Thursday, October 16, 2014

October 16th, 2014

Birthday Beers

With our quinquennial birthday celebrations just four days away, it's now time to reveal the beers made to help us all celebrate.
We asked breweries to create a special beer with a five-ey theme, and we're stoked with what was delivered.

As mentioned last week, Tasi teamed up with Renaissance to produce a more quintuplicate version of her favourite Elemental porter. The fifth element of cocoa nibs was added to the usual ingredients of malt, hops, water and yeast giving the beer the name The Fifth Element. Although we all know it's real name is Chocolate Thunder.

Cassels and Sons contribution to the festivities came by its pentacular name serendipitously.
Five Hour Hoppy Wheat Beer is so named because during brewing, the 'runoff' (when sugary wort is being rinsed out of the malt) took five hours instead of the usual one or two. I'm sure the brewers weren't as happy with this fact as we are, but there you go.

One of the very last beers to come out of Hamilton's 666 Brewing will be featuring on Monday. 666 brewer Graeme Mahy has been made an offer he couldn't refuse to return to Australia and brew for Murray's.

We're gutted to see Graeme go, as his beers were some of the most consistent and interesting beers we've had on tap over the years. However we're very happy that he can continue his passion for brewing great beers, while making a good living. I know I'll be seeking out Murray's beers next time I'm across the ditch to keep up with  Graeme's handiwork.

Before winding up at 666 Graeme brewed us a beer named God Told Me To, a 100% US hopped IPA made with five different malts. All the best in Aus Graeme.

Of course Garage Project are on board for a birthday beer, and have applied the five theme in typical GP fashion.
The flatteringly named Five Hop Down to Hashi is a 7.5% IPA made using five different kinds of unreleased, unnamed trial hops from NZ hops. The five theme doesn't stop there, as this beer was continuously hopped at 5min increments throughout the boil, and then for good measure double dry hopped.

Part of the deal of using trial hops is that you can't reveal anything about them, so if you want to find out what they're like you'll have to drink the beer on Monday. Plus, there's only one keg.

Other breweries didn't have space in their brewing schedule to bang out a beer for our 'wood anniversary', but wanted to provide something special and new anyway.

Christchurch's Twisted Hop are sending up a firkin (40L cask) of the brand new Imperial Twisted Ankle. Unsurprisingly, it is an imperial (9.5%) version of their wonderful old ale Twisted Ankle.
You can expect the same rich and roasty flavours, but even richer and roastier. Not to sound like the out of touch CAMRA, but yes, this is a legit cask conditioned real ale.

Both hand pumps will be pouring legit real ale thanks to (champion NZ brewery) Townshend. Martin's sent us up a few pins (20L casks) of his latest creation Donelan's 2xE.

This session ale is brewed in collaboration with NZ Hops' Doug Donelan, and apparently 2xE is a reference to a certain 'East India Pale Ale' featuring a native bird.

Lagers take twice as long to create than ales, so it's no surprise that no birthday pilsners were made.
Thankfully Beer Without Borders has a new shipment in from the States this week, containing a Coronado Golden Pilsner which has never been seen in NZ before. We'll tap it for the first time on Monday.

Rounding out the birthday lineup, 8 Wired have sent some pretty special beers for the festivities. The 100% brettanomyces fermented Wireless Pale Ale will see its Wellington Release on Monday, along with a pretty special collab from Aussie.
Bridge Road/8 Wired Nieuw Bruin is a Belgian Brown ale based on ReWired, which has been fermented in the same cognac barrels used to create Aurora Borealis II which was NRT a few weeks back.

As you might have guessed, this is one of the Beervana kegs that was unfortunately delayed, and we're told it's the only keg of the beer in the country.

It wouldn't be a birthday party without cake, so we've asked Dough Momma to make us a big ass Rogue chocolate stout cake.

All of the above beers will be on tap from 5pm Monday 20th October, some we have a few kegs of and will last thorough the week, others will dry up on Monday. See you there!


Cheese is a Kind of Meat

Seeing as we're releasing eight beers on Monday, we figure a new release on Tuesday might get a little overlooked.
So instead of putting another new beer on tap, we'll be pairing Monday's new releases with a complimentary cheese match when you buy a glass.
We don't yet know what the beers taste like, so we can't pre-match any cheeses but we'll be open to suggestions on Monday.

Tuesday Night Grammy

Following a cheesy Tuesday afternoon, on Tuesday night we have a very special musical act performing - all the way from California.
Legendary trombonist Fransisco Torres is visiting Wellington to run a workshop, and was keen to play while he's in town. We were more than happy to oblige, and it ties in nicely with our birthday celebration.

Fransisco is the trombonist and musical director for the Grammy-Award winning Poncho Sanchez Latin Jazz Band, as well as a member of Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band. Francisco has in recent years produced and arranged for Poncho's albums garnering several Grammy nominations, as well as developing a small reputation for Latin Jazz arranging.

Joining Fransisco is Tom Warrington, one of the busiest acoustic and electric bass players in Los Angeles. Tom began his career in New York City, playing for three years in the Buddy Rich big band and trio. He also toured Europe extensively as a clinician and performer, and worked with many other great N.Y. artists, including Stan Getz, Dave Liebman, and Hank Jones.

Some excellent local talent will be collaborating, including Rodger Fox (also) on trombone, Lance Philip on drums and Nick Granville with the guitar.

This once-off gig is free, and being a school night kicks off at the earlier time of 8pm.


Scheduled Fire Drill


Wellington's most delicious repurposed fire truck will be pulling up outside tomorrow night, providing delicious fare to go with your delicious beer.

Will and Kim will be serving up:
- BBQ pork with split pea, rooibos tea, seaweed and a soy mirin dressing.
- Smoked fish with spiced chic peas curry leaves and a tofu sesame dressing.
- Plus another dish, which they're still working on.
They'll be providing savoury treats from around 5pm.

Latin Saturday




The sensual Carlos Navae quartet will be adding a bit of latin spice to your pints on Saturday night with a bit of Afro-Cuban Jazz, Soul, Funk and Caribbean beats.

As usual there is no charge, and it kicks off at 10pm Saturday night.

Just Nine Sleeps

It's only nine sleeps till the biggest Pacific beer expo yet, and with the extra space we've managed to expand the varieties of beer available. We're still finalising the beer list, but it's looking like there'll be at least 45 different beers spread across a massively diverse range of styles.

Today we can announce a few brews from Aotearoa, a couple from breweries that don't even exist yet.


Tiamana and Wild & Wooly are currently setting up a shared brewery space in Mt Cook, and are run by HZ regulars Annika & Llew respectively. The brewery is still under construction, but they've managed to get a few small batches out early.
Being that Llew is Canadian, and that halloween thing is observed there - Wild and Wooly have put together pumpkin spice ale. But with a dash of rum added and named Hop the Plank to bring it more into a pirate theme.

Annika is drawing upon her German roots with Tiamana's PBE offering, Kiersch Me. Touted as a Black Forest Cake beer, it might go quite well with (or as) dessert. As Annika says:
"A beer inspired by my German grandma's Black Forest Cake - a chocolate stout with dark cherries soaked in original 'Kirschwasser' (German cherry schnapps). Prost!"
PBE might be the last beer festival where 666 Brewing will be served. We'll be showcasing a twist on their regularly brewed pale ale, Gabriel.
Gabriel Pilsner is the usual Gabriel recipe but fermented with a lager yeast, making it a bit crisper and more refreshing. You can't just have imperial stouts and IPAs at a beer festival eh?

By next week's email we should have a link to the entire finalised beer list, so you can start planning which you'd like to try. Get your ticket now!














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