April 9th, 2015

Minuscule Monk

Coronado's Brewer Series had been kind to our New Release Tuesday programme, providing us with a few kegs of small batch beers with each new shipment.

The final Brewer Series beer from the previous shipment hits the taps this Tuesday: Friar Starter Belgian Blonde.

As the helpful infographic to the right explains, this isn't your hefty 7-10% abv Belgian ale. Friar Starter should give you the Belgian experience without the big alcohol hit.

It seems the Belgians have been doing this for decades without new drink driving laws to point to as a reason for lower alcohol beer. Kudos to them.

The recipe is the classic and simple pilsner/wheat malt base, but veers from tradition with Simcoe hops added with the noble Saaz. At only 13 IBU don't expect much if any hop character to show itself over the fruity esters that the Belgian yeast throws.

Our single 20L keg of Friar Starter will be tapped at 5pm this Tuesday.

Swingin' Organ

Our free musical entertainment this Saturday is provided by the Hammond Head Three.

Nigel Patterson (aka Hammondhead) will be firing up his 1961 Hammond B3 organ to deliver this hard swingin' late '60s inspired organ trio.

Also featuring Tia Beaufort on drums and Jules Blewman with guitar.

Catch them for free from 9.30pm this Saturday.

Sleepless in Wellington

We've recently noticed that we have quite a few interesting coffee beers. Then our mates up at Beer Without Borders got a bag of the beans that go into one of them: Modern Times Black House.

This provided a great excuse to make a night of it and show off our more interesting caffeinated brews.

So on Wednesday the 22nd of April. Hashigo barman and ex-barista Dylan Shearer will take you through a selection of our best coffee infused beers.
You'll be treated to the likes of:

• Mikkeller Beer Weak Breakfast
• Rogue Allegro Coffee Porter
• Modern Times Black House
• Ballast Point Victory at Sea
• Mikes VCP
• Moon Dog Cold Drip War
• De Molen Kopi Loewak
• Mikkeller/Amager HR Fredriksen Bourbon BA Coffee Imp Stout

You weren't planning on sleeping that night anyway right?

The tasting will only cost $35 per person, and kicks off at 6pm on Wednesday the 22nd of April.

Book your spot online at the Cult Beer Store or at the bar any time.

Fresh Hop Sneak Peek

The word is that Saturday's Pathway to Hoppiness Tasting is almost sold out.

Book soon if you want to hear Panhead's Mike Neilson speak about Panhead, hops, beer and ask him all your burning questions.

This tasting will also be the first sneak peek at Panhead's Fresh Hop Vandal, which will be making an appearance.

You can book by emailing Steph at info@craftbeercollege.co.nz, or online

Hopstock 2015

The annual Wellington-wide fresh hop celebration that is Hopstock is upon us.

If you don't know already, fresh hopped beer has been hopped with cones picked fresh from the bines. Usually hops are dried and pelleted, otherwise they'd go off mere hours after picking. But in drying and pelleting some volatile aromatic oils are lost.

Every year at hop harvest season NZ Hops have been getting more and more wet hops to more brewers, meaning we can experience more super-aromatic fresh hop beers every year.

There are so many fresh/wet hop beers being made for Hopstock this year, a few bars had to host two beers (damn eh?).

A few weeks ago we pulled two breweries names out of a hat to see what beers we'd be serving next week. We were stoked to pull Petone's Baylands Brewery and Christchurch's Raindogs Brewing.

These are a great combo, as Baylands have made WaiFly II, a super hoppy NZ IPA while Raindogs have done 17 Seconds ESB, which melds fresh hops with English yeast and malt.

To make things even more interesting we'll have both of these beers on handpump as well as on tap. So you can geek out about serving differences while you geek out hops.


Because there are so many beers, both WaiFly II and 17 Seconds will be available in a 150ml Taster size as well as the usual 300ml fancy and 473ml US pint.

The festival kicks off on Wednesday the 15th, and runs till Saturday the 18th. so come along and grab your Hopstock booklet and start collecting stamps!

