When you think truffles, beer doesn't immediately spring to mind. That is unless you're part of the BentSpoke team.
The Canberra brewers have released their truffle beer, Silverback, at their Braddon brewpub. It uses produce from Blue Frog Truffles in Sutton and will be on tap for the entirety of the truffle season.
The dark and malty ale, which is also infused with cumquats, star anise, cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla, is a BentSpoke regular, albeit one that is tweaked for improvements every year.
"What we find with adding the truffles is that they bring all those spices and the citrus character from the cumquats into the malt flavour of the beer and it creates this great harmony of flavours," BentSpoke owner and head brewer Richard Watkins said.
"If we didn't add the truffle, the spices and the citrus would just sit a little bit away from the beer flavours. The truffle brings all those flavours together. I always get a little bit of truffle in the aroma, but then when you actually taste it with all those flavours, and they're in harmony on your palate."
BentSpoke's truffle beer is not just an example of how versatile the ingredient can be, but also how accessible it can be, despite some considering it gourmet and potentially "too fancy" for everyday meals.
And BentSpoke is not alone. This time of year the ingredient can be found on meals like burgers - at FunGuys at The Truffle Farm, for example - and toasted sandwiches - such as at Melted Toasted Sandwich Emporium in Fyshwick.
"We've got some beef cheeks on [at BentSpoke] at the moment," Mr Watkins said.
"We've cooked it with this truffle beer and it goes well with a nice rich kind of meat that is cooked slowly. It's one of those beers you want to sip, so you're eating beef cheeks, and you're sipping this beer and that's a nice sort of experience."
The launch of the beer comes a few weeks before the Canberra Region Truffle Festival kicks off. It celebrates the seasonality of the ingredient and runs throughout the entire truffle season.
"The whole purpose of the festival is about information, education, communication, and to get people to try something new and to embrace it as a very important attribute to local tourism," Blue Frog Truffles' Wayne Haslam said.
"We've got growers from Robertson in the Southern Highlands all the way through to Jindabyne, so it's quite a big truffle growing area and the Canberra region sits in the middle.
"We produce a good quality truffle here because of our climate. And the climate here is very close to the producing areas of France. You need to frost for them to ripen."
