Royal Melbourne Fine Food Awards 2014

Royal Melbourne Fine Food Awards 2014

Royal Melbourne Fine Foods Awards 2014

For the first time this year (2014), I decided to help as a steward at the Royal Melbourne Fine Food Awards. I worked for 7 days over three weeks and helped with the awards shown below.

Day 1 & 2 - Distilled spirits (whiskey, gin, vodka & fruit liqueur)

Getting ready for Distilled Spirits tasting

What we see back of house. Judges have blind tastings

Plenty of Whiskey, Gin, Vodka for the judges

Whiskey is served!

Fruit Liqueurs ready for judging

Getting the fruit liqueurs ready for pouring

Fruit Liqueurs, ready for pouring 

Fruit Liqueurs in many wonderful colours

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Day 3 (event 2) for me was the Cider and Perry judging.

Day 3 saw the judging of both cider (apple) and Perry (pear). Some excellent quality brews were judged

Preparation for Cider tasting

Cider & Perry judging. These are Perry (pear)

 

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Day 4 - my third event included Salts, Spices, Crisp Bread plus Honey

Spices and Salt judging

Some interesting Salts for judging 8 baked garlic and olive salt

Silver medal winner "Friggin'Hot Chilli Paste

Honey Judging

Honey is on the table for the judges - labels removed of course!

Honey judging

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Day five was the judging of Cereal, Muesli, confectionery and infusions (tea)

Cereal & Muesli Awards

Cereal & Muesli awards

Muesli judging

Muesli Judging

Confectionery

A plate of confectionery for the judges

Nougat ready for the confectionery judges

Infusion (tea) judging

Infusion judging under way

Lemon Verbena ready to be infused and judged

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Day 6 & 7  was setting up and running the pasta judging day.

The Age newspaper came and took photos of the pasta judging
Click to see The Age Photo Gallery

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 The final day was judging garlic. 

I didn't steward on that last day - but the garlic was looking and smelling wonderful

Visit to Jamieson Brewery - October 2013. Plus pictures of Lake Eildon

Yesterday I went to visit the Jamieson Brewery. I heard they had a new brew on tap "Gooley's Pils Draught"
I stopped on the drive at Bonnie Doon, as it is great to see Lake Eildon back over 95% full.

Further along the drive, I stopped at the bridge over the Howqua River. It is now part of Lake Eildon. This is a place I often stop to do some flyfishing. Now I would need a boat!

I continued the last 10 km towards Jamieson along the Mansfield-WoodsPoint Rd. What a pretty road this is now the lake laps the road.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last stop - the most important. The visit to the 

Jamieson Brewery

A great brewery with an excellent selection of there locally brewed craftbeer on tap
Gooley's Pils Draught - 5.2% Pilsner (new to the range - a tasty, refreshing pilsner - should be popular in Summer)
Irish Red Ale - 4.8% Red Ale
Pale Ale - 4.6%  Pale Ale
Jamieson Brown Ale - 5% English Brown Ale
Mountain Ale - 5% Dunkelweizen - A dark wheat beer.
The Beast IPA - 7%  Highly hopped American Pale Ale (my favourite, love the six different hops)
Raspberry Ale 4.7%  Raspberry flavoured Fruit Beer (a real surprise packed. So tasty)