Beer DeLuxe - It is all happening in Federation Square

It is a happy day. Today is the last day that Channel Ten will air "The Circle" as it has been axed along with Yumi Stynes and to commemorate this much anticipated event, I am timing this post to coincide with the start of their last show. You may remember that earlier in the year she made a sexist and disrespectful comment about Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith. I am sure Yumi will end up on the air doing something that we should supposedly care about soon enough though. If only Lara Bingle and "The Shire" would meet the same fate as Yumi, I would feel like I have won the trifecta for the month. It isn't hard for me to avoid all of this garbage as I do not watch anything, and I mean anything, on Channel Ten however I was subjected to Lara Bingle's five minute ad promoting New Zealand when I went to a screening of The Dark Knight Rises. I was stunned to think that the kiwis think that Lara Bingle can encourage Australians who have never been to New Zealand to visit. This is five minutes of my life that I will never be able to reclaim.

This week I have found myself in Federation Square on two occasions having fun. Last night I attended the Federation Square Wine Awards in the Atrium. It proved to be a good venue to taste wine although I pity the people manning the table from Hanging Rock Winery as they were closest to the entrance and thus the cold outside weather. Enjoying their pinot noir kept me warm after starting off with everything that both Red Hill Winery and Seville Winery had on offer. Seville incidentally took out the most awards including the "best wine" award for their current release Chardonnay. It proved to be a great wine and I am looking forward to visiting their cellar door in the Yarra Valley soon. When I returned home I was in no shape to write anything on this blog however I managed to partially hoover my unit for some unknown reason. It was evidence of a good night indeed and fortunately I did not lose my phone.

The other day I tweeted that I intended to visit the ACMI and view the "Game Masters" exhibition. 95% of what this exhibit has on offer are working video games. The classics like Pac Man, Space Invaders, Centipede and Elevator Action are what you first see when you enter the exhibition. All of the games work and are free to play. It didn't take long to reacquaint myself with Mario and start jumping barrels in Donkey Kong or drive the car in Out Run. As you progress through the exhibit you find the current games available for Wii, PS3 and also a fair amount of PC's that are equipped to play titles like Minecraft and Diablo 3. I tried a 3-D game for five minutes which was a weird experience and also tried my luck playing Angry Birds on a large touch screen plasma screen. It was well worth the price of entry.

Before attempting to liberate The Princess of Zelda and relive my wayward youth, I had lunch at Beer DeLuxe in Federation Square. This place was originally recommended to me by my cultured mate in Brisbane (yes, these types do exist in Queensland, although they are very rare) before I travelled to Melbourne a few years ago to watch us get our arses handed to us by the English during the Ashes series. I spent a fair amount of time in the Beer DeLuxe beer garden which flows onto Federation Square, drinking their craft beers and eating from their hamburger bar. From the beer garden you can watch the giant television in Federation Square and be amused if you enjoy watching people. Beer DeLuxe is constantly rotating the craft beers that they have on offer on tap which makes it an intriguing place to visit if you are into beer.

Over the last two years I have frequented Beer DeLuxe multiple times and enjoyed a lunch there before venturing into the ACMI the other day. It was too cold to languish in the beer garden so I opted to eat in the salon downstairs which has a different menu on offer along with a range of craft beers on tap and in the refrigerator. They update their website weekly with the beer that is available which is useful. The table service was efficient and friendly and we were even quizzed as to whether we wanted a fork and knife to eat the messy yet very tasty buffalo wings that were ordered as the first dish. It would seem that some people actually use a knife and fork, which we laughed about, to eat buffalo wings there. That is something that I would like to see. The wings are served with a very mild blue cheese dipping sauce which was a great match. A Napoletana pizza was brought to us next which was cheap and cheerful and loaded with anchovies. I never say no to these little fish on the pizza which matched well with the Sierra Nevada that I was drinking. Full of liquid courage, I then attempted to free Zelda from her captors and was resoundingly defeated.

Beer DeLuxe
Link to review
Federation Square Melbourne VIC 3000
(03)9663 0166
http://www.beerdeluxe.com.au
My Rating: 13.5/20
Service: 3/5
Ambiance: 4/5 (Includes beer garden)
Quality: 3.5/5
Value For Money: 3/5
Comment: Check site for current beer on tap



I still can be found on twitter... @epicurean3006

On Urbanspoon, at the time of this post, 70% of the reviewers like Beer DeLuxe. Regardless of whether you visit the beer garden, salon or grill, if you like beer and cheerful food, you will like this place also.