What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon than tasting good food, beer & wine at the idyllic Mindarie Marina.
We were there last weekend for the annual “Toast to the Coast” Festival and the weather was gorgeous, though sadly a little to hot for some judging by the turnout. There were plenty of people just not the crazy numbers that turned up for the Chilli Festival held here a few weeks before.
That was fine by us, smaller queues and crowds, two things that we are definitely not fond of 🙂
We are lucky enough to have lived in Mindarie for over 20 years and it would be so easy to take views like this for granted, and it’s probably fair to say we may have done just that in the past. But no more, we live in a paradise that many people can only dream of and we make every effort to fully appreciate what we have and how lucky we are to live in a place like Perth.
We’re also very appreciative of the fact we can walk to our local brewery (the Indi) in less than 5 mins 🙂
Lucky for us the Jerky Co had a stall here which not only gave us some tasty & chewy treats but allowed us to purchase a bag of Hot Chill Jerky to reward our son for picking us up and saving us having to walk home in the heat with the amazing Mash beer we acquired later on.
Ol-ive Half we’re also there with a variety of gourmet marinated olives. I must admit I was a bit confused by their name until I sat down to write this and suddenly it struck me, It must be a play on Jacko’s catchphrase in that old classic British TV show “Love Thy Neighbour”. Jacko’s catchphrase was “I’ll have half” indicating he wants a half pint of beer 🙂
After reading their web site’s about page it turns out I was right about the words but they have a slightly different meaning … Always good to see interesting business names 🙂
There were plenty of food stalls available, shame it was too hot for some!
Now those are some seriously big wok’s that the guy from Pinchos is using …
The Indi food stall had some tasty looking pizzas …
… and freshly shucked oysters. Looks like they were having a good time too 🙂
Whilst at the Indi food stall we bumped into Martin (the GM of the Marina complex) and sadly learned that after 17 years he is leaving to start his own business. We’ll certainly miss you Martin, best wishes for your new business and we and hope you’ll get to spend more time with your family 🙂
There were plenty more food stalls but we were starting to feel a little thirsty with all this heat and the free food tastings were disappearing so we kinda’ skipped a few and headed for the beer & wine tastings!
These guys from Pepperilly Estate Wines were awesome, we had a great chat about their winery which is fairly new and wish them all the best. Their wine was great too and when they open a cellar door and restaurant we’ll be there. I love it when you can connect with decent friendly people trying to get their product out there 🙂
We worked our way through the rest of the wineries and moved on to the beer …
The Indi’s assistant brewer was our first call where we got to taste their new Street Beer Bai Hoi & their American Pale Ale.
We really liked the the Street Beer, it’s made from a combination of malt, sushi rice & a french hop to produce a lighter fragrant flavoured mid strength beer. As for the Pale Ale. it just feels like an old friend 🙂
Looks like Maggie’s moved on to Colonial & Nail for more tastings already!
Next up was the Colonial Brewing Co where we tasted their Wheat Beer (Witbier), Porter, Small Ale & Draught (Kolsch Ale).
With a name like Nail Brewing grungy photo’s were a must 🙂
The Dunn Brown & Nail Stout were yummy but watch out for that Brown, at 8% it’ll hit you hard …
The Gage Roads guys were a laugh and …
… we got o try their Narrow Neck (Session Ale), Single Fin (Summer Ale), Atomic (US Pale Ale) and Sleeping Giant (IPA), all very enjoyable 🙂
Then we met Scott from Mash Brewing!
Scott was a wealth of information & very passionate about his beers. He was also a great subject for an ultra grungy hdr portrait, which is now his Facebook profile image 🙂
One thing we love about Mash is their “Gorilla on a Bike” logo, symbolising their natural brewing approach with no preservatives or additives. Fits in really well with our healthy(ish) lifestyle!
Oh, and his beers were pretty awesome too, we got to try the Freo Doctor (Pale Larger), Pale (Pale Ale), Grasscutter (Summer Ale), Copy Cat (AIPA).
Maggies favourite was the Freo Doctor & I loved the Grasscutter 🙂
Time for lunch so we headed to the Indy and shared one of their yummy pizzas 🙂 No beer sharing though, I know what Maggie’s like!!!