April 30th, 2015

Quake Keg

Llew of Wild & Woolly was supposed to be landing in Nepal today, to meet up with his parents who are already there. He's been there twice before, and said everyone he met were just lovely accommodating people.

However with the tragic ANZAC Day earthquake, Llew won't be joining his parents there any time soon.

Thankfully Llew's parents were in an area less affected by the quake and are fine, but that can't be said for millions of others in Nepal.

Llew wanted to do something for the people who treated him so kindly, and asked whether we'd help raise money with him by donating the proceeds of a keg of his Pastoral Pale Ale to the Red Cross.

Naturally, we were more than happy to help. So tomorrow we'll be tapping a keg of Wild & Woolly Pastoral Pale ale to raise funds for Red Cross' Nepal Earthquake response.

Saturday Supergroup

This Saturday new group The Superheaters are making their debut at Hashigo Zake and have a pretty impressive pedigree.
The Superheaters are Wayne Mason (writer of that little song, Nature), Richard Te One (drummer for Darren Watson/x-Ray Catz), Steve Moodie on bass and Chris Armour on guitar (Vincent Vega Trio).

Together they 'take a wild and twisted look at early rock n roll and rhythm & blues roots'.

They've been practicing together for months to get polished enough to perform, and have chosen HZ as their first ever gig.

Come on down to see them play in public for the first time from 9.30pm, for free!

Stool Stout

I managed to taste a few of the coffee beers at our recent 'Sleepless in Wellington' tasting, including ones we brought in specially for the tasting. One of these that stood out to me was De Molen's Kopi Loewak Imperial Stout.

I thought it had the most intense coffee flavour of the beers tasted, and backed it up with the silky malt backbone of a well made 11.2% imperial stout.
You may have guessed by the name that the coffee used in Kopi Loewak isn't regular coffee - it's Civet Cat coffee.

If you don't know yet, civet cat coffee is made when ripe coffee fruit are eaten by Civet Cats. The beans and surrounding fruit are digested by the cat, and the whole beans excreted in their poop. Then people collect their poop, wash it, roast it and De Molen put it in a beer.
Because some people are a bit iffy on buying a whole bottle of poop beer, we’re making 150ml pours available this Saturday for $7

Recently there has been reports of less-than-ethical practices surrounding the production of Civet Cat coffee, De Molen were pretty certain their beans were okay but couldn't be 100% - so they have since ceased production of this beer.

I Shook You

We're doing something a bit different for the new release this Tuesday. It'll be our first featuring a new bottle, rather than a tap release.
Choice Bros I Shook You! is a bottle conditioned barley wine that brewer Kerry Gray has been cellaring for 9 months to mellow.
Only 150 bottles of this beer were made, and even less than that will be sold to the public.

It features a mixture of Ale, Wheat , Rye, Oats and Crystal Malts and is hopped with both American and NZ Hops to 100IBU.
We'll be pouring glasses of I Shook You! from 5pm Tuesday, and if you really like it you'll be able to buy a bottle (or 3) from Kerry himself.

Basement Hops

Friday May 8th is our fourth annual fresh hop tap takeover.
It used to be that we'd be able to get every fresh hop beer of the season on tap for our takeover, and still have a couple taps spare for a wheat beer and a stout.
It's a sign of our thriving beer industry that this year we've had to pick and choose from around thirty fresh hop offerings, and have easily filled every tap and handpump - and then some.

Consideration was first given to beers that weren't featured in Hopstock, which gave us two beers from Three Boys, one from Wild & Woolly and one from Two Thumb.

The rest were ones customers were most vocal about liking during Hopstock, which gave us a total of sixteen fresh hop beers.
Whoops, we only have eleven taps... So now it's a fresh hop weekend! The five extras will rotate on tap as the first eleven run out.

Here's the full lineup:

On tap:

- Two Thumb Fresh Hop Pale Ale followed by ParrotDog Rare Bird Kakapo IPL

- Garage Project Sea of Green Pilsner

- Panhead Joy Ride Amber followed by Raindogs 17 Seconds ESB

- Three Boys Fresh Hop IPA followed by Three Boys Fresh Hop Golden

- Wild & Woolly Fresh Hop Savvy Llama

- 8 Wired Fresh Hopwired followed by Panhead Fresh Hop Vandal

- Funk Estate Fresh Hop Oh Lordy! followed by Cassels Fresh Hop Pale Ale

- Liberty/Hallertau Bier Das Schwarz Massive (BDSM)

- Mikes Hopstock and Two Smokin Barrels

On Handpump:

- Choice Bros Perichor Red IPA

- Kereru Fresh Hop Special Bitter

The first eleven will be on tap from midday on Friday the 8th of May (that's next week).