Do you like beer? Do you like bacon? How about beer AND bacon?!

I know. Winning combination. On Saturday I went to a lunch Zach aka The Ginger in the Kitchen put on at the Beaten Track Brewery.

When I arrived there was a plate of bacon just waiting there, like a beacon of hope after only two hours sleep the night before. A bacon beacon. Paying homage to the salty-sweet trend (salted caramel anyone?), it was accompanied by a vanilla custard dipping sauce. But the bacon was cooked to perfection so I preferred it on its own.

The bacon was crispy and delicious.

The bacon came with the Great Eastern Wheat beer.

Zach, the Ginger outside the kitchen.

The lunch was beer food to be shared among friends and strangers. Oddly, I was seated in exactly the same spot as I was at the degustation dinner. Opposite these two:

Deja vu. Tristan and Emily.

Along came a plate of beer battered onion rings with a midi of Gibb River Rye.

How I do love onion rings.

Yes I do.

Then we had house cured smoked salmon sous vide with dill oil and leek cream with Ora Banda Bitter.

Pretty

Next came the Gun Barrel IPA with 12 hour marinated (with fresh rosemary, parsley and garlic) chicken wings that were done in the sous vide and then deep fried and sprinkled with salt and dried basil and parsley.

Gun Barrel IPA

The wings were my favourite. I hadn’t had chicken wings in ages!

Wings.

Group shot

Beer explanation

Oh you thought we were done? HA!

After the wings we had chicken sandwiches that were made in a hollowed-out cob loaf with Nitro Beetroot Lager. Made with real beetroot! and nitrogen!

Clever!

Finally, we had Carnarvon king prawns cooked in garlic, coriander, kaffir lime leaves, chilli, shallots and lemon grass with a Heles Bock Lager.

I LOVE prawns.

They were delicious! But I loathe peeling prawns, so I didn’t eat as many as I would have otherwise. Probably a good thing at this stage!

It was a really lovely afternoon filled with really delicious food and beer. Thanks for having us!

Afterwards I had barely enough time to sleep off my food coma before driving to the Coolgardie cemetery for a ghost tour. I didn’t see any ghosts, thank goodness.