Fresh Off the Boat

As I write this, the poor souls up at Beer Without Borders are sitting in their cool-store warehouse, shivering as they apply 'standard drinks' and 'imported by' stickers to thousands of newly imported bottles of US beer.

Later this afternoon we're hoping their shaking hands will have applied enough stickers to send some exciting newbies our way.

The biggest rock star of this shipment is arguably Gigantic Pipe Wrench - a gin barrel aged IPA that started a small trend of adding a shot of gin to pints of IPA when it made an appearance at Beervana last year.

Pipewrench will be competing with bottles of 3 varieties of Ballast Point Sculpin. Bottles of standard Sculpin and Grapefruit Sculpin are back in stock, along with Habanero Sculpin in bottles for the first time.

Also from Ballast Point, Victory at Sea Coffee Vanilla Imperial Porter is now available in the much more sensible size bottle of 355ml. So you can have one all to yourself!

Speakeasy are back, with restocks of Prohibition amber and a new easy going lager Metropolis.

Karl Strauss is also included in this shipment, with bottles of Big Barrel IPA. We're even going to be serving 200ml pours of this 9% IIPA on Saturday for $7 a pop.

These newbies should all be in the fridge later tonight.

April 2nd, 2015

Yoo Rah Tuh

For the second New Release Tuesday in a row we'll be featuring a Coronado collab - apparently winter was collaboration season in San Diego.

This time Coronado have teamed up with the renowned Cigar City Brewing from Tampa, Florida.

They've opted for the rarely-seen-but-usually-brilliant style of Baltic Porter for this partnership with Jurata (a nod to a mythological mermaid known to roam the depths of the Baltic Sea).

Baltic Porter is a bit of a weird one. The style originated in the Baltic states in the 18th century as a strong, syrupy dark beer with the rich roasty flavours you'd expect to see in an imperial stout. The tale goes that they made the beer stronger to prevent it from freezing when shipped.

It's also a lager.

The use of lager yeast is probably what makes Baltic porter a rare style, as cold-fermented lager yeast takes a lot longer to ferment out and condition. But if you're willing to put in the time it can give you a crisp, clean finish that is hard to emulate with ale yeast.

Thankfully Coronado and Cigar City took on the Baltic porter challenge, and according to online reviews have done a damn good job of it. You can expect "leather and licorice aromas." and flavours of "raisin and chocolate with some sherry" with "expresso notes in final" (ratebeer.com).

Clearly the beer tastes so good it knocks the ability to spell right out of you.

We'll be tapping our 20L keg of Jurata at 5pm this Tuesday.

Another US Import

On Saturday you'll be able to experience a different kind of US import. Unlike all of our other imports this one hasn't been shipped in a refrigerated container.
Freshly air-freighted to NZ and performing in our lounge this Saturday is U.S. Jazz vocalist/pianist Brenda Earl Stokes.
Brenda is visiting after touring North America and Europe in support of her latest album 'Right About Now'.

Brenda has performed at The Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, Toronto Jazz Festival, and Avery Fischer Hall as well as appearing with the likes of Wycliffe Gordon, Donny McCaslin and Maurice Hines.

Catch her with local legends Reuben Bradley (drums) and Nick Tipping (bass) from 9.30pm this Saturday.

Lord Cockswain Returns

We've managed to acquire a small amount of the rare, World Beer Cup silver medal winning Garage Project Bourbon Barrel Aged Lord Cockswain's Courage Porter.
We'll have around six 375ml bottles of BBALCCP which will be served 100ml at a time this Saturday.

This was last seen during Beervana last year on sale for a large price. We're not sure what the charge will be on the bottle pour yet, but it will be far more accessible for sure.It's first come first served, from midday this Saturday.

Hops are the new Hops

People love hops. Get used to seeing plenty of hoppy beers because that's not changing in a hurry.

