The Seventh Blackhurst Beer Festival (Part Two)

Beer Number Six - Arrow Brewing Co, Tobin's Ale

The Arrow Brewing Company (launched in December 2008 by five ‘craft beer enthusiasts) was as good a reason to return to Arrowtown as any. The brewery is approximately 1.3km from door to door which is particularly handy. This is a traditional English style ale with strong hop characters. I like it and have drunk a lot of it already to make my point.

Comments:

Big taste; malty; oven roasted
Time and micro-organisms were involved
Single malt
Strong hop-flavoured bitter
Bitter with lots of anti-bacterial hops – eeuuw
Aha, proper beer – pleasing maltiness; very drinkable
Amber nectar
A well-rounded little number with a beautiful amber glow
Lightly flavoured; will keep well
Bile vile; extremely bitter with malt undertones

I like this beer a lot so was personally disappointed that it only came 7th with 34 points. Oh well, I can't force people to like the beer that I do...

Beer number seven - Green Man Best Bitter (4.5%)

The Green Man Brewery in Dunedin is named after the Green Man, oddly enough; an old folk-fertility symbol, said to represent the essence of nature itself. Hedonistic and ritualistic, the pagan figure dies each year in November and is reborn on 1st May. The brewery website claims, ‘He is found in the spirit of the trees, and his presence can be felt around you, in the bush… He is in orgies on the hillside, riots in the street, the celebrations of plenty, and the privations of crop failure. He is in inebriation, orgasm, trance and possession. His eyes typically do not focus, and his image is part comforting and part worrying, like the force he represents.’ Sounds like a drunken old hippy to me – hurrah!

Brewed to strictly organic standards (with no additives, sugar or isinglass – a fish product often used to clear beer), the Best Bitter is even suitable for vegans! It is crafted after an authentic English style of ale with deep copper colour, intense hop character and lingering bitterness. The brewers boast that “Green Man Best Bitter is the taste of Olde England.” Start waving those hankies and shaking those bells!

Comments:
Celtic – aaaaargh!
Would go nice with beer
Dark mutterings
Aftershave
You Northern monkey!
Harrington’s malty something?
Malty moderate texture
Something darkish, a bit bitter and a tad malty; Speight’s Distinction?
Sweet and malty with hops
Classic beer; fresh on the front palate with a brave aftertaste

A reasonable score for this beer on the night - 43 points put it in fourth place.

Beer number eight - Tuatara India Pale Ale (5%)

The mission statement of this brewery is to “reclaim beer values”. In all their beer they insist on using traditional methods and authentic malts. They believe that craft beer is endangered and, as such, the tuatara is a fitting motif: “We relate to the little guy; he’s gone along doing things in his own deliberate patient way – and has so far outlasted all his bigger relations by quite a few million years.” Tuatara brewery has a long way to go, with only eight years of brewing, but is already building up an impressive reputation.

In 2008 Tuatara won Best Brewery at the Brew NZ Awards. They also won best IPA. The brewery is located just north of Wellington and their beers are always on tap at The Malthouse (which was our local when we lived there – can you detect a theme?). When I last saw the head brewer he had just singed off his eyebrows by experimenting with too many hops for his kiln. They must be the only brewery in the modern world not to have a website. They do their marketing by word of mouth. I like them.

Comments:
I’m at a loss for w...
Like my last wife; works well, slightly rubbery, or is that my lips?
Hoppy and a little bitter
Hopsy strong aftertaste
Bitter with lots of anti-bacterial hops – am I repeating myself?
This is the nicest one so far
A lot hoppier on the nose, handier in the hand and kind to the mind
Guess – pure guess; Celtic – wrong?

This was our silver medal beer, coming 2nd with 48 points.

The sky continued to glow as the beer continued to flow.

Beer number nine - Dux Brewing Company Nor'wester (6.5%)

I’ve forgotten many a Christchurch afternoon on this stuff. It’s a traditional strong ale that is aptly named after the strong warm winds that turns all Cantabrians just a little more mad than they already were.

It’s strong with lashings of malt, hops and fruitiness. Glengarry (the magazine of the wine and beer retailer) describes it as ‘the Michelin Man of ales’ as in ‘balanced, fully flavoured and artfully constructed.’ Not as in made of tyres and tasting of rubber, then.

Comments:
Speight’s Porter?
They are getting better
You malty wee thing
Sweet and malty
Full flavour and smooth aftertaste
This one smells nice – sweet and malty
If it were a dog it would be a spaniel
Malty stuff; almost barley wine-ish
A beautiful bitter with a well-rounded flavour and spicy aftertaste

With 56 points, this beer was a clear winner and topped our voting table. I have incidentally noticed that this happens a lot with this kind of beer - is it that it is stronger, slightly sweet, or just served near the end of the night?

Beer number ten - Renaissance Craftsman Chocolate Oatmeal Stout (4.9%)

Renaissance Brewery Co sits in the heart of Marlborough’s wine growing region (Blenheim) so it must make damn fine stuff if it’s going to compete, and it does. It’s got that fancy label thing going on as well.

