1) If you’re anything like me there’s something you do every time you go away for a weekend or a longer holiday. And that thing is hitting Google and typing in the phrase “breweries near [insert destination here]. Once upon a time Google’s responses would be fairly disappointing, but these days it seems like the greater challenge is to find a destination that doesn’t have a brewery.

2) This is what I did when we went up to Umina on the Central coast a few weekends ago. I struck paydirt with Block ’n’  Tackle brewery at Kincumber, a short drive from the hotel. At that point it was beholden on me to try and work out how to get there – preferably with my wife driving (because a brewery visit when you have car keys in your pocket is not so much fun).

3) That was unsuccessful because the wife said, “hey, I’ve got to go and do this thing, which you will hate [that was true]. Why don’t you go to the brewery and come pick me up later?” So that meant I had to be more careful about how much I drank to make sure I was under the limit. And I always err on the side of caution. The result was not getting to enjoy as many beers as I might have liked.

4) To balance that out I did look to take more beers home. One of these was a collaboration between Block ’n’ Tackle and a Central Coast bottle shop by the name of Oldfield Cellars. The other beers I got in a one-litre plastic bottle but this one came in a 750ml glass bottle with a swingtop lid (that was covered in wax to make the swingtop lid that much harder to get off.

5) The beer itself is a dark saison with the additions of white pepper and lime zest (hence the name The Limey). As you might have gathered, it pours dark but there are some banana-esque smells from the saison yeast, along with some very obvious pepper notes. I can’t say I found much evidence of the lime, but there are some tasty choc-caramel flavours here. Despite the 6.6 per cent alcohol and the dark colour, the saison characters do bring some lightness to the beer.  Still, I’m glad I drank it on a cool evening; I doubt it would have gone down so well on a hot day.

Free or paid for?: I bought the bottle, as well as the other takeways and the sample paddle I had at the brewery bar.