TROPICAL SALOON

Best of Melbourne, 2011.

I get asked for coffee, beer and food recommendations quite a lot, and figure that instead of replying to each email with a cobbled together list, I could put together a summary of venues, experiences and the like that I’ve enjoyed.

As I’m getting ready to fly out to Sydney this afternoon, now seems like a good time to put together some thoughts from this visit to Melbourne. Yes, it’s totally subjective, and yes, it relates only to the experiences that I had, and yes, you’ll probably disagree with things or point out things I’ve missed. This is not the definitive list of what’s amazing in Melbourne, it’s just a snapshot of where I visited, and found to be particularly enjoyable.

COFFEE

BEST ESPRESSO
Market Lane Coffee: Winter Espresso
(Served by Talor Browne)
Shop 13 Prahran Market
163 Commercial Road
Prahran

BEST FILTER
Seven Seeds: Kopakama, Rwanda (C.O.E. Lot #5)
(Served as Aeropress, by Anthony Ivey)
114 Berkeley Street
Carlton

BEST CAPPUCCINO
Seven Seeds Espresso @ The Premises
(Served by Alex Anderson)
202 Bellair Street
Kensington

FOOD

BEST BREAKFAST
The Premises
(Poached eggs, halloumi, chorizo, Nana Kath’s tomato relish, toast)
202 Bellair Street
Kensington

BEST LUNCH
Duchess of Spotswood
(Grilled veal tongue, semolina, local mushrooms, smoked deep-fried duck egg)
Hudsons Road,
Spotswood

BEER

BEST BEER
8 Wired Brewing Company: Hopwired IPA
(Depth, hop-freshness, balance)
Blenheim, New Zealand

VERY CLOSE SECOND BEST BEER FOR DIFFERENT REASONS
Kooinda Boutique Brewery: Pale Ale
(Balance, simplicity, availability)
Rosanna, Victoria

BEST CRAFT BEER BAR
Josie Bones
98 Smith Street
Collingwood

RETAIL & DESIGN

BEST COFFEE SHOP DESIGN & FITOUT
Market Lane Coffee
Shop 13 Prahran Market
163 Commercial Road
(Entrance on Elizabeth Street)

BEST NON-COFFEE SHOP DESIGN & FITOUT
Aesop
All of their shops,
Everywhere.

BEST SERVICE
James @ Josie Bones
(In-depth knowledge, great recommendations, personable/approachable)
98 Smith Street
Collingwood

VERY CLOSE SECOND BEST SERVICE
Tim @ Books For Cooks
(Genuine interest in and knowledge of coffee books)
Gertrude Street,
Collingwood

BEST VIBE & HAPPIEST STAFF
Fandango
97 Errol Street
North Melbourne
(N.B. My sister & brother-in-law’s cafe)

Mikkeller Bar, Copenhagen.

Happy Klaus. Click for full size smile.

I’d been really looking forward to getting to the Mikkeller Bar one day, and as that day approached I became nervous that my anticipation would overshadow the experience.

I worried needlessly.

Without a doubt, the Mikkeller Bar is the best beer bar I’ve had a drink in. A great range, super-helpful and lovely staff. What was intended to be a beer or two turned into an exploration of a huge range of different microbreweries, beer styles, regional interpretations, and brewing experiments, ending at 2:30am.

The incomparable company of Klaus and Linus of Copenhagen’s Coffee Collective, as well as Mikkeller Bar manager, Jannick, made it a great night of hearty debate and discussion.

I could write more, but at this stage, I’ll not do it justice. Suffice to say that my double pilgrimage day of Coffee Collective and Mikkeller Bar was more than any beer loving coffee professional could ever ask for.

BrewDog Punk IPA – Cans

I suppose there has to be something of a trade off, right? To live in London, and have groceries delivered on a Sunday morning, and have a decent craft beer in that delivery, and for that beer to be in a can, and for that can to be carried by a massive supermarket, there has to be some compromise.

And the compromise here is freshness and hop bitterness. It’s undeniably a dialled-back version of Punk IPA, and as you might imagine, fairly disappointing as a result. Better than most beers? Of course… “Breaking rules, upsetting trends and unsettling institutions” as the tag line loudly proclaims? Absolutely not.

But that’s the trade off for scale and convenience, right?

Moving On…

A little over a year ago, James Hoffmann was good enough to give me a job at Square Mile Coffee Roasters. To be honest, I don’t think he really needed anyone, but I guess he figured that, since I was hanging around the roastery so much anyway, I probably might as well become an actual employee.

Over the course of the next year, I would be lucky enough to work closely with James on a number of interesting, educational and rewarding projects; Penny University, designing and planning the new roastery, a revamping of the Q.C. programme, an advanced wholesale barista training course, and other bits and pieces here and there.

These projects were often highly experimental, and as such were wonderfully rewarding and challenging. Running concurrently to actual projects, there has always been a steady stream of gadgets arriving, experiments being conducted, theories put to the test – a near daily instruction from James of “Here… Drink this. Well…?”, while waiting expectantly for the response. That constant exposure to new, interesting, and sometimes bizarre ideas has been such a wonderful thing to be a part of, and has had me looking at coffee in totally new ways, all the time.