Pundits are forever predicting the downfall of hoppy pale ales, but session beers, sour beers, mild ales or whatever you want to say is 'the new hops' always fails to be as popular as any IPA we have on tap.

The same is true for Craft Beer College's 'Pathway to Hoppiness' tasting, with it selling out every year.
It is guaranteed to fill up once again with the addition of head brewer/owner Mike Nielson from Upper Hut's Panhead Custom Ales in attendance to share his mastery of the aromatic flower that is humulus lupulus.

We've moved the tasting to the larger lounge room to accommodate more people, so a few spots are now open.

You can book by emailing Steph at info@craftbeercollege.co.nz, or online

Easter Weirdness

Two of the three and a half days we are required to close by law occur this weekend. If you're that person who elects to remain in Wellington over the long weekend, our altered trading hours are expertly explained by today's chalkboard:

All liquor outlets will be closed tomorrow and Sunday, so make sure you grab your beer supplies today. Ooh, that reminds me - don't forget that we have an off license with 20% off bar prices for takeaway bottles and reasonable rates for rigger/growler/flagon fills.

March 26th, 2015

Happy Birthday MJ

Michael Jackson was one of the most prominent figures in both the whisky and beer worlds. He had a passion and knowledge of malt beverages that infected thousands and helped launch the worldwide beer explosion that we're seeing today.

Sadly, Michael passed away in 2007 after privately suffering from Parkinson's disease for more than a decade.

Tomorrow is Michael Jackson's birthday, which since 2009 has been celebrated as International Whisk(e)y day - a day to remember Michael Jackson by raising a dram and money to fight the disease that took him.

Tomorrow, we'll be donating $2 for every dram of whisk(ey) purchased to Parkinson's New Zealand - along with all tips from the night.

We'll also be showing the recent doco on Michael's beery travels Beer Hunter: The Movie on our screens.

It's great reason for a post-work boiler maker.

8 Wired's First Sour

8 Wired’s first foray into sour beers was Grand Cru, a sour Quadrupel.
Soren took his ‘Sultan’ Quadrupel and aged it for a few years with some interesting bugs:

“Brewed in March 2011 and then laid to rest in used Pinot Noir, French Oak barrels from Grove Mill Winery. Brettanomyces and Pediococcus were added for extra funk.”

Luckily we had the foresight to buy some cellar stock of this impressive beer, which has been aging beautifully.

We're going to show it off this Saturday when we serve 150ml bottle pour for $7, so you can see where it all began.

The Doublenecks

This Saturday funky Improv meets Groove Classics from local legends Nick Granville (guitar & bass) and Lance Philip (drums & loops).
The music kicks off at 9.30pm and won't cost you a thing.

GKBF

Our buddies over at Beer Without Borders are once again heading down to what is probably New Zealand's biggest beer festival, the Great Kiwi Beer Festival in Christchurch.

I'll be there as well, helping them serve some of the 12,000 odd punters the greatest hits from the BwB catalogue.On the off-chance that you're heading to Chch for a reason other than GKBF this weekend, I highly recommend heading along. It's a great, chilled out day of delicious beer and food in the beautiful Hagley Park. If you're going, make sure to come and see us at the World of Beer Marquee.

Devil's Brew

In 2014 Coronado Brewing Company was named Champion Mid-Sized Brewing Co. and Brewmaster at the World Beer Cup and Devils Backbone Brewing Company capturing Mid-Sized Brewery of the Year at the Great American Beer Festival.
The pair of breweries decided to celebrate together, and in this industry collaborations are how it's done. This unholy coupling spawned the Devil’s Tale IPA.
Devil's Tale features Centennial and Mosaic hops, plus "a burst of woody rusticity" (whatever that means) from Northern Brewer hops.

You can get a sneak preview of this beer in bottles, but 5pm Tuesday we'll tap the very first keg of this beer at Hashigo.

Cricket!

If your heart has stopped pounding from Tuesday's tight semi-final by this Sunday, Hashigo will be a great place to (hopefully) see the Black Caps win their first world cup.

