27 November 2010

Beer or get out says Pork Barrel

27 November 2010 | Alan Shore

Do you like drinking beers that are out of date? Perhaps you take pleasure in abuse by staff?

If so let me recommend to you the fine establishment known as pork barrel.

Charmingly positioned opposite the rose gardens of old parliament house, there’s not much they could do wrong you’d think, except perhaps serving unmerchantable beer and then telling customers who politely point this out to you to leave.

No kidding, word for word from the manager “drink it or get out”.

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EvanJames3:03 pm 23 Dec 10

I was looking to see if there was a review of this establishment, and found this topic. Pork Barrel used to be very reliable for excellent pizzas, and good beers on tap. Until recently.

The pizzas are no longer being made with care and attention to the dough, and they have pruned back the Zierholz beers on tap. They used to have the German Ale which was magnificent, now it’s just the inferior Swill (great name though), and I think the Porter (which is not optimal with a light pizza).

I tend not to notice the service. You order at the servery hatch and someone brings your food, they seem to do that without problems.

It’s so disappointing when a good eatery loses interest in what it does.

p110:40 am 29 Nov 10

After testing a can of Tooheys New which was five years past it’s best before date, I can tell you there was no obvious reduction in quality. That is, it was still really really bad.

p110:31 am 29 Nov 10

georgesgenitals said :

Captain RAAF said :

Might have to try this place out……

I think you’ll find that under ACT’s new liquor laws, that will be committing an offence.

The new laws have a specific section banning Capt’n RAAF?

Pommy bastard said :

Mind you it’s served so bloody cold that you’d probably be hard puished to notice.

I noticed a sign at “Moby Dicks” at Kippax the other day saying something like “Our beer guaranteed served below Zero degrees…”. Might as well say “Light on the fizz so you can slam it down fast…”.

WestonGuy9:26 am 29 Nov 10

best before dates aside, the staff at Pork Barrel are incredibley rude. I’ve been there twice in the last month and will not be going back again that’s for sure. On both occasions I sat at one of the outside tables, tying my dog to the leg of my chair, well away from other patrons. He’s a small terrier and sat there patiently without moving or making a sound both times. After finishing my coffee and cake on the 2nd occasion, one of the waitresses started barking at me through the window in broken English “no dog allowed, this written on menu!” Well, this was news to me as there were no menues on the outside tables and no signs to this effect. Plenty of better places to dine anyway.

la mente torbida8:41 am 29 Nov 10

Hey people, you’re in the parliamentary triangle and get free parking … what do you expect?

PantsMan10:31 pm 28 Nov 10

troll-sniffer said :

Overpriced mediocrity is what I have found in several visits to this establishment, so I no longer recommend it, despite its amazing setting, which is what the business is living off now I suspect.

Yep, it’s crap. Only frequented by pubes on compulsory ‘team building’ Friday drinks.

DanRayner1:02 pm 28 Nov 10

Gerry-Built said :

I’m sure I have heard a conversation on the radio (possibly Dr Karl) that said the “Best Before” date on beer had more to do with the seal disintegrating than the contents “going off”… I think it is twelve months from bottling – which is the longest they can guarantee the integrity of the seal. Michael Jackson (no, not THAT Michael Jackson; the ‘Beer Hunter’ one) seems to concur…

Still disgraceful to sell, and worse, to react in such a shitty manner… nice service…

That’s an interesting idea, I’d never considered that. It doesn’t explain Chimays and Rocheforts (9-12% abv Trappist beers) that will have 4+ years of best before on them. I wonder just how long crown seals last?

Michael Jackson’s article does also suggest 12months is not enough time for some beers like these to mature.

It is still pretty terrible that the management of Pork Barrel would treat this situation in this manner. And Mac’s should be sold within date, end of story.

troll-sniffer12:19 pm 28 Nov 10

Overpriced mediocrity is what I have found in several visits to this establishment, so I no longer recommend it, despite its amazing setting, which is what the business is living off now I suspect.

Alan Shore12:18 pm 28 Nov 10

Well, now that the incandescent rage of Friday afternoon has worn off, a few comments by way of clarification.

I wasn’t drinking the Spring Tide. I was drinking the Sassy Red, which was okay but not my cuppa tea. I tasted the Spring Tide, and it was just vile — how much of that is to do with the date and how much the brew, I guess I’ll never know. But to my mind it doesn’t matter — unless we were notified of the defect ahead of the sale, the sale should be void.

