Hoppy Cravings

04/08/2022

Is it ? Ken Oath says . has already eyed this label off for some ! What's your for the day?

02/04/2022

Preparing for tomorrow!
We've had to make some minor logistical changes to our walk plans, as we're down to just Hoppy with Cravings being taken down by suspected man flu in the last 24 hours.

Because of this, we've made the call to shift the walk back to where it all began: the key reason being for support as it'll be solo.

We have our amazing gear from along with the generously donated .life to keep comfort and style at a premium, with wrapping the feet. The & are there of course as we'd planned to be walking from Emu Plains to Botany, but it wasn't to be.

Another shout out to our awesome supporters, for the brews, for being the greatest wife in history and last, but far from least - .klemm - who did everything to do this with me - I know he'll be with me in spirit.

18/03/2022

When you have the dirt 'Rona spicy cough, you want to get again asap. So of course, it was time for this health tonic (n.b. this is not a health tonic) from in this outrageously retro designed can.

It does taste a lot like juice, I'm sure with all the benefits of actual fruit juice (again... not really) and for taste buds that are a bit fried from the vid, it does the job nicely - no review, just good, solid on a Friday.

Have a great weekend legends.

15/02/2022

We're walking 🚶‍♂️

65km from to Saturday Feb 26th. We've raised $2.5k / $10k target for Cystic Fibrosis - hopefully this helps tell you why.

- All donations of $100 or more get a special thankyou on our custom made t-shirts
- we'll be walking down the great Western highway, Parramatta Rd and Botany Rd- come say hi!
- there'll be a few beer stops on the way - come join us for a brew
- follow along on our stories and see where we are up to

Link in bio!

-raiser

31/01/2022

Spotted in the wild... our coaster collab with look like they've sold well! Only a few left!

Did you get some? Show us if you did!

12/01/2022

was the theme of today. After Jacob talked me into taking home this wonderful DDHDIPA I'd put it aside feeling like I had yo work for this one - and today I put in almost 18km around and the Coastal Walk, so feel this is definitely earned. The view was spectacular, as is the beer.

This packs what you expect - hop punch, fruit juice, bit of bubblegum in there and a great back end maltiness reminiscent of our favourite west coasts, this is a cracking beer to have earned. Will have to pump a few more in before I can provide a full review but glory glory so far.

I've been really impressed by the range I've tried from Moore Beer - hunt them down!

09/01/2022

Holidaying in ? Get out to shout out to Jacob for looking after me with a great paddle, some tops merchandise and an awesome chat. Hoping we get to see some Moore (see what I did there?!?) of these beers in Sydney and there's a few we'll be adding to the menu.

Highly recommend the XPA. It's an absolute belter and at 4.7%, you'd easily mistake it for a bigger beer. Crisp, tropical amd flavoursome it's a perfect summer smasher

07/01/2022

Is there anything better than holiday beers?

helped me find this excellent IIPA - if only the hotel had the glassware to do this justice! Cracking drop!

03/01/2022

Happy New Year everyone! The last couple of years ... well.. 🤦‍♂️ and it's definitely been a tough time to start a business! We hope that you and your loved ones enjoy a great start to '22

Onto the beer, this red sour ale is a cracking way to bring in the new year. Tried to share it with my dad who has only drunk Tooheys Extra Dry for the last 20 years and his face puckered up... so I had it all! Great colour, zero head, super tasty and even the wax was easy to get off.

01/12/2021

This week we're on Mount Panorama keeping the team from well fed - and in turn we got a few laps around the famous track from a whole new vantage point.

Fair to say the view is not bad from here!

24/11/2021

Super stoked! reached out to us and to pull together these handmade beauties, which we are super proud of! Christmas pack is available for sale now on the Mountain Culture website!

Each coaster is carved our of Beechwood with labels from our favourite cans from Mountain Culture laid into the frames and coated in crystal clear resin. They are then sanded and polished to give a beautiful shine.

We've also taken some of the leftover labels and handicrafted them into jewellery fpr your eats! Proud of this work and very stoked that someone as large as MC came to our little business to pull this together. Lots of hard work - but when you're working hand in hand with your wife, it's always a blessing.