We'll be showing the big final live with commentary from 3.30pm, it's also a good day to exercise your 15% SOBA discount.

March 19th, 2015

Dumb and Slightly Dumber

Slightly Stuipid Stout is a smaller version of Coronado's imperial stout - Stupid Stout. Stupid Stout was Originally called 'Stoopid Stout' but, in what is becoming a far too regular occurrence, Coronado had to change the name to Stupid Stout because of a trademark clash. It turns out Lagunitas has the trademark for their 'Hop Stoopid Ale'. Perhaps we are indeed reaching "peak beer name."

Naming controversy aside, Slightly Stoopid Stupid Stout weighs in at just 3.8%ABV, considering the beer it's based on is 10%ABV this is quite the drop.

The brewery reckons it "lends itself to light roasty and chocolate notes with low hoppy bitterness and a medium light body leaving you with a light roasty finish."
Usually this beer is only available at the brewery taproom on Coronado Island, so we're stoked Beer Without Borders were able to source a couple of kegs.

There is literally only 40L of this beer in the country, so be here when we tap it on Tuesday at 5pm to ensure you don't miss out.

Hard to Pronounce

Mielcke & Hurtigkarl is an upmarket restaurant in Copenhagen - the kind that puts flower petals on the plate with tweezers.
Mikkeller has created a beer especially for this restaurant, also named Mielcke & Hurtigkarl.
To reflect the simple yet opulent dishes of the restaurant the beer is a simple Belgian Strong Golden ale, but it is aged in Château D’Yquem Barrels.

Wine buffs tell me that Château D’Yquem is considered one of the best (and most expensive) dessert wines in the world, which probably explains the high cost of this beer.

Usually a 375ml bottle of this beer would run you $38, but this Saturday you'll be able to experience it for just $11 per 125ml pour.
Oh, and apparently it's pronounced "mile-kuh ov hoo-tig-karl."

Vocal Vibes

More vocal excellence will be permeating the bar this Saturday, with Deanne 'Blitz' Kreig whipping out rhythm and jazz vocals along with John "Sting" Rae on drums and Ol' King Kreabsley with the organ.

The music kicks off at 9.30pm and won't cost you a penny or a cent.

New Beers Now

Want a new beer now? Okay! We've just got in a new collaboration IPA from Coronado and Devil's Backbone in the fridge - Devil's Tale IPA.

Devil's Backbone hail from the East Coast, West Virginia. The pair of breweries got together at a festival and thought it'd be neat to have the champion mid-size brewery from the World Beer Cup brew a beer with the champion mid-size brewery from the Great American Beer Festival.

It's a 7.5% IPA, with "bright citrus and tropical fruit character care of Centennial and Mosaic hops, plus a burst of woody rusticity from the Northern Brewer hops."

Another new collab of more local origins is also available now, with the new Fork and Brewer/Hawkshead Parallel Im-porter launched yesterday.
The spiel goes:

"Motueka and NZ Cascade hops have been liberally dosed into this wonderful Kiwi malt-driven beauty. Enough chocolaty malt to tickle the tonsils of the dark beer lovers & a cornucopia of juicy berry hop notes to please the hop fans."

It's about right too.

March 12th, 2015

Llamas Drink Free

Tonight we welcome another to the quickly expanding Wellington brewing community, with the launch of Mt Cook's Wild and Woolly.

I went into the details of W & W inlast week's update, but at that time the fourth and final launch beer remained a secret.

Readers of (ex-Hashigan, current Goldie) Dylan Jauslan's excellent blog The Bottleneck may recognise the name Silver Cat Angry Gummy Bear White Stout from Dylan's list "Top 20 Beers You Must Try to Put on Your Bucket List Before You Die".
The point of having this outlandish sounding and (at the time) fictional beer on the list was so no one could ever complete it. It might sound cynical, but really the blog is a brilliant dig at beer themed clickbait.

Wild and Woolly brewer Llew took this fictional beer as a challenge, and actually created it.

