September 24th, 2015

30 Sleeps till PBE

It is now just a month till the fifth Pacific Beer Expo, and things are really starting to fall into place.

The beer list is growing by the day, with local brewers being incredibly supportive and pulling no punches with their festive brews.
For example, today Baylands and Te Aro Brewing made their PBE beers - involving Thai curry paste and grapefruit respectively...

After only a couple of days the confirmed beer list has grown to 37, with even more yet to be confirmed including some gems from across the ditch.

Because we have more beers to announce than there are days in a month, we're going to be announcing at least one PBE beer every day until the 24th over on the Facebook Page and Event, and Twitter account.

If those newfangled social medias aren't your thing, don't fret! I'll be doing a roundup every week here in the old fashioned weekly email, so you can peruse the lineup at your leisure.

So without further ado, the beers announced so far:

Hawaii joins PBE for the first time, with Maui Brewing Co on tap at PBE 2015. We've secured three beers that are usually only available at their brewpub:

Pau Hana Pilsner, Hualeakala Sunryes Rye IPA and Kihei Kolsch!



Two new beers from Portland's Gigantic Brewing Company will be in attendance, Ume Umai Plum & Black Rice Beer along with  SOLID! Hoppy American Wheat Beer.

We'll have more announcements over the next week which I'll round up here next Thursday.

At the moment ticket sales for the Saturday session are surging ahead and seem sure to sell out. So if you're planning on going to that session book your spot now at pbe2015.lilregie.com

Batch 18 vs Batch 2.18

It's Blenheim vs Warkworth, aged vs fresh, Batch 18 vs Batch 2.18.
For their 18th batch ever, 8 Wired brewed a massive 12.5% stout with jaggery sugar & cocoa nibs - and then barrel aged it for 6 months. It was the first of its kind in NZ, and caused waves in the early beer geek community.

Following tradition, the 18th batch brewed at 8 Wired's new Warkworth brewery was made to the same recipe, but this time instead of barrels was aged in two of their new foeders. A foeder is essentially a really, really big barrel and makes oak aged beers far easier (and cheaper) to produce.

That was 6 months ago, so bottles of 2.18 have just come out. It weight in slightly lighter than its older sibling at only 11%ABV.

After a bit of begging, the lovely people at 8 Wired have released to us a single case of cellar stock of the original 2010 Batch 18 - presenting us with a unique geeky opportunity so see how a beer of this magnitude ages.

To do this on your own would be a pricey endeavor - so we're making it easy for you.

This Saturday the 26th we'll be serving up 100ml tasting glasses of Batch 18 & 2.18 side by side, so you can geek out without breaking the bank.

Surfin' Saturday

This Saturday the Vincent Vega Trio are belting out their hot blend of surf, funk, soul and blues in the lounge.
With Chris Armour on guitar, Andy Russell drums and Nick Lissette on the bass.

It kicks off at 9.30pm, with no cover charge - as usual.

Staffie Series Number Five

Our duty manager Dylan likes basketball. Quite a bit. So it makes sense that his Staffie Brew - Fuggsy Bogues - is named for one of the most well known NBA players - Muggsy Bogues.
Muggsy Bogues was the shortest NBA player of all time ( at just 160cm), but more importantly starred in the cinematic masterpiece that was Space Jam. How great was Space Jam?!

Fuggsy Bogues is a 100% NZ Fuggles hopped pale ale, with a dash of Shepherd's Delight malt to give it some body and colour. Some people might call it IPA, some people might not.

Dylan Brewed just 100L of Fuggsy Bogues at the new Te Aro Brewing Company (out the back of Brewtopia on Tory st).

We're tapping the first keg of Fuggsy Bogues at 5pm on Tuesday the 29th of September. Get ready to jam.