Pork Barrel has been serving the very drinkable Mac’s Hop Rocker pilsener for some time now, but has recently switched to the Sassy Red and the out-of-date Spring Tide for its evening happy hour brew of choice.

When my companions first noticed the out-of-date label on the beer (and given the beer tasted awful anyway), they returned it to the bar and were provided with schooners of Scharer’s in their place; that was a perfectly acceptable response, in my view. The gent who replaced the beers then took the out-of-date beers to a man sitting at a table elsewhere in the café, whom we take to be the owner/manager. I don’t know what was said between the two.

Next some more friends joined us at our table, having already been to the bar and bought the Spring Tide. We pointed out the date on the label, and they took the beers back. This time they were served not by the gent who had replaced the beers, but by the owner/manager himself, who then uttered the outrageous words “drink it or get out”.

Now, this is not the first instance of poor customer service we’ve received at Pork Barrel. They seem to have a culture of being difficult, which evidently comes all the way from the top.

For example, on Monday and Tuesday lunchtimes Pork has two-for-one pizzas. But if you go up and order two pizzas, you will be charged full price for both. You have to specify “two-for-one pizzas, please” in order to get the deal. Want four, or six, or eight pizzas? Well, you’ll have to enter two, three or four separate transactions. Rules is rules.

Another example is the afternoon happy hour (5:00 to 5:59.99pm). When first introduced, happy hour was a schooner of the Zierholz beer of your choice for $2 — amazing value, and clearly unsustainable. Subsequently, the price has risen to $2.50 and the quality of the beer variable. You must ask for a “happy hour beer, please”. Be careful of asking for last week’s brew and assuming it will be $2.50. If it’s changed, they’ll pour it out for you anyway and then charge you their regular (relatively high) price.

There is also a limit on the number of beers you can buy at once. First it was as many as you can carry. I think they were surprised at how many beers can be carried if one sets one’s mind to it, so the limit became four, and then three. Now, there are a lot of grubby graduates from the surrounding government departments at Pork Barrel, so I can understand an unwillingness to foster mass consumption of alcohol. However, the sight of four respectable middle-aged men going to the bar and being denied the opportunity to buy four beers at once (notwithstanding that all four of them were right there) was simply astonishing.

I’ve never seen such an over-managed pub. I’m amazed they can continue to do business like this, and I wouldn’t be sorry to see them fail.

Pommy bastard10:43 am 28 Nov 10

Aussie beer is bad enough as it is without drinking “out of date” stuff. Mind you it’s served so bloody cold that you’d probably be hard puished to notice.

However, if it was a “Mac’s” that’s highly different, and should be treated with respect. I love Kiwi beers me, and I’m not just being perverse, it’s bloody good stuff.

DanRayner3:22 pm 27 Nov 10

“Best Before” is very different from “Use By”

Use by dates are there for perishable things like milk and meat. The sorts of things that could, potentially, make you quite sick if you drank them after the use by.

Best before is just that; it is best before that date but that is not to say that the product won’t also be as good after that date.

When it comes to beer, something so incredibly dear to my heart, I would say that some/many beers are just fine after the best before. Most have an arbitrary 12 months stamped on them. Some beers like soft, fluffy German wheat beers (hefeweizens) may have best before dates for 12months after they were brewed but seriously decline in quality after only 3-6months. Other beers (often of higher strength) like strong stouts or bocks do just fine after 12months and in some cases actually improve at this stage. Interestingly, Coopers beers only have a “Best After” date on them as they are bottle conditioned.

And then there are beers like this bottle of Mac’s Spring Tide. Hmmm… now we are getting into the realms of my fairly subjective opinion. Mac’s Spring Tide from New Zealand is a relatively tasteless, low-carb lager and if the OP is drinking it, it means the OP didn’t quite know what they had ordered or was more concerned with the apparent (but in no way valid) health benefits of crap, low-carb in favour of flavour – so does it really matter whether it’s past its best before? Probably not, it is after all a shade away from a vodka and soda.

And finally, regardless of all of this, it sounds like venue could have handled this better. The customer expects a beer that is within date (unless it is discounted for this reason) and if they didn’t get what they have expected they are quite within their rights to complain without the expectation that they’ll get abuse or be told to put-up/shut-up. In this situation I would expect to be offered another beer of the same price or maybe pay a touch more and get something with flavour.

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