The Envelope Please
The votes are in - 40% more of them than last year - the tabulations are complete, and we can announce the results of our survey of what our customers thought was good in 2012. If you support Wellington breweries - and Garage Project, Yeastie Boys or Tuatara in particular - the news is pretty good. Ditto if you're a fan of Taranaki's (and Wellington's via the Hurricanes catchment) Liberty. And as we explain here, the dominance of Wellington breweries in this survey is a new phenomenon.
Rather than paste in all three pages of results here, we encourage readers to follow the link and take in these results at your leisure.
Moon Dog Brewer Visiting
This week we put our first ever Moon Dog beer on tap and the adventurous of you might have noticed some of their provocative bottle labels staring out at you from the fridges. We're actually bringing in Moon Dog beer in sufficient quantities to share with other outlets and to support this effort, brewer Josh Uljans is making a flying visit to Wellington in just over two weeks.
So on Saturday Feb 2 Josh will be on hand to pour one or two servings of their strong lager (or Imperial Pilsner?) Love Tap, kiss babies and, above all, answer whatever questions our valued customers might have regarding their unconventional range of beers. Exact start time is t.b.c, but assume early evening.
We're On The Road
As hinted at above, Hashigo Zake's business interests do go slightly beyond the four walls of 25 Taranaki St. A couple of examples are coming up.
Firstly, a week today, on Thursday January 24th, we're supplying a number of beers to Brothers Beer in Auckland - a new craft beer takeaway, rigger filling station and bar, set in a former council workshop in central Auckland - for their US tap takeover. If you have Auckland friends who love intensely favoured beers but rarely get to try them, feel free to suggest a visit to next Thursday's US Tap Takeover at Brothers.
Next month we're returning to Christchurch's Great Kiwi Beer Festival with a truck full of beer to run the "World of Beer Marquee". Again the beers we'll be taking will generally be familiar to Hashigo Zake regulars, but this will be a once-a-year opportunity for Cantabrians to drink like Wellingtonians. Feel free to fire up your South Island friends with talk of how lucky they're going to be if they make it along to Hagley Park on Feb 23.
Anniversary Weekend
Meanwhile, back in downtown Wellington, we have our own anniversary day to celebrate. And our way to do this is to look inwards and celebrate the spectacular flowering of the Wellington brewing industry. So from 5pm tomorrow Friday until the close of business on Monday our taps are pouring Wellington beer only.
We promise that you'll be as pleased as we were at how easy it is to come up with a range of beer with all the variety and quality we demand.
Rye Chai IPA
Is 2013 the year of Rye? We're suddenly seeing plenty of impressive beers with high proportions of rye malt. Or will 2013 be the year the brewers run out of patience with rye and refuse to ever use it again?
Next week's new release is Garage Project's Rye Chai IPA. Made, as it is, with Northern Brewer, Amarillo and Simcoe hops and a percentage or rye malt, there are a few similarities with a recent De Molen release. But this beer also has tea and chai spices including cardamom, cinnamon and clove. It will be on tap from 5pm on Tuesday.
Myele Manzanza
This Saturday's music comes from Myele Manzanza. This is probably the first time that our musical lineup has been led by a drummer, potentially making this an interesting test of our relationship with Zibibbo upstairs. But we have great expectations.
As always, the tariff-free entertainment starts at 10pm.
Fringe Fest
Marketing for this year's Wellington Fringe Festival is well underway. For the first time ever we're hosting a Fringe show in the form of Adam Page's collaboration with comedian James Nokise.
Bear Empire
Bear Empire is a new Auckland brewery with (so far) very limited output. We've been lucky enough to get the first kegs to reach Wellington of their Guerilla Black IPA and Sabateur Red Pilsner. They'll be on soon, either just before or just after our weekend of Wellington beer.
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