February 19th, 2015

Darren Aid

During his time in New Zealand studying for his PhD, Darren Mckenna became quite well known to all of us here at HZ.
He was a big supporter of the bar and the Wellington beer scene, and became fast friends with most of the staff before returning back to the UK.

It's now our turn to support Darren. We recently learned that Darren has been diagnosed with cancer, and needs a new and expensive treatment to save his life.
This treatment isn't covered by the NHS, so it's up to Darren to find the £20,000 cost of the procedure.

To help raise funds for this procedure, tonight we'll be donating the proceeds from two kegs to his fund.
We selected the beers carefully - keeping in mind that we don't want Darren to be a dead guy, we want him to say "wahoo!" when he's healthy again...

So buy a Rogue Dead Guy and/or a Ballast Point Wahoo Wheat on tap tonight to support Darren and help fund a life.
Josh has even organised a few of his jazzy mates to keep you entertained from 8pm with some live jazz.

So please come on down tonight, and have a pint for our mate.

Mmmmm, Doughnut....

The beer

After many delays, Beer Without Borders have received a large shipment of fresh Rogue beers direct from Oregon. Among many restocks of old favourites, there are a few newbies. One of which comes in a bright pink bottle... That's right, the next installment of the Voodoo Doughnut series is here.
If you don't know already, Voodoo Doughnuts is a dougnut shop in Portland, Oregon that has Whittakers Chocolate Milk levels of hype surrounding their dougnuts. Rogue has been collaborating with them to recreate their doughnuts in beer form.

The Doughnut

I visited on my recent trip to the states and can confirm their doughnuts are very good. But I wouldn't line up for an hour to eat one...

This beer is based on the Lemon Chiffon Crueller doughnut described as "French crueller with vanilla frosting, lemon dust and three marshmallows!". It should then come as no surprise than that the beer's ingredients list lemon, vanilla and marshmallow among the usual malt, hops, yeast and free range coastal water.

The dougnutty sweetness and odd flavours mean a 750ml bottle is definitely too much for one person to tackle alone. So this Saturday we'll be offering 250ml pours of the new Lemon Chiffon Crueller Ale for $10.
If you time it right you might even be able to nab a bottle for your collection

Not the French Liqueur

This Saturday's musical entertainment sees the return of King Kreabslet & The Fernets.

Consisting of "the young lion of the Welly city Mambo-Jazz guitar scene," Paul James, and "fresh faced skins man" Cory Champster, under the strict guidance of the "Solid Statesman of that Nu Jazz sound": Kristofer "King" Kreabsley."

Come enjoy their organ funk from 9.30pm Saturday, which is free as always.

The Ol' Fat Hand

Back in mid 2013 we got a couple of our kegs filled with Townshend Fat Hand, an 8.5% English strong ale. We put the first keg on tap, and after tasting it decided that it would be fun to see how such a malt-driven beer would age. So the second keg was stashed away in our coolstore.

A year and a half later, we think it should have picked up some interesting aged character without thinning out too much. So this Tuesday at 5pm we'll be tapping what is probably the last remaining keg of the 2013 vintage of fat hand.
Come along and see for yourself how time affects a big, warming malty ale.

Fresh in the Fridge

As mentioned earlier, Beer Without Borders have a new shipment from Rogue on hand.

As well as the new Voodoo, we have the new Fresh Roast Brown Ale and Allegro Coffee Porter from the Oregon brewer.

Fresh Roast applies the 'fresh hopping' attitude to malt:

"Rogue Fresh Roast is made with Rogue Farms barley fresh roasted at the brewery. The barley is taken directly out of the roaster and rushed 273 feet over to the brew kettle. We don’t think it gets much fresher than that, and we know you’ll taste the difference."

Surprisingly, Allegro Coffee Porter is a porter with Allegro Coffee in it. We've also got fresh 355ml bottles of the misleadingly-named Brutal IPA.

New from NZ we have 8 Wired's legendary Wild Feijoa - a lambic style sour fruit beer featuring that weird fruit Feijoa. We've had it on tap a few times over its barrel aging period, always to rave reviews. So it's great to have the final product.
Funk Estate Super Afrodisiac was launched last Saturday, and is now in 500ml bottles. This years vintage is my favourite yet, with decadent chocolate flavours layered on a robust imperial stout base.