“SCAGBWS is a wheat stout fermented with a Belgian witbier yeast with the bonus of Haribo gummi bears added to the boil (wouldn’t you be angry if someone dumped you and your friends in a kettle full of boiling wort?)
It’s got a fabulous creamy head and mouthfeel, low roastiness for a stout, moderate Belgian yeast character and a clearly detectable flavour of gummi bears.”

Dylan took the news gracefully. Luckily there's barely 50L of this beer, so Dylan's list will remain unattainable to most.
SCAGBWS will be on tap from 5.30pm this afternoon, along with Complete Cock Up Belgian Pale Ale, Basilisk Citrus & Thai Basil Berliner Weisse and Pygmy Fruit Bat Chilli Mango Saison.

If you can't make it tonight, don't fret. We'll be saving a little bit of some of these beers for Saturday's Craft Beer College: Miracle of Malt\tasting, featuring none other then Llew himself.

You can book your place at this link or by emailing info@craftbeercollege.co.nz

New to the Lounge

A new six piece band makes their HZ lounge debut this Saturday. Clube Do Choro will be filling the bar with traditional form of Brazilian Jazz, that I'm told gave rise to Samba.
No, there won't be beads, and it won't cost you a dime to enjoy the music this Saturday at 9.30pm

Tex-Mex

Looking at Mexas Ranger’s ingredients list, you’d think it would be a disaster.

Mexas Ranger contains spices, almond milk, cocoa, chili, black beans & avocado leaves. For good measure it is then aged in Tequila Barrels.
However, in classic Mikkeller fashion, all of these ingredients end up integrating into a beautiful and intriguing 6.6% stout.
See how all those flavours work this Saturday, when you can grab a 125ml bottle pour for just $8.

Notorious B.E.E.R.

Yesterday a long awaited container of Californian beer arrived up the road at Beer Without Borders. Hooray!

Along with much needed restocks of crowd favourites, this shipment brings even more interesting seasonal beers from Coronado.

Try the first of these limited seasonals this Tuesday when Biggie Smalls Session IPA hits the tap.Described as "a prominently Simcoe and Mosaic hopped session IPA, tastes more like a hoppy pale ale, while carrying a lot of the fruitiness and citrus aspects that drinkers of heavier IPAs usually desire."

Biggie Smalls hits the taps at 5pm Tuesday. There was only 40L in this shipment, so don't miss out.

Grapefruit Sculpin!

The biggest crowd favourite of all, Ballast Point Grapefruit Sculpin, arrived in 355ml bottle format in the above mentioned Cali shipment.

Also more cans of the brilliant Modern Times Blazing World IPA, and 650ml bottles of a new Modern Times seasonal IPA - City of the Sun.

All are in the fridge for your enjoyment today.

March 5th, 2015

It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time

Choice Bros is the brainchild of Kerry Gray - bearded rainbow overalls wearer, brewer and all round great guy.

A few weeks back we hosted his very traditional English pale ale 'Modern Love' on tap for a new release Tuesday.

This Tuesday will feature another of his beers, but the polar opposite of Modern Love.

On The Brain is a Peanut Butter and Raspberry English Ale. Yep, peanut butter and jam beer.

I was fortunate enough to try the other keg of this beer that Kerry made for Martinborough BrewDay, and I can confirm that it indeed does taste like peanut butter and jam on toast!

It manages to not be too cloying (ala Rogue Voodoo Doughnut beers), while still showing lots of interesting peanut and raspberry character.

How does one infuse beer with peanut flavour without ruining it with oils you ask?

Luckily Kerry has the sharing spirit of a homebrewer, and let me know that such a thing as 'peanut flour' exists. It is a by-product of peanut oil production, leftover after all of the oil has been extracted meaning you can add peanut solids to a beer without any oil! So Kerry tracked down this (very expensive) ingredient and added it to On The Brain to impart it's distinct nuttyness (yes I'm aware peanuts are legumes, jeez).

