by Keith K.

Created on: November 22, 2006   Last Updated: November 07, 2008

The Pub With One Beer and the Pub with a Hundred.

Hahndorf is a village in the hills behind Adelaide. It was established by German settlers in the 19th Century, and has the reputation of being more German than Germany'. It's best known as the home of the painter Sir Hans Heysen, and a lot of the place is given over to art galleries we came away with two prints for the sitting room wall.

We had lunch in a quiet shady garden restaurant, and I enjoyed a platter called Three German Sausages'. Why do I want to sing this to the tune of Mademoiselle from Armentieres?

On the outskirts of the village stands Grumpy's Brewhaus' a microbrewery in an old farm house, with the name writ large on the corrugated iron roof. I'd heard about this place on a previous visit to Australia, but didn't have a chance to visit. So,we called in; I wanted some souvenirs beer mats, a few bottles of Grumpy's', whatever.

Unfortunately, they only sold their beer by the barrel. The only other way the beer was going to leave was inside me. And, I don't think Mr. Hertz would thank me if I wrapped his car around a lamp post; the South Australian Police would certainly take a dim view of it. So, I restricted myself to just a small glass of Red Baron'

There's quite a range of beers on offer. Some are based on German beers; some on British and some on American pre-prohibition brews. Or, their Goldrush'; a steam lager much favoured by German migrants during the California Gold Rush!

All you will get at Grumpy's is beer brewed on the premises. For beers from further afield, we need to go into Adelaide, where the Bombay Bicycle Club stands at the end of Torrens Road, in Ovingham it used to be called the Ovingham Arms, but that doesn't sound nearly so much fun.

Let's be clear here you don't have to go to Bombay (it's called Mumbai these days, anyway) and you don't have to ride a bicycle. It's so called because of the several vintage velocipedes hanging from the ceiling.

This is one of several theme pubs established by Tom Hanna, aiming to show there's more to do in an Australian pub than drink beer and play the pokies', or slot machines. The dcor inside is Indian and anything that's not genuine is authentic. But, I did think the carved cobras on the bar, wooden as they were, were a little too close for comfort!

Now, although you don't have to be a member' to eat or drink here, there are two clubs you can join . You can join the Horn Club by throwing a rope ring suspended from the roof on to the horn of a carved rhinoceros on the wall harder than it looks. Or, you can join the 100 Club. On offer are 100 beers from all over the world I saw the UK and Belgium represented by some of my favourite brews and you qualify for the 100 Club by sampling all of them.

Not all at once, thank goodness!

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