a roll with big calls lately, but I think I’d definitely put Otherside in my top 10 (and to be honest, probably my top 5) breweries in Australia.
As I mentioned in the DDH post, Otherside Brewing has a bit of an interesting backstory. With the quality of the beers they are brewing these days, it’s amazing that they started out as a gypsy brewer brewing a single batch of beer for a music festival. Whatever their origin, they have certainly found their calling.
I was fortunate enough to head over to WA again for work this past week and made a long overdue visit to the Otherside Brewhouse. The Brewhouse is located around the back of the brewery and is only open Thursday through Sunday evenings (although the Freo Social is another good option as it houses the Otherside Brewshed and has a lot of the same good stuff). But it is VERY much worth making time in your schedule for.
The Brewhouse is located around the back of the main brewery. For being in an industrial complex, it does really well on the ambiance front to marry the stainless-steel functionality of the brewery itself with a cozy and comfortable space that’s really pleasant to hang out and drink beer in. And this is helped in no small part by the extremely friendly bar staff who are more than happy to recommend and chat about their beers. And that includes both the core range and the seasonal stuff on tap. I was travelling on my own and found it an extremely comfortable place to settle in to a corner and work my way through as much of the Otherside range as I could over the course of an evening.
Foodwise, there’s a permanent food truck on site serving basic, but delicious brewery fare. The menu is always changing, but think chicken wings, burgers, chips, calamari and the like. For my part, I had the burger and have zero complaints.
As for the beer, this section may become slightly long-winded as Otherside Brewing serves SO many beers worthy of special mention. Prior to my visit, I’d only tried their Anthem IPA, Harvest Red Ale, and, of course, the DDH Hazy IPA. Since I’d had a couple of the core range previously, I went with the limited release tasting paddle. It came with six beers and I loved five of them (all of them except the jerk mango chipotle lager which was a bit too chilli-centric for my tastes). The five excellent beers I sampled were split between two categories: beers in styles I knew I loved that were absolutely excellent, and surprising beers that were from varieties that aren’t normally my favourites but that were absolutely delicious.
The Harvest Red is not described as an India red, but it has that marvellous malty-hoppy flavour that you’d expect from that particular style. And the Harvest is delicious. As frequent readers are probably aware, a good red (or red IPA) is probably my favourite beer variety. With that in mind, I can safely say I can’t recall having many better than the harvest.
I also love a good super hoppy IPA, and the Headliner IIPA is top notch. I find myself struggling for superlatives here. It’s gloriously hoppy, with a kick of citrus (but without going too far down the fruity end of the spectrum). It’s genuinely among the best I’ve had (and again, my lack of superlatives is leading me to a bit of repetition).
On the flip side, my tasting paddle also included two beers of genres that generally aren’t my favourite (although definitely not varieties that I would totally shun): a Helles and a sour. I tend to find a Helles a little bland (kind of in the Kolsch category for me). But the Feedback Helles has been amped up with a generous blast of hops to the usual Helles formula. And my goodness does it ever work. To be fair, adding a generous dollop of hops is a pretty sure-fire way to ‘improve’ a beer in my book. But this is genuinely a really really good beer.
The other surprise was the Ginger and Lemongrass Ale. Even though it’s not in the name, it’s actually a sour that instantly rocketed up to the top of my favourites list for that particular variety. Often, with sours in particular, breweries can veer a bit too far towards the out-there and unique and inadvertently cross into the realm of not-really-a-beer-anymore. But this ginger and lemongrass concoction is definitely still a sour beer, but with flavours I haven’t really had in a sour before. In fact, despite the paddle featuring a hoppy red and an excellent IIPA, it’s the Ginger and Lemongrass Ale that I went back for a pint of after I finished the sampler. It’s that good.
Finally, on a superficial level, Otherside has excellent branding and an excellent logo. As I am a sucker for good merch (especially when it’s associated with excellent beer), I went home with a T-shirt and a hat. For the record, I also got a takeaway 4-pack of the Headliner for good measure.
Personally, I’ve only seen Otherside Brewing beers on my visits to Western Australia or, very occasionally, in some specialty bottle shops on the east coast. While I love that their focus is on making outstanding beers rather than expanding their reach and visibility, I feel like Otherside gets a bit short-changed in the national craft beer conversation. The whole point of this blog is to only write about beer and breweries I like, so obviously (in my humble opinion) everything I feature here is going to be good. But with their range of styles and genuine across-the-board quality, they very much deserve to be mentioned alongside the absolute best in the country.