Reidsdale Stinga

I picked up a bottle of Sully's Reidsdale Stinga from the Old Cheese Factory whilst recently visiting my parents farm. The beverage is an old recipe that has been revived and could be best described as a gruit ale that is spiced with stinging nettles.

I haven't much more to say about the beer, but wanted to mention Stinga in passing as its one scoop that the ticker freaks who read my blog will not be getting.

BTW - My hop garden is starting to come alive. The established Columbus planting is now being diversified with Pride of Ringwood, Chinook and Victoria

Reidsdale Gold

Reidsdale Gold (9.6% abv) is a sparkling cider made in the Southern Tablelands at the Old Cheese Factory. Made from apples sourced from local orchards and trees found on the roadside in the Braidwood region it reeks of provenance and terroir. The cider itself is complicated, semi-sweet and slightly sharp but is well balanced. Being brewed from both cider and non-cider variety apples it tastes similar to Westons Old Rosie but with the mouth feel and slight carbonation prickle of an Irish style cider such as Magners or Bulmers. Over all its a decent drink and more of a sipper than a hot summer afternoon quaffer.
The sample we had at the cellar door tasted a lot sharper than the bottle I am writing about here. This could be either oxidation of the sample we had at the cellar door which may have been opened a few days before hand, or it could be inconsistencies in production from batch to batch. We are talking about cottage industry style production here after all.
Sully's Cider have a number of other varieties becoming available such as Monga Mist, which is a cloudy cider made from apples scrumped from the Monga State Forest region of NSW and an apple and blackberry wine. I'll investigate these further and post in due course.

In other news, yesterday I planted three new hop rhizomes. The varieties are Chinook, Victoria and Pride of Ringwood. The planting is a little late, but hopefully they will establish themselves quickly. I'll propagate them and run a few new rows in my hop garden when they are ready.

BTW - I have decided to expand the scope a little to discuss cider as well due to my latest apple related adventures. Also I guess tickers may be frustrated as I will be clocking up a few beverages which they will not have access to . Boo Hoo