Chat On Tap
Chat on Tap is a podcast about pubs and the people in them. Each week, host David A. Lennon and a rotating cast of your new best mates pull up a stool as they chat with legends, locals and tap in on what to drink and where to drink it. Chat on Tap is both a love letter to Aussie pubs and beer, and a guidebook to where to go next.
Chat On Tap
BONUS POUR – The Social Brewers
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In this Chat on Tap Bonus Pour, we chat to Beau Curtis who is the founder and head brewer of The Social Brewers in Mortdale, Sydney, for a guided tasting of the core lineup.
From crisp lagers to hop loaded limited releases, this episode is a walkthrough of what’s pouring at one of the St George region’s most exciting breweries.
- The philosophy behind a great “gateway beer” lager and why simple done well is powerful
- Breaking down a Pacific Ale built for Aussie conditions - Galaxy hops, sessionable and refreshing
- Inside the Forest Road IPA - an “Anglo-American” hybrid balancing malt richness with US hops
- The story behind Death Valley Double IPA (8.2%) - a limited birthday release with experimental hops
- How small-batch brewing allows for creativity, risk-taking, and one-off beers that don’t last long
Check out The Social Brewers
https://thesocialbrewers.com.au/
Follow them on Instagram @thesocialbrewers
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Episode produced by: WHEN Studios
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Insta: @chatontap
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Email: hello@chatontap.com
Host: David A. Lennon – @davidalennon
Website: chatontap.com
This is a bonus episode of Cat on Tap Podcast. We are going to do a deep dive into the beers here at Social Brewing Co. This is Bo Curtis. He is the founder and head brewer at Now I'm saying it right, is it the Social Brewers? I keep saying social brewing. It's the social brewers. The social brewers. We're social and web brewers. Well, there you go. There you go. And you are the man behind the recipe. So we're going to discuss some of these beers here that you could try if you come down to the St. George region, Mortdale, into the Social Brewers.
SPEAKER_00So we'll start with this one. This is St. George Draft Lager. It is a draft in both the fact that it is on tap and also we've called it a draft just because why not? So it's a nice, clear, crisp, easy drinking American light lager. Easy drinking, simple stuff. Inspired by my visit to a local club last Super Bowl and drinking all a responsible amount of um of American lager and just thinking wow that actually was quite nice. Not a beer you think a lot about, and one that really does the job.
SPEAKER_01I think when done really well, they hold a really great place. That was the first beer of the weekend for me, and it was like it would be hard to not have a responsible amount. Sorry, what would it be hard to have a responsible amount?
SPEAKER_00Yes, okay, yeah. It's a gateway beer. The next one is uh Striders, which is our Pacific Ale. So um that is a classic Australian pale ale, uh Galaxy Hops, um you know, a little bit of wheat in there to give it a bit more body, a little tiny bit of haze, um, real refreshing, dry finishing, crisp again. So again, another pretty smashable, um, yeah, that is sessionable uh ale. That's beautiful. Um a hot day beer for sure. This is my personal favourite on all our taps at all times. I do like every beer we produce. As I always say, I never met a beer I didn't like. This one is Forest Road IPA. So that is our house IPA. Um, it is pretty much always available both in can and on tap. Um really clear, but nice clarity. Yeah, mate. We we've um we've worked really hard on making sure we get as uh the best clarity possible, particularly in that beer. Gives you a really nice clean hop character, Citro Simco mosaic, so the the holy trinity of hops. But what we've done with that is I've taken an English IPA base, so the maltville is really traditionally English, uh, so it's got a bit more kind of caramelly uh toffee kind of character to it, but then laid over those classic American hops to create what I like to call an Anglo-American IPA.
SPEAKER_01Okay, yeah, that's a great description.
SPEAKER_00I like it. Um finally, and not quite as clear because uh it's got so much hops in it, it's pretty hard to tear it up. Um, that is Death Valley, which is uh Mortdale in Latin for those of you who like a bit of language, uh, is roughly translated as Valley of the Dead. So we create uh every year our birth on our birthday weekend we release Death Valley double IPA. Uh just a sneaky 8.2% um double IPA. It is um a beautiful beer, really nice and smooth, soft around the edges, yeah, a little bit of body body to carry it through. Uh we always use superdelic as our kind of core haul for that. So whirlpool hop is superdelic and plenty of it. Um this year we've gone a little bit different. Uh I got some Solero, which is a hop that I'd not really heard much about from the guys down at Beerco who I order some of my smaller range hops from. Um shout out to Dermot. Um that's one Derb. And um we we dropped that in, so about 250 grams of that along with um 500 grams of super delicate and dry hop. We also added a 235 mil bottle of uh Nelson Savon hopkef. Yep. So what I like to do with that beer is just add something different that we don't use a lot into our process. Um so on this one it's it's always a hopkef. Uh it's just a bit of fun. Um, and I like to try and make a beer that just sort of jumps out the glass at you and you're drinking, you're just like, where's the alcohol?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but that's what I like.
SPEAKER_00I like to sneak it in there on people. Um, and so you do that every year? Yes. How big a run are we do we do? So uh from a canning point of view, so we'll split that batch. We've um our batch size is about 550 litres. Um we split the batch so 389 cans, so one layer of cans, um, and then a couple of kegs, so it's really limited run stuff. Um the idea is that it's you know it's here for a really short time, everyone loves it, but we get through it pretty quickly. So if you're in the area coming to visit, drop in and grab a four-pack, it won't last long.
SPEAKER_01No, yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna grab some, I think for the way home. But um, thanks for a run-through of the the top line beers here at Social Brewers. And uh, yeah, please do get in and get the Mortdale, aka the Death Valley, and um be responsible about it.
SPEAKER_00Always, always responsibly, kids.