Name: Black Dog Brewery Lazy Dog Ale

Style: Ale

Country: Australia

ABV: 5%

Beer description: Black Dog Brewery is a small brewery in Taminick, Victoria tacked onto the Taminick Winery. Their head brewer comes from wine-maker stock and he puts a wine-maker’s care and thought into his beers.

The beer pours with a great off-white head that really hangs around. It’s a standard ale colour with a slight orange tint to it. It’s a very standard beer colour, and this beer was designed to be a standard, easy drinking ale, so why not?

The smell of this beer is great! It’s a pretty fragrant one. The aroma here is early and crisp with the feeling of a well controlled wild yeast. It’s possible the brewer experimented a little bit with the yeast here. There’s an all in all farmhouse/saison smell about the beer. The hops come through with some grapefruit and other citrus smells. The citrus and wild yeast smell work well together as there is a slight grungy quality about the smell (in a pleasing way), but the citrus is fresh and pure.

On the body, the beer is designed to be a session ale, so it’s fairly light. However, there’s enough in there to wrap your tongue around. The earthy quality of the beer comes through on the front which tends to slow it down a little bit. It’s a nice way to pace the beer as it’s an easy drinker and could go down too fast otherwise.

Behind this is a crisp bitterness and an ever so slight sourness. It’s not an overly bitter beer. The palate is left with the feeling of wet leaves that have been left to sit for a few days. Clean and lovely wet leaves.

Black Dog have made an interesting twist on what would otherwise be a pretty standard session ale. As originally assumed, this beer was made with a great deal of thought and care.

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