August 27th, 2015

All the Bairds to the Yard

The brewery that helped inspire Hashigo Zake's creation is back in a big way. Tomorrow we celebrate the return of Baird Beer to our country by putting all six kegs from the latest shipment on tap at once.

From midday we'll be tapping:

• Numazu Lager
• Rising Sun Pale Ale
• Single-Take Session Ale
• Wabi-Sabi Japan Pale Ale
• Japan Tale Ale
• Suruga Bay Imperial IPA

We tried most of these at last night's tasting. The votes for favourite beer were the most split I've seen - which should indicate the consistent quality of the Baird range. 

We're getting them all on before opening at midday, and we expect a few to run out before the night is over. Which will conveniently make room for some other new beers to come on tap this Saturday...

Vanilla and Spice

Along with the new Baird shipment, BwB has received its largest shipment yet from the US. And it's so full of goodness we've got to spread it out over the next few weeks.
We noticed a small theme in a few of the new kegs from Ballast Point, so decided to kick things off this Saturday with a themed mini-takeover. The title might give it away.

Calm Before the Storm is the summer version of the much loved Victory at Sea. Instead of adding coffee and vanilla to a 10% imperial porter, Calm Before the Storm features the two adjuncts in a 5.5% cream ale. We're very interested to see how these two compare - so they'll both be on tap this Saturday.

Wahoo Wheat is a staple of Ballast Point's core range, and a brilliant witbier on its own. But we've got a special version of this refreshing witbier for you on Saturday.

It goes by the fairly unimaginative name of Wahoo with Thai Chilli, Lime and Ginger. Yes, these staples of thai cuisine have been added to the orange peerl and coriander base of Wahoo to make something resembling a delicious thai curry - but in beer form. We thought it'd be fun this Saturday to have this curry beer on next to Ballast Point's other curry beer (because real breweries have more than one curry beer) Indra Kunindra.

Of course, we're not expecting you to drink whole glasses of all four of these heavily flavoured and high alcohol beers - that would be irresponsible. Drawing on the popularity of our Road to Beervana vintage beer flights, we'll be offering tasting flights of all four of these beers while they last. That's a 150ml serve of each, Saturday only.

Carlos Navae Quartet

If the beers aren't spicy enough, this Saturday Carlos Navae is back in the lounge.

Carlos and three buddies will be raising the temperature of the lounge with Afro-Cuban Jazz, Soul, Funk and Caribbean beats.
They kick off at 9.30pm, and enjoying their music won't cost you a penny.

Gigantic comes To Wellington

Next wedenesday Gigantic's head brewer Ben Love will be holding a tasting in the red room - via the internet.
Beer Without Borders have organised for Ben to take us through some of Gigantic's range via a video link to Portland Oregon.

It's also a great opportunity to pick the brain of a leader in one of the world's greatest beer cities.

Ryan from BwB will be hosting the tasting on this end, and has a great lineup planned including brand new beers from the latest shipment:

• Gigantic IPA
• Ginormous IIPA
• Pipewrench
• Snakebite
• White Light White Heat
• Intensify Belgian IPA
• Saboteur Baltic Porter

You can book your place now over at cultbeerstore, or over the bar next time you're in. 

Morocco meets Belgium

North End might have only just completed the first brew at their new Kapiti brewery, but they've had a barrel programme running for months already.

Head brewer Kieran is keen to enter a beer from one of these barrels into the upcoming BGoNZAs, but a pre-requisite is that the beer has to be 'commercially available.' Which is good news for us!

This Tuesday we'll be tapping the first 'preview' keg of an upcoming beer in North End's "Salt & Wood" range - Cuvee du Moor.

Kieran has taken a classic belgian style, quadrupel, and added a Moroccan twist. What makes it Moroccan? Cous cous was added (just for fun) with the malt during the mash, then dates, prunes, raisins and figs were added during the boil. After fermentation the beer was transferred to a brettanomyces infected pinot noir barrel along with even more dates. We're told the brett is subtle at the moment.

In true quadrupel style, Cuvee du Moor comes in at a hefty 10.5% ABV, meaning we'll only be doing small pours. Possibly a good thing seeing as we'll only have a single 20L keg, and the rest will eventually be going into bottles.

We tap it at 5pm this Tuesday, see you then. 

Fresh off the Boat

As mentioned, the latest US shipment contains many treats. Several of the bottled/canned treats have already made it into our fridge (including the very first legitimate consignment from a well known Hawaiian brewery).

They await your enjoyment:

• Maui Big Swell IPA cans
• Maui CoCoNut Porter cans
• Speakeasy Baby Daddy IPA cans
• Ballast Point Grunion Pale Ale 355ml
• Ballast Point Dorado IIPA 355ml
• Ballast Point Pumpkin Down 355ml
• Ballast Point Grapefruit Sculpin cans
• Almanac Valencia Gold 650ml 

More goodies will be making it in as we clear space, keep an eye on the social medias for announcements thereof.