We managed to snag the only other remaining keg of On The Brain after the first was quickly conumed by BrewDay punters.

I'm guessing this keg will be just as popular, so make sure you're at the bar 5pm sharp this Tuesday to experience one of the most interesting local beers of the year.

Warkworth's New Claim to Fame

Over the past six months or so, 8 Wired have been slowly making the move from contract brewing at Renaissance in Blenheim to brewing on their own equipment in Warkworth.

This wasn't an easy task, with hundreds of barrels filled with wonderful sour and strong beers in storage needing to be transported northwards.
Thankfully the precious cargo made it in tact.

8 Wired's new brewing equipment started arriving in mid-december, and was ready to brew Warkworth's first large scale beer by late January.
'Begin as you mean to go on' is the saying, so in that spirit the first beer brewed on 8 Wired's shiny new kit was First Blood, an 8% Double Red IPA.

Rather than doing a release event at one location, Soren thought it would be best to share their first beer with everyone who made it possible by supporting 8 Wired over the years.

So on Tuesday along with On The Brain we'll be tapping our first keg of Warkworth-brewed 8 Wired in celebration of their milestone. Come get some!

Surf Funk Saturday

This Saturday's live music act comes courtesy of The Vincent Vega Trio.

They're bringing a hot blend of surf, funk, soul and blues with Chris Armour on guitar, Andy Russell with the drums and Nick Lissette on Bass.

They'll be kicking off at 9.30pm& and won't cost you a thing.

Bombs and Grenades

Bommen & Granaten is De Molen’s beery take on a dessert wine. It’s fitting then that this version has been aged in old wine barrels from the Bordeaux region.
However, at 15.2% ABV this beer is stronger than most dessert wines!

The brewery says:

“With 15% ABV is was more than obvious that we had to name this dessert beer Bombs and Grenades. The use of champagne yeast has had its effect on both flavour and body. There’s plenty of fruit like orange, tangerine and sweet apples. It’s powerful and full bodied but still easy going."

This Saturday only, instead of having to buy a whole bottle of this sweet as beer, you can grab a 150ml pour for $7.50 instead.

Introducing Wild & Woolly

Llew Bardecki has been a good friend of mine for years now. We met through homebrewing circles, and were quickly swapping brews and advice. I was always impressed with Llews innovative approach to brewing.

I'll always remember his homebrewed 'Zombie Apocalypse Beer' - a beer made only with ingredients you'd be able to loot from a supermarket in a zombie apocalypse. The best thing about it was that it tasted kinda like beer, but that's still impressive given the restrictions. I know where I'll be heading when the zombies come.

Naturally I was super stoked when I heard Llew was looking to open a wee commercial brewery to make his beers on a larger scale.

After months of searching, a suitable property for his 500L brewery was found in Mount Cook (in King St, behind pizza hutt). Llew's commercial venture was christened Wild and Woolly, (due to his love of llamas), and Annika of Tiamana Brewing joined him to make a the part-time operation more viable.

The wee 500L kit was assembled using much of Llews knowledge as an electrical engineer, and a lot of help from Annika and thier friends.

We're proud to be the venue to officially launch Wild and Woolly into the wild, with four of Llew's adventurous brews on tap Thursday next week (12 March).

On tap will be:

Pygmy Fruit Bat:

"Pygmy Fruit Bat table saison. At 3.6%abv it's a refreshing summer day drop. The rocotto peppers leap out at you on the nose, followed by a dry mouthfeel with a touch of mango and finishing with some chilli heat."

Complete Cock-Up

"Complete Cock Up pale ale is a collaboration brew with our friends at Wellington homebrew shop Brewtopia. This beer was the result of a terribly difficult brewday, but it's turned out fabulously. It's a 5% pale ale generously hopped with NZ Pacifica and Wai-Iti hops, then fermented with a blend of two Belgian ale yeasts, an American ale yeast, and even a bit of Brettanomyces for good measure. Lovely stuff!"

