The Sip #64 Moon Dog Bad Boy Bubbly

Long-time beer drinker and The Sip editor Ross Lewis puts some of Australia's top drops to the test.

Catch up with other beers on The Sip Archive

Those adventurous lads from Melbourne should have included a free blindfold with their latest release.

Blind tastings are nothing new in brewing. However, it would have been interesting to put Moon Dog’s Bad Boy Bubbly before a wine drinker.

Moon Dog have become the Heston Blumenthal of the Australian beer industry. Like the British chef who takes multisensory approach to his food, Moon Dog like to deliver beers that push barriers. Our thinking. Traditions. And alcohol levels.

It would probably be best to say brothers Josh and Jake Uljans and mate Karl van Buuren produce multi-faceted beers with unusual elements.

Their Perverse Sexual Amalagam was a black wild ale with cherry plums that had been aged on oak for five months.

Earlier the Bjorn to Boogie was a Bavarian Wheat with watermelon.

So to make a beer that tastes like champagne seemed to be a natural, yet envelope-pushing, endeavour.

And that is where the eye covers come in. If you could have a none-the-wiser wine aficionado to try the beer in a flute glass it would be interesting to gauge whether the drinker can determine it is a Moon Dog not a French special.

To be precise Bad Boy Bubbly is a Barley Wine, which is part of the beer spectrum. But Moon Dog used a champagne yeast to kick-start the brew and added those New Zealand Nelson Sauvin hops, which have given a wine impact on many beers.

The see-through look and long-lasting bubbles on opening add to the charade.

There is a taste of sweetness, too, that you expect from a champers and is devoid of bitterness.

So is it a beer, is it a champagne? No, it is like the Eagles’ song Hotel California. It can be about whatever you want it to be.

At 13.1 per cent alcohol it can also leave the drinker as confused at the end as from the first sip.

The Sip Snip
Bad Boy Bubbly
Brewer: Moon Dog
Style: Barley Wine
Alcohol content: 13.1%
Standard drinks: 3.4
Bitterness: 0IBU
Bottles: 330ml
Estimated calories: 393
The Sip Tip (rating): For impressing your mates.

Average prices: $10.50 a bottle.