January 30th, 2014

So Music, Much Listen

It’s a bumper music weekend at Hashigo Zake. Tomorrow night the Nick Granville Group is launching their new album ‘Refractions’ on Rattle Records. Refractions is the first outing on Rattle Jazz for Nick Granville, who will be playing selections from the new album from 9.30pm till late.

On Saturday night, we have the final HZ performance of the always energetic Adam Page and the Counts - they're sure to go out with a bang. The Counts have never failed to wow an audience and get them up off their seats. The show starts at 10pm Saturday night, and as always, won’t cost you a dime.

Let’s try that again

Damn it! Bloody Auckland Anniversary Day. If you came in on Tuesday to try our advertised new release Bellerose Blonde, you would have been disappointed. We expected the new european shipment containing the kegs of Bellerose to be sent Monday to arrive in time for Tuesday, little did we know Monday was Auckland anniversary day! So the beer handily arrived on Wednesday… Luckily we had a backup from our new California shipment; Ballast Point Pescadero Pils - which was so damn good it all went Tuesday.

Now that we’ve actually got the beer on hand, I can guarantee that this Tuesday from 5pm we’ll have Bellerose Blonde (French IPA/Biere de Garde hybrid, by the brewery founded by Gerard Depardieu) on tap.

Spontangoodness

As I write this our crack team of sticker-putter-onners are labelling the many thousands of bottles in our new euro shipment to bring them in line with NZ law.

The focus for this shipment was big, experimental and interesting beers. Geek beers, if you will. There are so many exciting crazy beers that we won’t initially be able to fit them all in the fridge! But I’ve selected a few of the most exciting to bring in today/tomorrow.

Mikkeller’s ‘Spontan’ Series brings a traditional Belgian sour Geuze style beer together with various fruits to see how they pair with the earthy, sour base beer.



We’ve received eight new spontanbeers bringing our total to twelve(!). Beers such as spontanriesling, spontangooseberry, spontanpeach, spontanrosehip, spontansauternes, spontan…. you get the picture. Look for them lined up at the top of the naughty fridge.

Also arriving are 330ml bottles of the acclaimed Mikkeller Beer Geek Brunch Weasel, the first imperial stout to be brewed with Kopi Luwak ‘poo coffee’. The smaller size means you can experience this beer for a lot less moolah than the 500ml bottles cost in the past.

Finally, we’re receiving 1.5L magnums of Mikkeller Festival Special Edition 2013 - Stella 4. Only 558 bottles of this imperial stout will ever be produced. So If you’re looking to show off, this is the perfect beer to share - but it’ll cost you!

BagelBowl

This Monday is biggest sporting event of the year, Super Bowl Sunday. This year’s game between the Seattle Seahawks and Denver Broncos is being played in New York (in an outdoor stadium in the middle of winter).

If you actually understand this game and want to watch it, we’ll be opening at 11.30am on Monday so you can get a seat. As is becoming a tradition for the Super Bowl, we’ll be serving our famous 24 hour slow cooked chilli and in the spirit of the host city, bagels with cream cheese.

Seeing as we don’t have any beer from Seattle or Denver, we’ll be offering bottles of New York’s Southern Tier IPA at a special Super Bowl price.

Zombie Apocalypse Bunker Hours

Due to X-Ale and the costumed zombie apocalypse, Hashigo Zake’s opening hours will be altered next weekend.

On Friday the 7th we’ll be opening our doors at 3pm, and closing at 8pm with security on the door the whole time to keep out the hoard.

Saturday the 8th is X-Ale, which is sold out! Only X-Ale ticket holders will be permitted on Saturday, from 1pm to 6pm. If you’ve bought a ticket, your name will be on the door.

Sayonara Sam and Shig

Sadly, tomorrow is Sam & Shiggy’s last shift, they’ll be knocking off for the last time around 5pm. After that you can buy them a beer and quiz them about/wish them well on their future endeavours.