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The Local Taphouse

Callan Boys
Callan Boys

High life: Settle in on the Taphouse's rooftop.
High life: Settle in on the Taphouse's rooftop.Supplied

Modern Australian$$

When writing a trends story more than a year ago, I made the claim that Australia had reached peak craft beer. That market saturation and beer snobbery backlash meant it was time to hang up The Phantom of the Hopera terry-towelling hat and rediscover the pleasure of VB.

Boy, was I wrong.

While "craft beer" (a term along with "gastropub" and "the noughties" I find insufferable) has a small share of the domestic market, its sales continue to rise while the growth of mainstream beer remains stagnant. Craft-focused bars continue to open all over town and The Local Taphouse continues to rule them all.

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Try the buttermilk fried-chicken burger.
Try the buttermilk fried-chicken burger.Supplied

If you live in Sydney and you're reading this column, there's a high chance you've been to the Taphouse at least once in its six years of pint pouring. For the untapped, it's an old corner pub transformed into a three-story temple of beer. There are three bars, 20 unique and rotating taps, and a tightly curated selection of bottles with a few rarities you'll be pressed to find anywhere else.

Co-founders Steve Jeffares and Guy Greenstone (who also run the terrific Great Australian Beer Spectapular festival, GABS) have borrowed from the whisky-bar school of design and decked the place out in richly stained wood, empty birdcages, vintage bric and antique brac. One of the side rooms is where you want to be in winter – bum on chesterfield, hand on stout – but in summertime it's all about the rooftop.

That rooftop is where I'm at with a mate on a Friday afternoon for a cider and sour beer tap takeover. I'm a sucker for sour beers brewed with wild yeast strains, likely because I've got a thing for naturally fermented wine and the two share the same uncensored lust for life.

The beer-can chicken and a tasting paddle.
The beer-can chicken and a tasting paddle.Supplied
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A $17.50 tasting paddle of five 90-millilitre pours is the only way to taste across the Taphouse board without ending up like Mitchell Pearce on a Mad Monday. A highlight of the session is a raspberry lambic from Illawarra Brewing Co that's a vinous slap of tartness after being aged two years in the barrel. Something of a Warhead lolly for grown-ups. It's surpassed in greatness only by a cherry lambic from Belgium's Brouwerij F.Boon that tastes of almonds and summer afternoons.

The Taphouse makes an effort with its food that most other beer joints don't (no more "gourmet" pizzas, please). It's big, hearty pub fare and you can make a meal out of buttermilk-brined fried chicken wings ($12) that are all juice and crunch, followed by a shepherd's pie of slow-cooked lamb shoulder ($24).

There's also a beer-can chicken ($40) which two girls at the next table to us order. There's a great moment when its chipotle-spiced breast is pierced and a cocktail of craft beer and chook juice spurts from the bird like water from a bullet-holed dam, drenching the floor and everyone around it. Majestic stuff. It's all too much for the girls to handle and the half-picked carcass is left swinging in the breeze as a warning to all other chickens.

Three cheers to Messrs Jeffares and Greenstone. Their support of the local brewing industry through the Taphouse and GABS (May 27-28 in Sydney) is hugely admirable. With blokes like this at the helm I have hope for a day when we can drop the prefix from these delicious drops and craft beer can exist as purely as "beer".

THE LOW-DOWN
Go for…
 hard-to-find beers on a sunny rooftop.
Stay for… a cheese board and cider.
Drink… a tasting paddle or three.
And… you'll want to ring ahead and book a table on the weekends.

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Callan BoysCallan Boys is editor of SMH Good Food Guide, restaurant critic for Good Weekend and Good Food writer.

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