Thanks to Alistair for bringing us onboard for this!

Cheers!

For all enquiries, please either send a DM or head over to

24/11/2021

Yep, totally digging this Guava Sour XPA. Delivered in the excellent

Sorry for the photo, been a busy day.

Had the pleasure of meeting Christian and Sharon who sent me off with a little care package. I've been looking forward to this beer for the last 4 hours or so, and with this weather in Sydney - humid, annoyingly warm and wet - this beer is actually bang. On.

Tart and refreshing like a good sour should be, the fact this has been brewed in the style of an XPA gives it that little bit more depth and colour. The guava hit is fantastic and the tidiness on the back end - a great balance of tart/zesty/sweet that leaves you wanting more.

This is a dangerous beer. This is the kind of beer where you think 'just a refresher after doing that odd job' then bang, it's 4 hours later and dinners on the table. Settle in for a few of these, super easy and very rewarding to drink.

Cheers

19/11/2021

Not the usual beer or food theme, but my amazing wife has her beautiful collections on sale now - go check it out!

What do you do when you’ve had a Christmas fair cancel for this weekend due to stormy weather?? Why have a sale of course!!! I was really looking forward to the Pittwater Christmas fair this Sunday as I knew it was going to ignite the Christmas excitement currently buried in resin and back pain, sooooooo this is my alternative! Happy weekend everyone! And enjoy the 25% off storewide. Just spend $20 for it to automatically be applied to your order in checkout.

26/10/2021

We've been slow posting while we work with on creating some amazing coasters for our first bulk order, but had to share these three beauties from & (my first ever West Coast NEIPA) celebration of their opening and .beer 5th birthday beer. Seems there's a lot to celebrate!

Reviews on each coming this week.

Cheers legends!

23/10/2021

I need to talk about Grapefruit IPA and Valkyrie XPA.

These two beers are exactly what you want to throw in the esky for a session by the beach. The XPA brings plenty of hops without being over the top with clean bitterness making it very easy to drink 🤙

The Grapefruit IPA is a deadset banger (sorry let me know the royalties) and the Grapefruit is punchy, juicy and very satisfying to drink and will be a summer staple

Wonderfully presented in my

23/10/2021

Our Chief of Yum - .klemm has been back in the kitchen creating this gorgeous lamb cutlet on risotto base - and thanks to for the delicious cuts. What would you pair it with?

Cant wait to give this a shot... 🤤

06/10/2021

Cheers to the legends at for pulling these words out of the hat! Pretty stoked to win the 'Horatio Peter McAllister' prize - I've always been a fan of his work!

And my kids middle name is Horatio.

Perfect.

Looking forward to trying out the new Acronym Abuse chapter 4

04/10/2021

While we cant wait to get back to serving you our we're going to take some time to perfect some new dishes and pairings - including seafood, imported & aged beers, smoked & slow cooked meats and everything else we can come up with.

We need some time to do it though and it's a bit tough when you're forced to work apart, but we believe it will make everything even better.

Until then, follow us for chat and loads of great posts

Cheers

Luke & Nath

28/09/2021

Today is a from Luke - in 2017, I lost one of the most influential people in my life- my beautiful older brother Jason to a disease most ar only remotely aware of - Cystic Fibrosis (aka 65 Roses, because kids can't quite pronounce it right). This is a disease which is often mis-categorised as a lung disease but also massively impacts on the digestive system and general overall health and well being of a person.

After seeing my brother fight thus thing for the 36 years he was with us, you would be mistaken for most of that time thinking nothing was wrong - skilled rugby league player, mullet wearing rat bag, dog lover, amazing with kids, quick to laugh, worked hard manual labour jobs, but was quickly loved by those he met for being a genuine good hearted larrikin.

His last few years were tough, but that's not my memory of him. My memories are around seeing him with my kids, welcoming my wife into the family and always being there when I had news to digest- he was always one of the first i called.

I miss calling him

But this is about what's next.

