Newsletter # 68 – James Boag Brewery and another slow cooked beef recipe
Around this time last year Chris and I were in Tasmania – you may recall Newsletter # 19 that featured the curried scallop pie at the famous Salamanca Markets in Hobart. We didn’t achieve everything we wanted to in and around Hobart, having missed out on a tour of the Cascade Brewery but hoped to make up for it in Launceston by going to the James Boag Brewery. We journeyed from Hobart to Launceston by car with a very obliging and knowledgeable driver who was very proud of his State. We had a few diversions on the way to some historic sites and one of the stops was the township of Ross where we had morning tea.
Ross sits on the 42nd Parallel and the town is significant in Tasmania’s history because for a period of nine years, from 1804 to 1812, this was the dividing line between Tasmania’s north and south. During that time it had a total of seven Lieutenant Governors – four in the north based in Launceston and three in the south based in Hobart. During this brief time, according to our driver, a rivalry grew between the north and south that has influenced decision making to this very day. To illustrate this ‘friendly’ rivalry, south of the 42nd the beer of choice is Cascade, while in the north you had better be seen drinking James Boag. A more recent discussion was the preferred site of the proposed AFL stadium. A long standing agreement with the Tasmanian Government has allowed Hawthorn to play ‘home’ games in Launceston, with that city being described as an AFL fortress, however the new AFL stadium will be built in Hobart. I’ll let you make your own conclusion to the validity of that story.
Anyway, back to the James Boag brewery and our tour. For around $30 each we had a one hour tour of the production facility. It started and finished in the tasting room where we were offered a generous selection of three seven ounce beers which were included in the tour cost. They were beers that they only sold in Tasmania and naturally were delicious.
The brewery is on the banks of the North Esk River and can trace its origins back to 1881 before it officially became James Boag in 1883 and therefore is far younger than its southern rival. It is very close to the Launceston CBD and occupies a whole city block. The James Boag Brewery is no longer associated with the Boag family having been sold a number of years ago and recently it was decided to close the Launceston facility and move production to Victoria, with the fate of the original brewery undecided. This naturally has caused considerable concern amongst locals and from a customer’s point of view, any future beers brewed under the James Boag label will not be using Tasmanian water, which is a pretty important consideration amongst connoisseurs of beer.
Beer as an ingredient in cooking is quite versatile, imparting flavour and colour to a variety of foods including batters, casseroles, baked goods and even pasta and rice dishes. I use a black beer in my Christmas pudding recipe; brown or amber ale in pot roasts and stews and a pale ale in a beer batter.
Perhaps the best known recipe for beef cooked in beer is Beef Carbonnade which comes from Belgium. Today’s recipe is similar in style but less piquant. While a number of our readers have requested ‘simple’, I will always say that there are two steps that I believe are compulsory and they are the browning of the meat and the caramelising of the onion, when required. Achieve this and the flavour profile will be totally different to one where all ingredients are place in your slow cooker at the same time.
Ingredients
Method
- Assemble your ingredients
- Turn your slow cooker to maximum
- Dust the beef in seasoned flour
- Heat the oil in a pan and in batches brown the beef
- In the slow cooker add the stock, beer, garlic, thyme, cinnamon and bay leaf
- Cover and cook for 2 hours
- Add all the vegetables and cook for a further 1½-2 hours until both the meat and the vegetables are tender
- Adjust the seasoning
- Ready
- Serve on its own
