Schooners and Pots

A Sydney brewpub, where better to stay?

On my first visit to Australia in 2013, Vicky (who'd visited Oz before) and I stayed at Sydney's Macquarie Hotel, a fairly central old style Aussie hotel that had clearly seen better days. We thought we'd nicked an excellent deal for our stay, but as we struggled up a third winding staircase to a tiny odd shaped room in the roof we began to think twice. Jaded and jet-lagged we dumped our heavy suitcases, gasped for air in the heat and tramped quickly down to the bar. Herewith was the other reason we'd picked this spot, it doubled as a brewpub! Yes the offering was limited but it was tasty and cheap, a request for a pint of Paddo brought a hoppy pale ale, the alternatives were a Darlo which was a dark mild and Potts Porter. We settled down to a couple of pints or was it schooners? (See below!) and life took on a rosier glow. This then was the Sydney Brewery, initially called Schwarz Brewery after the founder, and, at that time, an oasis for decent beer in Australia's largest city. The other two breweries in town were the Lord Nelson, another brewpub which is still going strong, and an early incarnation of a James Squire brewpub known as the King Street Brewhouse, which was down on the wharf. Fast forward nine years and the Aussie craft beer season has changed dramatically.

Sydney Brewery has gone from strength to strength, selling the hotel and relocating half a K away they now brew a big range of modern beers and have expanded further afield with a brewery in the Hunter Valley wine region. In fact not only are there now around 800 breweries in Australia utilising some wonderful modern hop varieties but their creative brewers are coming up with imaginative concoctions such as 'Citrus and Rhubarb Custard Sour' and 'Smoked Chilli Black IPA.' This naming of beer is taken to new heights with the Boatrocker Brewers' 'Flux Capacitor' (something to do with time travel) and a pair of beers called 'That's not a Knife' and 'This is a Knife' both brewed by Alice Springs Brewery at 6.5% and 8.5%. Our Christmas beer selection (which we shared) was this powerful double IPA brewed in Brisbane - see the photo - it's not exactly a session beer. We had a tinnie of it but we might just be going down to the brewery bar at some point!

Last parkrun of 2022 was our second on a Pacific island. A few years ago we took a ferry to do the Clover Point parkrun on Vancouver Island off the Canadian coast. Here we drove over a bridge to Bribie Island which is host to the interestingly named SS Koopa Trail parkrun. In the first half of the twentieth century, before the bridge to the island was built, the passenger steamboat SS Koopa called in four days a week to Bribie Island. Trippers from Brisbane then spent a few hours pottering round the island. Meanwhile a goodly crowd of islanders would swarm up the gangplank into the ship's bar and enjoy a schooner or a pot. There were no licensed premises on the island in those days and SS Koopa's arrival was always awaited with eager anticipation. 

The SS Koopa in its heyday!

And here it is, the definitive guide to the beer measures in different Australian states. Or maybe not, the history of Aussie beer volumes is probably a book worth writing. Brewpubs in particular seem to come up with all sorts of alternative glass sizes. And whereas in the UK you'd generally expect to pay half the price of a pint for a half pint measure, here the smaller glasses work out to be more expensive on a pro-rata basis. Furthermore pints are not so popular in Australian pubs presumably because, in hot weather, beer warms up in the glass fairly fast; hence the universal sleeve for your stubbies and tinnies when you're drinking at the barbie!

A World of Running

Over a slippery stile.

Thought I should get back to doing some of those long fell races that I used to enjoy so much. November sees the umpteenth running of the Penmaenmawr Fell Race referred to those in the know as "The Pen." This was my sixth Pen race in 18 years and by far the slowest, in part due to the very wet conditions but also because of a poor route choice half way round which cost me a few minutes - oh and I wasn't really pushing it! It's eleven miles of steady climbing with a long stretch of high altitude bog trotting - what joy! I followed this up with my fourth go at the Cardington Cracker, a tough eight mile race in Shropshire featuring some fearsomely steep climbs. Here's me climbing a stile towards the end, legs almost finished after the endless uphills. I was happy to complete both events and get prizes for being the first over 70 runner (in fact the only over 70 runner!) A week later I was hoping to have a crack at the Sea to Summit, an uphill half marathon along the Offa's Dyke Path starting on the seafront at Prestatyn. Snow, ice and sub-zero temperatures knocked that one on the head as the wise decision was made to call the thing off. 

Offa was an early King of Mercia an early middle ages monarch who built an earthwork barrier to keep the Welsh out of England (or was it the other way round?) The Offa's Dyke Path runs southwards for 177 miles from Prestatyn in the north to Chepstow on the Bristol Channel. Our half marathon route ranges over the Clwydian Hills in Denbighshire but what most people are unaware of is that this northern section of the path doesn't follow the line of the ancient Offa's Dyke at all. Some of the remains of the original earthwork can be seen over to the east in Flintshire - if you try to follow that line you'd end up trogging through an industrial estate in Mold. Clearly this would have been not so attractive for visiting tourists and long distance walkers so when the long distance path was mooted some years ago a more scenic line over the Clwydians was decided on.

From a deep and dark December in the Northern hemisphere with its freezing temperatures to the almost tropical midsummer of Brisbane, Australia - what a shock to the system. This was what we encountered at the beginning  of our first trip down under for three years. Even at 7 am, which is the parkrun start time in Queensland, we experienced 22 degrees and sapping humidity. Added to that we took a wrong turn just before we arrived at Warner Lakes parkrun starting 5 minutes late and, being not yet acclimatised to the conditions, I felt I was running through treacle. As with our recent parkrun experiences in Southern Africa we noticed far more parkwalkers than we would normally see in the UK - maybe the weather has something to do with this I would respectfully suggest.

Follow the leader? Not really, the real quickies were well ahead!

 And what did Santa  bring us for Christmas  this year? Two park  runs of course! One on  Christmas Eve and one  on Christmas Day.  Here's me leading the  field at Petrie parkrun a  pleasant there and  back gallop through the  Sweeney Reserve,  named for Thomas  Patrick Sweeney who  lived here in a  ramshackle hut with his  family. They kept emus and kangaroos and had a refreshment kiosk serving fruit and soft drinks. If they'd still been open today they'd have done a roaring trade refreshing thirsty park runners!

Hello back home!

The following day, i.e. Christmas morning, we toed the start line with a couple of hundred other early birds for a parkrun along the Enoggera Creek at Kelvin Grove, Brisbane. A local running club had elected this as their Christmas run and most of the fast first dozen or so finishers were wearing distinctive pink running vests. The course was fairly flat and sheltered by leafy trees some of them containing large colonies of roosting bats with their distinctive pong. Here's a photo of us with our distinctive post race smiles (grimaces?) together with another parkrunner - he explained delightedly to us that he's going to be in the UK in a year's time and is looking forward to a White Christmas - what do you think are the chances of that?