The last year at Square Mile has been very educational. To go from a predominantly retail background, to being involved more directly with the operations and logistics of a production environment has been hugely beneficial and of great interest to me. The opportunity to work, not only with James, but with Anette, John, Jess, Phil & Josh has also been extremely gratifying.

On Friday, I sat down with James, and let him know that I had decided to move on.

I had been presented with the opportunity to take the next step in my own development, in the form of a role as Director of Coffee, with the newly-opening London branch of ST. ALi, and I felt that it was the right direction to take. So, it’s with a very strange mix of sadness and excitement that, in a few weeks, I move on from Square Mile, and all the good times I’ve had here, to Clerkenwell Road, and an entirely new set of challenges that await.

It’s with immense and genuine gratitude that I offer my thanks to James and Anette, John and Jess, Phil, Josh, and all the Square Mile customers I’ve gotten to know, for a thoroughly challenging, rewarding and fascinating year. And concurrently it’s with great excitement that I soon step into a new role, new challenges, and a great many opportunities ahead…

Separated At Birth?

Not the best example photos, but the best I could manage at midnight on Sunday:

It’s worth noting that one went on to become a successful, respected and revered coffee professional, the other simply bitches about lack of grip, and blames his team and mechanics for his own lack of skill.

‘The Way To Good Coffee’ – Tim Wendelboe

A snippet of what’s to come from Norwegian guru of the bean, Tim Wendelboe: “Veien til god kaffe med Tim Wendelboe”. Since I can’t understand a word he’s saying, I can only use visual cues such as the one below to make assumptions on what’s being said:

“For the very best results, be sure to always make your coffee in the home kitchen of an employee, using beans sourced from a roaster in London. I’m Tim Wendelboe, and you’re not. Good night.”

How We Brewed The Suke Quto Coffee IPA.

Several months ago, Evin O’Riordan and I brewed the first batch of our Suke Quto Coffee IPA. We had become acquainted through my love of beer, and his love of coffee, and our shared love of all things delicious. After talking about it for quite a while, we decided to collaboratively brew an I.P.A. with a hint of floral, aromatic coffee.

The objectives were explicit from the get-go:

After tasting a few different coffees, it was starkly obvious that the perfect candidate was Square Mile Coffee Roasters’ Suke Quto, a light, peachy, black tea-like coffee from Oromia in Ethiopia. We tried to pair with it hops that would be complementary – nothing too overpowering, we were looking for florals, tropical fruits, and the like. One of the most wonderful sensorial experiences I’ve had in a long time was to walk into the cool room and taking great handfuls of different hops, exploring differences between varieties, origins, age from harvest – if you ever get the chance to do this, please take it.

We chose to use the wort, post-boil, as essentially an oversized coffee brewer – adding twelve 1kg muslin bags of ground coffee for a duration of 5 minutes. We were essentially guessing at what would happen here – the idea was that the coffee would be less easily extracted by the wort, due to the sugars and other solubles already in it (compared to regular water) but that that was probably OK, as we weren’t after a proper extraction rate, but more a hint of coffee.

There were some fairly major saturation and buoyancy issues that arose, also. While we expected the bags to float a little, the degree to which they resisted becoming saturated was surprising, and resulted in having to try to manually submerge the bags as much as possible – something that will be reconsidered going forward.

From there, everything was cooled, sent to the fermenter, and the regular beer brewing process was resumed. We tasted little bits of the brew at this point, and there was a very, very subtle hint of coffee, that thankfully would develop into a deeper, and slightly drier note over time.

And after a few weeks, we had our beer: A little confusing, hints of coffee, overall pretty delicious. I think it’s improved as it’s aged, and become more balanced and complete. I could go on and on about what I think of the beer, but there’s plenty of other, far more qualified, people who have already done it: Hopzine, The Beer Cast, and a great many more… And oh so very importantly, somewhere to buy it – BeerMerchants.com

And next week, we brew it again. If you’ve tried this beer already, don’t expect batch two to be a straight-forward repeat – there’s some things that we’re going to tweak, and elements we’re going to amplify just a little.

All in all, I’m so thankful that Evin was interested in trying this out, as it’s been so very educational, wonderfully delicious, and luckily, an ongoing endeavour. Perhaps we should arrange a launch for batch number two?

Nelson Hunter.

Weekend PSA From DCILY.

It’s true. One of the most frequently neglected coffee-making tasks is definitely proper cleaning of the grinder. This is certainly true of home set-ups, but is an absolute of just about every coffeebar I’m familiar with.

One person who is no slouch when it comes to grinder cleaning and maintenance is Intelligentsia Venice’s Katie O’Shea. Rest assured that if you’re a Venice morning customer, and Katie closed the shop the night before, the grinder preparing your shot will be spotless, inside and out, every time. Pay attention, baristas. It matters.

On a broader note, if you’re not already following @dearcoffeeiluvu on Twitter, or checking out www.dearcoffeeiloveyou.com on a regular basis, you really should be.

Help me out…

I saw this car while driving something even more ridiculous myself in Silverlake, LA. I have no idea what it is, who made it, what powers it… Help me out. It’s awesome.