Day 289 - Saturday 14 October - Marrickville Ale Trail part 3. A BIG day

Day 289

Saturday  -

14 October

Vineyard – Marrickvile Ale Trail

After a big day yesterday, I expected to sleep in, but the mind said no and I was awake at 7am. I read for an hour as Paul wrote his reviews and then I decided it was time to get up and made my way to the shower. By the time I returned Paul was up and had breakfast ready.

We ate, before continuing our computer bits, then at 10.15am we were out the door and heading for Vineyard station to catch the train first to Redfern and then on to Sydenham. The journey took us from 1035 til 11.55, another relatively straight forward journey. Sydney trains are easy to navigate and surprisingly cheap to use.

Once out of the station, we had an 800m walk to our first brewery, Willie the Boatman. Interestingly the place is next door to Maniax, an axe-throwing joint, like the Vikings. We wandered past admiring the goings on, before wandering into the brewery that was already packed. Paul tried their range of beers as he chatted to the brewer.

When he was all done, we moved on to The Grifter Brewing Co, about a 1.5km walk. We were surprised to find Dan behind the bar, the same bar man from Young Henrys. Paul started in with the tasting and the chatting while I ordered up some Asian tacos from the food truck. The food was delicious.

We were told to head on to Wildflower around the corner, not on our list, but seeing it was on the way to the next one, we decided to add it in. They only had four beers to try and it was rather pretentious with the beer drinkers drinking from wine glasses, but they have obviously captured a market. Paul thought two of the beers weren't great but the other two were ok.

With beer drinking time beginning to slip away, we made a quick getaway and walked onto Sauce Brewing who were having their launch party today. The place was reasonably busy and we had to tuck ourselves into the bar, where Mike, the owner chatted about the latest Brewery to be added to Marrickville before putting on a tasting paddle of four beers. I am sure Paul would have liked to taste the other 6, but we needed to move on to our next destination before it closed at 5pm.

Black Font was a km walk and we could hear the noise emanating from the little Brewery before we rounded the corner. The owner, Michael knew we were coming but in his email reply he had asked that we didn't do a review, we soon discovered why. The husband and wife team brew in the lower storey of their home. The cellar door is tiny and operates on word of mouth. They aren't interested in expanding, or the beer tour groups that were frequenting the other places. It was obvious though that they have quite a local following who appreciate what they are doing and Paul was soon to be added to the list.

We chatted to Michael as Paul drooled over the tap list, eventually being given a tasting paddle of 10%ABV beers, like he needed them by now. All the superlatives were spewing forth and anyone who would listen was being told how magnificent the beers were.

We chatted with some of the patrons who were locals, about the beers and about Paul's “job” all the while Paul was continuing to savour the brews he had in front of him. However, by the time he was done he was well and truly smashed and I was wondering how I was going to get him on the train.

We made our goodbyes and then began the 800m walk but to Sydenham Station. It wasn't so much a walk but a slow stagger.

We got to the station in one piece then waited for the train. We missed it though as Paul was in the loo. Thankfully another turned up 9min later.

We took the train to Redfern, a ten minute journey, then navigated the numerous stairs until we reached the surface, located our next platform, walked down the many stairs and waited a few minutes, thankfully, for our train.

I was relieved once we sat down in a chair and sat back for the hour journey home. Paul enjoyed the opportunity to sleep some of the beers off while I took out the iPad and wrote about the day we had had. I was just grateful that we had managed to navigate successfully from Black Font and end up on the final train to Vineyard still completely intact!

We arrived back at the van, after driving the short distance from the station and it wasn’t long before Paul was in bed and snoring, in fact he is snoring as I write at this very moment. I heated a soup can through and had that for dinner and then got stuck into the necessary computer bits.