GABS Brewer 2017 – Steve Germain from Tall Boy and Moose

What sort of beer are you making for GABS?
We are brewing an Irish red ale, will add a unique twist by blending in whisky barrel-aged coffee. To unpack that concept a little bit, we have borrowed a recently emptied whisky barrel from Starward Whisky and it is absolutely soaking with delicious local whisky. We are partnering up with our local coffee roaster – Red Bean – who are about a one-minute walk around the corner from our brewpub in Preston, in order to introduce the coffee element. With Red Bean, we’ve looked at and tested several single origin coffees in cold brew format and have picked a favourite called Bom Jesus, which originates from Brazil. We will let these green (unroasted and porous) coffee beans sit in the whisky barrel for a period of time in order to soak up plenty of whicky character. From there we will roast those coffee beans, make a concentrated cold brew coffee with them, and blend back into our Irish red ale. As you can see this is a very process-heavy concept and we are enjoying a lot of the tinkering along the way! So far a couple of the trials that we’ve worked on have been delicious!

What’s it called?
Irish Coffee Carbomb.

Where did the inspiration come from?
Dan, our brewer, came up with the name and loose concept after we had thrown around ideas in relation the classic Irish Coffee (Coffee with Irish whisky added) and the “party drink” called the Irish Carbomb. Wikipedia describes it best: “An Irish Car Bomb is an American bomb shot cocktail, similar to a boilermaker, made by dropping a shot of Irish cream and whiskey into a glass of stout.” From there we thought about different ways to incorporate the various elements, finally settling on our preferred method to try and bring it together via whisky barrel aged coffee.

What’s the weirdest ingredient you’ve ever added to a beer?
We’ve used plenty of interesting things: rose water, orange blossom water, lemongrass, kefir lime, garam masala, sweet potato and yams, chinese smoked black tea (lapsang souchong), chai spices, chestnuts, dates, fennel, coconut, apple juice, assorted dried fruit, lavender flowers etc. If I had to pick one, the lapsang souchong has a special place in my heart. It’s an incredible breakfast tea with unique campfire smokiness…we put it into an IPA called Jan Juc IPA….a great surf beach across Port Philip Bay from Gunnamatta ; )

GABS drinking preference – tasting paddles or a full glass?
A couple paddles first…then a full glass of the favourite(s).

The Great Australasian Beer Spectapular is on May 19-21 at the Royal Exhibition Building in Carlton, Victoria, May 27 at Sydney Showground Olympic Park, NSW and June 16-17 at ASB Showgrounds, Greenlane, Auckland.