Iron House Maverick Portside

An EXCLUSIVE WORLD FIRST…a MATCHED PAIR from Tassie heavy hitters – Iron House. Both exclusive to the SMWC, both absolutely stunning in their own right, each one half of a world first – an Ocean Aged Matched Boilermaker! The Iron House Maverick Portside Single Malt Whisky and the optional matched Iron House Portside Red Ella Red Ale with the Red Ale being finished in the very same Portside whisky barrels!

The Iron House Portside Ocean Aged Single Malt Whisky started its journey as ocean-side matured Iron House whisky – distilled in Feb 2019. A bit over a year ago it was decanted into some port barrels and strapped outside the port side of the wheelhouse of the Tasmanian abalone boat ‘Maverick’. For the next twelve months it braved over two-and-a-half thousand nautical miles of the worst that the Southern Ocean, Bass Strait and the Tasman Sea could throw at it. 6 metre seas, Antarctic storms, barometric range between 910 to 1040HPa etc.

The constant movement of the ocean churns the spirit with greater interaction with the wood, extreme temperature and barometric ranging creating a hyper ageing effect taking you on a sensory voyage like no other. And finally – a year after its maritime sojourn began, it was decanted, cut with pure Tassie rainwater, and bottled at 45% in 700ml bottles exclusively for the best single malt whisky club in the world! (that’s us in case you’re wondering 🙂

Now Iron House/Tasman Whisky and the SMWC have shared an awesome relationship for some years now. We’ve had hugely positive feedback from members following each collaboration we’ve released together and it seems that each year they just keep getting better! We really thought we may have peaked last year with the ‘Maverick’ – a whisky finished for 12 months in the hold of the same working Tasmanian abalone boat – ‘MV Maverick’. I mean how do you beat a whisky that spent a year on a Tassie Abalone boat, travelling thousands of nautical miles in raging seas taller than a double story house, howling Antarctic gales and the barometer dropping to near-record lows from dizzying highs? How could you possibly top a story like this? Well… as it turns out – it’s pretty simple, actually – JUST ADD BEER!

It was staring us in the face all along. We’ve done a ‘matched boilermaker’ with the Iron House boys before back in 2020 and it was a HUGE success. We did a matched Whisky and Pinot Noir wine in 2022 and last years twin ‘Maverick’ releases (a 700ml Muscat cask version and a 500ml Port Cask expression) were a massive hit. And not just within the club – the 700ml Maverick Muscat Cask has travelled the length of Australia ‘representing’ at Whisky and spirits shows all over and it’s been our customers stand-out favourite at all of them!

And so our FOURTH Iron House/SMWC collaboration – we are all so very proud to present the world’s first OCEAN-AGED SINGLE MALT WHISKY/RED ALE MATCHED BOILERMAKER!

So what is a ‘matched boilermaker’ you ask? Well it’s pretty simple. We all know a ‘Boilermaker’ is a dram of whisky with a beer on the side. (Or is it the other way around?) In 2021 we took that concept and extended it to have the beer spend some time in the cask which the whisky came out of and the ‘Matched Boilermaker’ was born!

This year, once the Maverick Portside whisky was decanted from its casks, we re-filled one of the casks with Iron Hose Brewery’s ‘Red Ella’ Red Ale and let it mellow for 6 weeks before canning it…what came out is an utterly beautiful, malty, creamy ale

Nose: Lots of delightful biscuit spice notes first, then the fruit (especially dried apricot) jumps out, with a cloak of cola, coffee, caramel and a little cask (oak) adding to the complex melange of aromas to be found here.

Palate: For me the palate is even more fruit driven than the nose. Lovely and oily mouthfeel with peppery hit right off the bat, but it’s quickly quenched by quince-paste jammy notes. All those port matured num-nuts are there in spades. Big, luscious, fruity and biscuit-spicy.

Finish: Unsurprisingly, there is a definite salty note in the finish which pairs beautifully with an unexpected nutty flavour – think back to after school dobs of peanut butter on salty crackers (Nabisco ‘Premium’ for me it was )… And wrapping all this up is a long goodbye from the fruit and spices as it fades into pouring another dram.

This isn’t just easy drinking whisky, this is easy-peasy drinking whisky. So many layers of flavours here to chew and cogitate on at length – fruits, spices, nuts, sweet, salt… even umami – but on the surface it’s just sooo damn easy to drink. Once again, the Iron House boys have really excelled with this novel, big-flavoured and muscular, yet genuinely easy-going whisky.

With a Portside Red Ella on the side (aka an Ocean-Aged Matched Boilermaker) I can tell you the conversation quickly becomes pretty flavour oriented… it’s genuinely interesting trying to pick apart, and link, flavours in the two. Have no fear though – sometime around half-way into the second pair, you find you’re not really trying to pick them apart anymore…rather just enjoying how well they go together. By the third round – well ‘the conversation drifts a bit’ is a good way to describe it. 🙂