The Port Admiral Hotel has teamed up with Pirate Life for Port Local, a collaborative brew and signature lager for the upcoming pub.

Monday, 21 August, marked the inaugural brew day of Port Local, a collaboration beer between the Port Admiral cohort and Pirate Life.

The beer will be a lager, made in the traditional manner with a four-to-six-week maturation period, and once kegged will sit at tap one on the pub’s beer program.

“The Port Admiral was locked and loaded for us, but then there was this missing piece, and that’s where Port Local started,” Crispian Fielke says.

“Tap one at The Port needs to be a little bit more of that lager style… We don’t want something that’s hard to work through in the palate, we want a profile that’s really easy.

“This to us exists as a tricky beer to make, to be honest, but a really easy step into what can be a really exciting beer program.”

The result, says Pirate Life’s head brewer, Tom Whitehouse, will be “a super sessionable, fresh, unique tasting lager.

“For Mick [Cameron, CEO of Pirate Life] it’s about the power of the brand and the opportunity,” Crispian says.

“For Red [Proudfoot, Pirate Life co-founder] and for Jack [Cameron, Pirate Life co-founder] it probably exists as a real challenge to brew, and something they haven’t ever really done on a commercial scale before.

“I like that. I like that they’re a bit agitated about it, in a good way. It’s hopefully going to translate into something pretty special.”

When deciding on who to work with in Adelaide’s ever expanding brewing scene, Pirate Life was an easy decision.

“Pirate Life are the best brewery in South Australia… their beer’s perfect every single batch, there’s no difference in flavour ever. Really, they’re the people that strive for perfection, kind of like what we want,” Angus Henderson says.

In addition to being available on tap, Port Local will also be canned and sold in the Port Admiral’s bottle shop, with the design of the can featuring the same white and blue of the pub, and illustrations intended to capture the pub’s locale.

“The Port Local brand has been a development of the Port Admiral’s brand, which has stayed very classic,” Dana Whyte says.

“We’ve added a few little touches, like the seagull, illustrated by Al [Mawer] at 2052, and his illustrations will continue into our other parts of the branding around the hotel.

“The Black Diamond Roundabout, where the Port Admiral’s located… will actually be on the can, illustrated by Al again.

“He’s doing heaps more illustrations throughout the pub for various things, like the fish and chip shop.”

Stay tuned to CityMag for updates on the Port Local brew, and as The Port Admiral inches closer to its opening date, slated for the last quarter of 2017.