There are few gags in the entirety of Australian cinematic history as iconic as the moment Mick Dundee pulls his knife out on the unsuspecting NYC muggers. Heck, it even got its own Simpsons spoof. And you imagine only a brewery in the NT could look to take such a moment and turn it into beer. Or, to be more precise, beers: a twinset of IPAs each brewed with an all-Aussie hop combo of Galaxy, Vic Secret and Enigma.
Initially teased as an April Fool’s Day prank earlier in 2022, they've now come to fruition. As brewery main main Kyle Pearson puts it: "Here at Alice Springs Brewing Co we hate cliché’s, generalisms and stereotypes about the Northern Territory – unless we are shamelessly marketing them... Mick Dundee was my hero as a kid and I genuinely idolised him – until I moved to the NT and realised this is no place for leather pants.”
The only logical place to start is with That's Not A Knife, the standard West Coast IPA of the pair, which pours a bright copper with a toasted caramel maltiness at its heart. It might not be a knife, but it still brings more pine-tinged bitterness to the fight than most IPAs on the market today too, making it one to put hairs on the locals' chests if they don’t have them already.
And, if we're being logical, the only way to go with This Is A Knife is bigger, with the same base ingredients used to create an 8.5 percent ABV IIPA. It pours an even deeper hue – borderline amber – yet I'd argue it's the fruiter of the two, with dark citrus rind action infusing the once-again distinct bitterness lurking amid the syrup-tinged biscuit malts.
It's easy to trace a line between the two – as well as a line heading back in time, if not as far back as the days when Croc Dundee roamed the land, at least to the time when IPAs were clear and bitter.
James Smith
Published December 22, 2022 2022-12-22 00:00:00