Made with real cocoa beans and organic rolled oats (plus malts and other stuff that goes into beer) this stout is one way to get your oats (and your chocolate). It was the brewery’s decadent spring release and Regional Wines and Spirits (my spiritual home) voted it among their top six beers of 2009. Beer writer Kieran Haslett-Moore writes, “Craftsman is the ultimate beer for any chocolate lover packed full of spicy dark chocolate and espresso flavours and aromas with a nutty rich moderately bitter finish. Try it with red meats or a dark berry based desert.” May I recommend pie and peas anyone?

Comments:
Like being pistol whipped by a belligerent troll but worse (incidentally, the person who described it thus rated it as their second favourite beer of the night - yes, I've got some odd friends...)
Speight’s Old Dark
Old Dark, Harrington’s or Monteith’s, and slightly bitter
Long dark number
Malt and full on
Chocolate and coffee
Eeeeeeeeuuuuw! Marmite
Molasses overtones with a chocolaty finish
Match with pudding

The chocolate beer was quite a popular wee number and was voted third overall with 46 points.

So there we have it; a fine night was had by all, much beer was consumed and much nonsense was talked, which is afterall, the true purpose of such functions. The Blackhurst Beer Festival has successfully completed it's seventh year, and we are looking forward to the next one already!

Beervana: Tasting notes (Part 2)

One of my favourite beers of the night was the Yeastie Boys’ Pot Kettle Black. This is an American style porter and very dark. With a bit of an interactive theme, punters were asked to state whether they preferred the handpull or the pressurised tap version.

Not just to be awkward, I preferred the smoother texture of the hand-pull, but I felt the chocolate and hop flavours came through better from the pressurised tap. Him outdoors stuck his nose in the tasting glass, took a swig, smacked his lips and muttered something about ‘orange and pine’.

I confused the boys at Croucher Brewing Company by waffling on about Peter Crouch. As you do. They were very kind and they also serve a damn fine drop of pale ale. This beer looks good, smells good and tastes good. It is good, and it has a hoppy, fruity, grassy feel that lingers – I would definitely try this again. It comes from a boutique brewery in Rotorua and is available in several outlets in Wellington (the website above has a full list of locations). I shall be looking out for it!

To my mind, Monteith’s is one of the best mass-produced beers in the country. I recently had a heated debate about whether or not it was a boutique beer. I said not. If you are owned by DB Breweries you are not, by definition, a boutique. They do, however, have a great advertising campaign which is neither sexist, ageist, or insulting to the intelligence, so that’s a refreshing change. They won the packaging award – I’m not sure whether this has anything to do with the adverts, but it’s all part of the same marketing department.

We tried a beer which I think (and I’m struggling to read my handwriting at this stage) was called 140W. It is a West Coast Pale Ale Reproduction and I’m pretty sure I liked it, but I would have to try it again to be sure.

I would also like another pop at the Emerson’s Old 95 . This was billed as an old English ale – how could I go wrong? The combination of hops and fruit is very well balanced and the nuance of toffee is not too sweet. Him outdoors sampled the Piny Stout (aged in pinot barrels, 5% stout), new for the festival apparently, and was again heard to mutter something about oranges – I think this may be his new obsession. On the other hand, it did win a silver medal in the ‘fruit, spiced and herb flavoured beers’ category, so perhaps he knew what he was talking about after all.

We paid a visit to the Dux de Lux brewery which again brought back memories of our time in Christchurch, although we never really took to the one in Queenstown. The lady at the stall said people had been coming up to her all night saying they had fond memories of the beer from when they were at Canterbury University . Weren’t they supposed to be studying, dear me, these students, tsk, tsk.

I tried the Sou’wester because I don’t remember having it before. I’m afraid I still don’t remember having it. I’m not sure whether this says more about the state of the ale or the state of me at this stage. Maybe I should have had the Ginger Tom, which always wakes me up!

Green Man Strong is exactly what it says on the tin (6.5%). When it was first released it sold out in 11 days, and it picked up a bronze medal here. It’s a Doppelbock aged in whisky barrels for 3 months, and then blended with best bitter. It’s quite sweet, as you would expect from this combination, but dangerously drinkable. It cost double beer tokens and I’m glad I only discovered it at the end of the night, or things could have got quite messy!

Incidentally, the Green Man brewery also won the accolade of Best in Class for their Enrico’s Cure. At 14.5%, this is a barley wine beer brewed without sugar by a German brewmaster. Scarred by memories of Carlsberg Elephant and other nasties in golden tins drunk by people in supermarket car parks, I avoided this particular brew, although I heard others say it was very nice. I think it’s odd that the class it won, is titled, ‘Experimental and non or low alcoholic beers’. Isn’t that a massive difference?

I finished up with a beer from the Twisted Hop, and although I don’t know which one, this seems in keeping with my usual experiences there. The whole thing has a sort of magical mystical quality to me. I know the bar is tucked down a side street in Christchurch, and I have had a couple of very good nights there. But I can never remember how to get there when I’m sober. It’s like Diagon Alley. Anyway, I know from previous experience that the Challenger is exceptional – well, I’m always up for it! Oo-er missus.

So, to sum up, I drank lots of beer, I like hops and I had a great night. My top three, entirely unscientifically based upon the way I was feeling at the time are Epic Pale Ale, Yeastie Boys' Pot Kettle Black, and Croucher Brewing Company Pale Ale. Anyone else?