CF is commonly known as a disease for kids because, usually, it's diagnosed in children. Remember that heel prick your kids had at less than a day old? You have no idea how nerve wracking those waits for the results were for my family. Anyway, as an underfunded disease support network, it's important for fund-raising to continue to support this amazing community of care givers, dedicated loved ones and campaigners to continue to bring in new support, new medicine and increase awareness and research for this absolute bastard of a thing.

So, I'm doing a bit of a walk. 65km straight in one day, over about 11 hours. It's gruelling. You start at 2 in the morning on a Saturday, the blisters are extreme, the recovery is tough, but im doing to raise some much needed funds.

The is my way of laying some tribute down for Jason and helping to ease suffering for others. If you have a few pennies to spare, I'd be forever grateful 🙏 and if you don't, words of support and encouragement are also welcomed.

Thanks for reading this far. You're awesome. Walk is 26th Feb

https://www.65kroses.com/my-fundraising/2012/luke-james

23/09/2021

When .klemm and I started this little venture, it was born out of a love for food and and the amazing things they could do to your senses in combination. With an inkling of an idea, Hoppy Cravings was created. The point was to join people in their homes and take them on a sensory journey through our on the premise of good, flavoursome food paired with great beers and great conversation. Bringing people together. To date, we've only managed to service a small handful of folks, however, every experience has been extremely rewarding.

We were starting to get a series of bookings and soon realised hey, this thing could work. People were keen , interested in what we could do. Momentum was building. As a small business, a side hustle, this is just what we wanted - then Covid hit. Since then it's been a bit more beer blog but we're trying to keep our followers entertained and demonstrate how much we love this stuff.

Suddenly we hit 400 followers.

And not just any followers. You. You awesome people, you listen to us, like us, share us and engage with us. It could have been any 402 people in the world - but it wasn't, it was you legends. Thanks for hearing us out and giving us a go. We appreciate you more than words can say.

Now the challenge - can we get to 500? Will you, dear followers help us out by tagging friends and asking them to follow our journey as well? What about if sweeten the pot with a give away of a mixed case of great craft beers?

Did I just con us into a give-away?! Yes! BEER FOR WHEN WE GIT THE BIG 5-0-0!!

When we hit 500, we'll randomly select a winner for a mixed case of awesomeness. Will definitely contain Mountain Culture, Hawkers, Bacchus and Ekim to name a few.

Last, but definitely not least, there's a few of you out there we need to thank for supporting us from the start - .l you've been awesome and we thank you for your support and appreciate you all to the max.

Cheers 🍻

Luke & Nath

23/09/2021

Back to Chicken Burnt Ends Hot Ballz Ramen and the scrumptious Jaxon Red IPA.

I was super lucky that the generous gifted us our first Ramen @ home box from Butter. These were both absolutely sensational - and I've reordered so I can back it up again! The classic Ramen flavour in this broth was excellent - generous amounts of spice, soy and crisp freshness of spring onions with sesame and black fungi would be enough.

Then we add Butters famous fried chicken. Hell yes! ... but wait, there's more...

You get to toss it in sticky sweet burnt end sauce which was a honey soy BBQ Chili delight. Then this thing became next level!

Which brings me to the beer - while the Jaxon was chosen mainly due to the - excellent - virtual tasting we did with Lucas and Jon from Badlands (organised by superstar, ) it was bang on perfect. When describing this to the crew on the call with me, it was a simply beautiful marriage of caramelised flavours coming from the roasted malts olin the beer that give it this gorgeous colour and the caramelised sticky burnt Ends sauce along with the chilli kick from the soup itself... damn heavenly.

Cannot wait to get my lips back into both of these!

Slurp slurp: 🍜🍜🍜🍜🍜
Glug glug: 🍻🍻🍻🍻🍺 (that's 4.5 - see what I did there?!)

19/09/2021

The beer label has grown. Over 120 labels ready for their next life as coasters, earrings and other creations at the hands of

You might recognise some of your favourites in here - ... plus many many more.

See any you like? Which ones should be next?

