XXXX Brewery

One of the great things about being in Australia is that the drinking age is 18 here. So all the Uni students are legal here, which means that instead of house parties the Aussies go out to the bars and clubs to party. For us Americans, this has been a fun and refreshing experience. We get to join in on the local nightlife and the strong beer and wine culture that Australia is known for. As part of orientation week we have been going to a bunch of fun Brisbane attractions, curtesy of Wash U. One of them was the XXXX Brewery Tour (pronounced four ex). We toured the factory and got a lesson on the history of brewing in Australia and how beer is generally brewed. It was pretty cool! My favorite thing was learning that everything is automated now so brewers can operate the machinery from their laptops from home.

After the tour we headed to the brewery's bar and we each got a voucher for 4 free beers. I'm not a huge beer fan, and hadn't eaten anything that day so I opted for one beer with lunch. I got the Summer Bright Lager, which is a low carb beer. Here a "light" beer has lower alcohol content, not lower carbs. So if you want a low calorie beer you need to get a low carb beer. I liked it because it was a pale ale and wasn't as heavy a beer as some of the other options, and I'm more of a wine person myself.

For lunch I got a chicken pesto wrap with shoestring fries. I was so hungry that I scarfed the wrap. I love pesto and their pesto was nice and salty, and I really enjoyed the wrap. Now fries here are really interesting. Most fries here are called potato wedges and are like steak fries in the US. The ones I had for lunch here were shoestring and looked like typical US fries. Most menus have fries instead of chips, but the terms are interchangeable. The biggest fry difference here is how they eat their fries. Instead of Ketchup (though that is an option) most people dip their fries in either BBQ or sweet chili sauce. I LOVE both of those sauces on other things back in the states so I was so excited to here that they eat them on fries here. I got both to try with lunch and I have to say I really liked both on my fries (though not together). Such a fun Aussie food thing :) It makes me want to eat more fries here!