Basilisk Berliner Weisse

"Wonderfully refreshing Basilisk Spiced Berliner Weisse, with kaffir lime leaf, lemon zest and Thai basil"

Basilisk was the first beer brewed on the new 500L kit.

The fourth beer is still a secret, but I'm told it may contain gummy bears...

To celebrate the brewery opening us an Llew will be getting generous with the samples. So you'll definitely want to be here for the ceremonial first pour at 5pm Thursday March 12.

Meet the Wild & Woolly Man

Two days after the Wild & Woolly brewery launch, we'll be hosting a Craft Beer College tasting featuring Llew himself (and his beers). Llew will be chatting about his beers, the difficulties of opening a new brewery and of course, malt.

The Miracle of Malt with Wild and Woolly Brewing is "a celebration of the miracle of malt and the contribution it makes to the flavour and colour of beer. You will taste seven beers that will all showcase the importance of malt in the brewing process and highlight the impact on ABV."

Book your spot at the above link or by emailing info@craftbeercollege.co.nz

February 26th, 2015

Haight Speech

Many of you have probably heard of San Francisco's Toronado bar. Toronado now exists in many U.S, cities, but the Haight St location was the original.

Toronado has been through and contributed to the entire rise of west coast brewing, and has served as an example for beer bars worldwide.

HZ is lucky to be friends with Toronado's longest serving bartenders, Paul Stanard.

Paul has been bartending at San Fransisco's beery establishments for over 20 years - so he's seen some shit. On my recent trip to SF we got a thorough 'behind the scenes' tour from Paul.

It was amazing to see how Paul was known to every bar and brewery we visited, gaining us  many impromptu tours and tastings. It was quite the day.

Denise & Paul at Magnolia Brewery

Paul happens to be on his annual Wellington visit, so we thought we'd ask him to run a tasting of some of his favourite SF brewed beers that we stock, along with some of his favourite NZ beers.

So if you're free this Tuesday (March 3), come on down and join us.

Expect beer from Speakeasy, Almanac and Bear Republic and an abundance of opinions and war stories from craft beer’s frontline.

Even better, this entertaining evening of beer tasting will only cost you $25. To book your place head to CultBeerStore.co.nz or hit up one of our lovey bartenders.

Feijoa is Weird.

Last week I mentioned that 8 Wired's Wild Feijoa is finally in bottles. Unfortunately the nature of barrel aged sour beers means a bottle is not what you'd call 'cheap and accessable'.

But that's exactly what Bottle Pour Saturday is for.
So if you're not sure if you're keen on the weird taste of feijoa, or can't convince your mates to split one with you, this Saturday we'll be doing a 150ml bottle pour for $7.50.

RhinoBoogie

The Rhinos always get people moving when they play the HZ lounge.
Their combination of Jazz-funk fusion mixed with live samples from DJ Uncle Silverback create some amazingly fun tunes.
They're once again playing in our lounge this Saturday at 9.30pm, with no door charge as usual.

Fear Is Your Only God

Perhaps to make up for their tiny batch size, Adroit Theory do everything else big.

Their names, for example, do not just describe the beer but the attitude you should have while drinking it.

The name Fear Is Your Only God perhaps implies we should fear this imperial saison, because Adroit Theory have managed to push this quenching Belgian style ale to 8.6%.

To prevent riots this we'll only be serving it up in 300ml glasses when it hits our taps for the first time at 5pm this Tuesday.

Cricket

The Black Caps have possibly the best chance ever to take the title at the world cup this year.

If you care about that sort of thing, and don't have a 'test-matches-are-the-only-real-form-of-cricket' kinda attitude you'll be please to know we're making good use of our Sky Sports subscription.

We'll be showing all world cup matches (except when there's two on simultaneously) on the Red Room tele, so you can enjoy some civilised sport with delicious civilised beer in a civilised environment.

Save The Date

A quick heads up, that something Wild And a little Woolly from Mt. Cook will be taking over four of our taps for the first time on Thursday March 12th. Make sure you can come along.