17/09/2021

Ok, we need to talk about this 5 Spice Fragrant Ramen by from - and the pairing with this excellent, yet different, West Coast IPA

Let's start with the Ramen - holy hecking gum boots... so we know Butter is famous for their fried chicken but I never knew, until now, how tremendous Ramen stock could be... you get through the flavours of star anise, cinnamon and fennel seed quite boldly which just make the broth.. worthy and the abundance of spice give the broth a very well rounded, almost intoxicating flavour that is hard to resist (why would you want to?) The addition of sesame seeds, pickled shiitake mushrooms and braised black fungi intensify the flavours.

Then you have the gorgeous fried chicken. Now, whoever said 'let's put fried chicken in Ramen' (looking at you, ) is a genius. This was already decadent, then it became next level. Guys, get this. Get your order in now. WOW. And while I know mine is not as pretty, it was sensational

Now pairing up such bold flavours was always going to be a fun task. Luckily, I had a pairing session arranged by in conjunction with Lucas from Badlands teeing off at the same time I was in the kitchen. So, I had 4 beers to choose from at the ready.

The West Coast IPA was a choice I was unsure of, thinking a piney, hoppy resinous westy was likely to blow the flavours away - however, what I was met with was a far more delicate, refreshing ale than I was expecting. The clever use of sabro hops in this WCIPA gave the beer some interesting characteristics - creamy, slightly oily, not overly bitter and it softened the approach with the aroma being much less intense, it was the perfect beer for the intense flavours of the soup.

Ramen : 5/5 slurps 🍜🍜🍜🍜🍜
WCIPA: 4/5 coconuts 🥥🥥🥥🥥

Great night! I feel super privileged

17/09/2021

and

Oh hell yeah... I cannot wait to rip into this and to make my debut in the ... thanks to for sorting me out. Champion work!!

Pairings to follow

13/09/2021

This was a fun little journey from

Big Kahuna - this was like going on a tropical holiday, with a cocktail in one hand and banana leaves wrapped around your head as you stroll in the moonlight sporting your new found love for the sarong. The smell of coconut laps at your nostrils from every direction as a you hear the sounds of normal people trying to walk on hot coals, dreaming of tomorrow in the surf.

Huge Kahuna - and now you've had a few mojito's under your belt, you bravely take the stage to inflict your new found dance moves taught at the bar that one night in your resort, in am effort to woo the exotic native into your arms for the evening. However, you put on a little too much coconut oil when sunbaking earlier and now your dark tan has caught up with you, you realise that you probably have sunstroke, so instead you take a seat and soak up the rest of the night in this dark brown coconut flavoured haze.

Great beers, loved em both by themselves, but together they really rocked. I love how the brewers were not afraid of the coconut and really embraced it to drive a drinking experience 4/5 coconuts 🌴🌴🌴🌴

11/09/2021

After all the story votes, it's time for a little art and craft while enjoying this sensational Blend passionfruit and raspberry fruited sour.

Many of the fruited sours hitting the shelves lately have been missing that trademark tartness you expect from a good sour. This one, is not. It's just delicious fizzy juice in beer form. The colour is pretty amazing and I love how the raspberry softens the paasionfruit to stop that bite on the tongue.

Love it.

09/09/2021

.klemm chef of Hoppy Cravings has been on the tools again creating the yums.

Apple and hickory smoked pork belly and the flavour on this was absolutely amazing. Slow cooking over coals and smoke just works sensationally with pork belly and this was no exception. 🤤🤤

04/09/2021

This Grand Tour is obviously a West Coast tour. Packing the usual hit of hops that the brewers at Akasha have made themselves famous for, this WCIPA drinks like - a true westy at the front - stonefruit, citrus and grape at the front but this almost delicate bitterness at the back end and then... whack! Super dry and oh my lord, very moreish.

Careful though, at 7.2% this will catch you by surprise.

The beautiful Gold colour in glass is crisp and clear. A beauty of a beer and I think is destined to become a regular in the Hoppy household.

4.5/5

31/08/2021

Wow!

🙏 thank you everyone in this amazing community - our shared love for beer and food has helped us grow.

We'll do another when we hit 500 followers. How soon will that be?!

Feeling the ❤

30/08/2021

What should we next?

Last weekend was paired up with for a fun and tasty first round of which cuisine would you like to see us do next? Let us know in comments below - esprlecially if you have a favourite dish!