October 23rd, 2014

The Expo Cometh

It's been such a busy birthday week already, it's hard to believe we've still got the Pacific Beer Expo this weekend.

Nonetheless we've been busy making final preparations, and this week we can release the beer list in its entirety.

You'll notice that a lot of these beers are new releases, or have been brewed just for PBE. We love how local brewers get behind PBE and make us something special.

Local brewer Kereru has put together an intriguing chilli smoked wheat beer, Underparty. The notes for this beer come in haiku form:

Full-bodied wheat beer.

Manuka smoke. Mild chilli.

Fruity with bacon.

Also brewed out at Kereru on their test batch kit is Funk Estate's PBE offering Pash 'n Dash.

Pash 'n Dash is a Berliner Weisse (one of three at the festival), a type of sour wheat beer.
Brewers like Beliner Weisses as as they are soured in the mash then boiled, meaning their equipment isn't tainted with scary bugs like lactobacillus. Which can infect other beers.

Traditionally you'd add a fruit syrup to your pint of Berliner Weisse to cut back the sour bite, but Funk Estate have saved you that effort by adding passionfruit, kaffir lime leaf and chilli.

Before moving into their new brewery Baylands put together a geeky yeast experiment for us. Smokey & The Belgian and Smokey & The Americano are the same imperial stout, but fermented with different yeasts (Belgian & American). This way you can see how fermentation affects the flavour of these 10% behemoths. They'll be on all festival over in the Rowing Club.

Panhead made quite a splash earlier in the year when they released their black barley wine Black Sabbath. Black barley wines usually benefit from a bit of aging so most of this beer went into bottles so punters could throw some in their cellars. There's no reason why you can't age a keg, so we held on to a 20L keg of Black Sabbath and have been cellaring it in our chilled warehouse.

PBE might your last opportunity to have the original Black Sabbath on tap, so visit station 1 from 4.30pm to get yours.

Sunday session goers need not worry, we'll be cutting off sales of Black Sabbath (and similarly rare beers) once half is gone.

So here it is, in all its spreadsheety glory - the 2014 Pacific Beer Expo lineup!

Currently the weather is looking good for Saturday, and we're hoping Sunday's forecast changes soon.
Get your tickets now!

Expo Food

A beer festival can live or die on its culinary offerings, so we're pleased to be teaming up with The Catering Studio for PBE.

The menu they've come up with is mouth watering to say the least. It covers the pacific rim, with a bit of Karaage chicken, some Mexican tostadas, 'murican style cheese-steaks and more.
Check it out in delicious pdf form.

Expo Meet & Greet

In another PBE first, you'll be able to meet one of the overseas brewers whose beers you'll be sampling at the expo.Bryan Baird of Baird Brewing is in town this weekend, visiting from Japan. No doubt he'll be surrounded by adoring fans all festival-long, so to give you a chance to pick his brain we're holding a short tasting with Bryan at the start of each session.

At 3pm each session head over to the Rowing Club to participate. It'll cost two tokens, which gets you all of the Baird offerings at the fest: Brewer's Nightmare Rye IPA, Yabai Yabai Scotch Ale & Wabi Sabi Japan Ale.

Uber Expo

It's best not to drive to or from beer festivals. So with new "Rideshare" technology Uber quickly revolutionising the Wellington taxi-scape, we were stoked when they contacted us with an offer for PBE goers.
New users to Uber can get two free rides (up to $20) by using the code PBE2014
The process is simple:

1. Download the UBER app on an iPhone, Android or Windows device, and create an account.

2. Enter the promo code "PBE2014" when prompted.

3. Check the ETA, 'REQUEST' when you need a car, and enjoy the ride!

Uber's rates are pretty damn reasonable, so $20 will get you a fair way.

Jazzy Bayou Juice

The spirit of jazz visits the HZ lounge this Saturday, with new act The Bayou Bros.
I'm no jazz expert, so here's their description:

The Bayou Bros. Present their medicine Show.

Roll up, roll up, the Bayou Bros. Medicine Show is in town.

Filled with the restorative power of tiger glands, the strength of a hurricane, and the beauty of the taj mahal at midnight; the swinging sounds of the Bayou Bros. cannot be denied.

Feel whole once again, as your spirit returns to bourbon street, and your heart sings with the joy that only the jazz of the bayou bros. can bring. 

The Bayou Bros. are: Lex French - trumpet/ vocals, Daniel Hayles - piano/ vocals, and Daniel Yeabsley - double bass. Pop on down after PBE and wind down with their bayou beats.As usual the show kicks off at 10pm, and is free of charge.

No Release Tuesday

Sad news. Next Tuesday we won't be hosting a new release beer on tap.

We think the combination of it being a virtual Monday following a beer festival and the fact that we threw dozens of new releases out there this week with our birthday and PBE - we think people might be a bit new released out.So we won't waste our precious new releases next Tuesday, but will return to regularly scheduled programming the following week.

On Tap Now/Soon

If you haven't been down to try any of our birthday beers it's not too late. We got a few kegs of each so some are still going, Tasi's collab with Renaissance Fifth Element Porter has been particularly popular.
We're told over 10kg of cocoa nibs went into it and it shows. Most declare it even better than Renaissance's own Craftsman choc stout.
Also still available from Monday are 8 Wired's Wireless Pale Ale & Nieuw Bruin, Cassels & Sons 5 Hour Hoppy Wheat, 666 God Told Me To IPA and Twisted Hop Imperial Twisted Ankle.

Hallertau and Liberty have teamed up again, and for a change they've made a big hoppy IPA.

Haterade IIPA weighs in at 8.5%, so halves only.

For some reason the tap badge declares it 'soured', but in reality it tastes like a traditional hop bomb. Maybe they just want people to hate on Haterade. If you've got any hate for them, there's even a twitter account to vent at: @HateradeIPA