A guide to Adelaide's lesser-known, must-try menu items.

Why? Why did it take us so long to visit Lobethal Bierhaus?

Why had no-one told us about the delicious chocolate oatmeal stout offered on a nitrogen tap, which reduces overall bitterness and accentuates the tender caress of one of the most delicious, creamiest stouts in Australia?

Probably because we didn’t have a guide before now.

Just One Thing continues its intrepid adventure down the lesser-known columns of the menu with a trip to the Adelaide Hills and the iconic Lobethal Bierhaus.

There’s nothing like stormy weather to focus gastronomical insight. Stormy weather AND a hangover.

While CityMag wouldn’t advise a trip up the hill with a hangover, we would take our chances: rain, hail or shine for the Lobethal Bierhaus Hot Wings.

To be honest we didn’t even look at the menu – so we cannot, in all good faith, suggest hot wings are the only thing the Lobethal Bierhaus serve and we cannot advise whether there’s a vegetarian option (other than beer). But we had driven the 40 minutes from town for one thing and one thing only.

And it was a magical experience.

Shuffling through the entrance you arrive inside the Lobethal Bierhaus atop a raised platform that gives you full rein over the warehouse floor beneath. Light floods in through the saw tooth roof, illuminating a collection of beer bottles and memorabilia ranging from brewing awards to caricatures of local legends.

The space is absent of  the overwrought flourishes (and contrary minimalism) of many modern food and beverage spaces we see emerging on the Kaurna Plains.

Instead, the Lobethal Bierhaus channels that most quintessential of Australian aesthetics – the shed.

It’s off-the-cuff-but-deadly-serious-about-beer interior is so intensely decorated that it causes you to look for moments of clarity among the architecture. And it is here, looking for visual quiet, that you’ll discover the brewing concern: tall stainless steel kettles, sparkling beneath blue lights – hermetically sealed behind glass.

We ordered the Hot Wings with extra hot but the moorish blue cheese dipping sauce stole our attention with its flirty, savoury and tart cut-through amongst the burn that starts to accumulate at the edge of your mouth.

The 10-piece plate lasted all of 10 minutes. It was consumed in complete silence while our creamy nitro-stouts stood to the side.

It’s a good feeling when you find food that keeps you quiet.

You know it’s good because no-one feels the need to talk about it afterwards, intellectualising small portion sizes and confused palates that make you reach for good wine.

The hot wings at Lobethal Bierhaus are perfect and the beer – even better.

Beer by the yard and the meter.