Friday Five: The Best of the Great Kiwi Beer Festival

Here are some totally unstructured notes from the Great Kiwi Beer Festival which we attended on 25th February in Christchurch (to accompany the random photos on My Week in Pictures).

Out of a sense of beer-loyalty, our first beverage of the day is from the Yeastie Boys. We are rewarded with great flavours. I have a Hud-a-wa’ while Him Outdoors goes for a former favourite: Pot Kettle Black. Mine is malty, biscuity, nutty, fruity, with a hint of camembert – surprisingly refreshing for a strong beer (6.8%) and a great way to start the day!

Next we visit the Wigram Brewing Co where Him Outdoors has a Mustang Pale Ale, which he declares features subtle hops with herbaceous overtones. I have a Ginger Jerry, which is cold with a sharp bite; it pours a lovely pale yellow colour with lazy bubbles and with hints of honey and lemon you might expect from a wheat beer. It is, however, predominantly ginger in flavour (as the name would lead you to suspect) with a spicy finish, and turns out to be one of my favourite beers of the day.

At Mike’s Organic Brewery, Him Outdoors has another old favourite, Mike’s Ale. This is the beer previously known as Mike’s Mild (brewed in the English style) but it has recently undergone a name change as some punters think ‘mild’ means low alcohol and low flavour, which is certainly not the case. We chat to Mr Mike himself, who proudly explains that the family-owned brewery is the oldest one here, having been going for 23 years.

I sample a Strawberry Blonde, which tastes a bit like a spritzer – probably due to the carbonation levels. It’s very fruity and beery, tasting like a Pilsner with lots of strawberries thrown at it. It’s pretty and pink and most likely aimed at girls – although not in the throwing bottles of beer at people sense. I don’t think I’m ‘that sort of girl’.

Him Outdoors has an intermediate Mendip Bitter from Peak Brewery. He says it tastes great but the texture is not so flash – perhaps it didn’t travel well? At Brew Moon I have a Hophead Organic IPA which tastes quite full of tannins beneath the sharp hops. Him Outdoors asked for stout but gets Amberley Pale Ale instead. It’s smoother than the IPA and has a better mouthfeel.

We can’t pass the Twisted Hop hand-pull pump and are rewarded with a fantastic IPA – a refreshing, crisp, citrusy, strong ale, a perfect mixture of hoppy and nutty flavours and a great texture; ideal for drinking on a sunny summer day, and I love it! Him Outdoors has another intermediate – a Ballast Point Schooner Wet Hop Pale Ale, which smells and tastes like blood oranges.

The Townshend ESB is alright but not as special as I remembered, and no, I can’t pinpoint why. Usually this is excellent, so I shall just put this down as a bad pint and revisit another day. Him Outdoors plumps for a Bavarian wheat beer, which he merely describes as ‘very disappointing’ and then pops over for a chat with Dale Holland of Dale’s Brewery. Dale won the supreme award at New Zealand’s largest home brew competition in 2010. Since then he has been brewing small batches of his beers at the West Coast Brewery in Westport. Him Outdoors has one of his Belgian style beers made with Belgian yeast and Maris hops, which is (apparently) very smooth and pleasing.

At the Sprig and Fern, we both opt for the Scotch Ale which has a terrific distinctive flavour; lots of malt and chocolate flavours with a subtle hop. Honey-cured bacon and avocado butties from Black Betty’s perk us up and enable us to continue with the tastings. After 2pm it really fills up with massive queues for everything: food; beer; toilets...

Him Outdoors has the porter from Tuatara – this well-balanced porter is his favourite, although nothing beats drinking it from a hand-pull pump in The Malthouse in Wellington; now that really was special. I enjoy the Helles with its tasty bubble-gum characteristics. Wide Boy Steve tries Moa for the first time and loves it. I’m used to it (I drink it at Jack’s Point after every race I do out there) but he is suitably impressed.
 

I move on to The Big Smoke from 8 Wired – my notes say ‘lovely!’ underlined many times. It is a smoky, hoppy, dark porter and eminently drinkable. Another hit is the West Coast Brewery Draught, which is ‘nutty and nice’ (my tasting notes are getting increasingly banal) and tastes like beer should.

 

Some lads are refused beer – they have no glasses or wristbands, and the ambience is beginning to change. It is still a beautiful sunny afternoon, however, with innocuous background music from the not-hugely-dynamic bands. I confess I find the Black Seeds almost insufferably dull without sufficient levels of intoxication.

The Captain Cooker Manuka Beer from Mussel Inn is nicely beery and flavoursome, with a hint of sweetness. The young lad we have with us (the son of friends) pronounces the Ballast Point Coronado Idiot to be ‘unenjoyably alcoholic’ – an interesting comment from a drinker who chooses his beer for its abv. I have heard much about Ballast Point – an American brewery from San Diego – who are all for experimenting and crafting excellent ales in traditional styles. I tried their Blue Eye IPA which is both hoppy and yeasty and very appealing – I will look out for more of their brews in the future.

 

I finish up the day with a Yeastie Boys Pot Kettle Black – it is still the best in the business; so smooth and subtly blended. I really do love this stuff! And so, it makes it into my top five beers of the day which are, in no particular order:

5 Favourite Beers of the Festival

1. Pot Kettle Black - Yeastie Boys
2. Ginger Jerry - Wigram Brewing Co
3. IPA - Twisted Hop
4. The Big Smoke - 8 Wired
5. Draught - West Coast Brewery

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!

Brand new beer

Last night I was drinking the freshest beer in a pub in Wellington. I know because Dion Page, one of the brewers of Tuatara’s latest drop said so.

He also said that they move slowly – like a tuatara – and they haven’t released a beer in seven years. This latest is a cracker. (No, actually, it’s a beer.)

It’s called Tuatara Helles which is apparently a German style of beer that is very easy to drink. I find it to be so.

It seems that some people find Pilsners too bitter and hoppy (I’ve yet to find a beer that is too hoppy, but that’s just me) so the chaps at Tuatara have presented them with this sweeter, brighter version, which is described by the Malthouse staff as ‘more commercial’ but not in a bad way.

Made with New Zealand-grown Hallertau and Saaz hops, Tuatara Helles makes good use of what are termed the noble hops – I love that expression and I love the aroma they give off. Dion tells an amusing anecdote about trying to add them at just the right moment but being foiled by a gust of wind and a boiling geyser - I guess you had to be there.

The beer has ‘a decent burst of early malt sweetness and then late crispness for balance’ – so says Neil Miller and he knows about these things. I thought it has a slight flavour of banana bubblegum, but again, that could just be me.

It is light gold in colour and so clear as to look like it has nothing to hide. However, Dion warns that although it purports to be 5% abv, it is considerably more than that. He won’t say how much more.

We’re driving home, so we have to regrettably leave the beer behind, hopefully for another day (unless it all gets drunk, which is possible). I could go a session on that stuff. Cheers!