Friday, September 27, 2013

September 26, 2013

Pacific Beer Expo Tickets... Double Newish Release Tuesday... Darren Watson... Old Dogs, New Bottles... On Tap Shortly...

Pacific Beer Expo Tickets

We can now announce that Pacific Beer Expo tickets are on sale. We've even been allowed to sell a few of them ourselves, which can be bought over the counter at the bar. Or you can get them from Ticketek here (or for mobiles here).

We can also start to reveal details of some of the beers we'll be serving. Last year shipping delays meant that beer from Singapore brewery Jungle didn't make it in time for the festival and we had to make do with serving them at the bar (and also taking some to the Great Kiwi Beer Festival in Christchurch). But Jungle's beers - or at least the slightly flamboyant styles that we've brought over - really belong in a festival. At the time of writing our order is closer to Wellington than it is to Singapore, so this year we're confident that we'll be serving some or all of their fruit-infused Tropical Wheat, Kiasu Stout, and the very intriguing sounding Nutmeg & Mace Steam Lager.

Here are the essential details about the 2013 Pacific Beer Expo:The 2013 instalment of Australasia’s most exclusive beer festival takes place on the Sunday of Labour Weekend at Wellington’s St James Theatre Gallery. Attendees will get to enjoy over thirty carefully selected beers from some of the Pacific Rim’s most highly regarded breweries. Look out for new releases and special one-off beers from some of New Zealand’s best breweries, plus rare or seasonal releases from breweries in Australia, Singapore and the United States. Ticket holders gain entry, a souvenir glass, a programme and plenty of tokens for food and drink to get you started. The event runs from 2pm until 7pm on October 27, 2013.

Double Newish Release Tuesday

This week we have not one but too typically unconventional beers from Garage Project. They were both tasted by a handful of people at the Yeast Feast, during Wellington On A Plate, so aren't strictly new, but we make the rules, thanks.

The first is called an "Egyptian" beer, in that it borrows certain techniques and ingredients that would have been used thousands of years ago. For instance there's honey, emmer wheat and the yeast was cultured from the skins of organic raisins and dates.

And from the same family of tiny batches made for Yeast Feast comes a "slightly sour" Flanders Red.

Garage Project Egyptian Beer and Flanders Red go on tap at 5pm on Tuesday. Stocks are very limited.

Darren's Back

Darren Watson and his Underground Blues Band are back on Saturday night. Judging by his recent facebook posts, following a certain early morning sporting event has taken an emotional toll on Darren, so he probably needs the catharsis that will come from a transcendent musical performance.

Our Saturday night gig starts at 10pm and there's no charge. Darren's gigs are usually pretty popular, so come early.

Old Dogs, New Bottles

It's a good week for interesting new bottle offerings from breweries with canine aspirations. First of all, arriving in our fridges on Friday or Monday will be the three latest bottlings from Melbourne's Moon Dog:

  • Jumping The Shark 2013 - Moon Dog's statement beer - a 15.5% Cognac barrel-aged truffled Imperial Stout, packaged in 375ml wax-dipped mini champagne bottles.
  • Mummy Have a Bite - an 8.2% "toffee apple beer" (red/amber ale aged in calvados barrels).
  • Bock Naked - a 7.7% chipotle'd dark lager.

Now that they have achieved complete domination over their difficult bottling plant, ParrotDog have branched out and started bottling a couple of their seasonals. The bottles have a different and much darker style of label that we think will look pretty striking on bar and supermarket shelves:

  • Otis Oatmeal Stout.
  • SleuthHound Scotch Ale.

As with the Moon Dog bottles, we hope to have these on the shelves on Friday evening, but it's in the hands of the freight companies.

On Tap Soon

Christmas is less than a year away, so what better time to enjoy the biggest of Nøgne Ø's three Christmas beers - God Jul. (Pronounced more like goo yule than gojjul.)

Lobethal Double Hop IPA (not actually an IIPA, just a beautifully hoppy IPA) will be on soon, possibly when the beer below runs out:

Waiting out the back is the final keg of the most recent batch of Sculpin IPA to be imported from and with the approval of the Ballast Point Brewing Company. Once it's gone have no fear - the odd keg of Big Eye IPA, Dorado IIPA and one or two others are still in the country. And we're expecting more goodies from Ballast Point in time for the Pacific Beer Expo.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Boo Ticketek :(

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