July 28th, 2016

Fruit(lands) Salad

The latest BwB shipment hit right in the middle of when Modern Times change the seasonal fruit in their Fruitlands Gose. This means we were able to obtain two versions of the deliciously salty fruit sour.

If you were at our last tasting, you've already had the pleaure of tasting Fruitlands Apricot and Fruitlands Passion Guava side-by-side. The two beers won the tasting (Apricot 1st, Pasion Guava 2nd) so we thought we'd share the experience with everyone this Saturday with a side-by-side bottle pour.

This Saturday from midday we're pouring both the Apricot and Passion Guava versions side-by-side so you can pick your fave.

We'll be pouring 150ml TeKus of each from midday this Saturday, for just $10.

La Sirene Live

Dubbed "possibly the tasting of the year" by a mr @Greasylightbulb, you'd do well to book in for next Wednesday's La Sirene tasting.

Eight La sirene beers will be tasted (pictured right), and you'll be guided by La Sirene founder Costa Nikias joining us live via skype.

Attendees of our previous live-via-skype tastings (Modern Times and Gigantic) will know that this works surprisingly well with punters able to ask questions of the brewer just like they're in the room, all thanks to our experienced IT department.

It's $45 for a spot in the tasting, which includes La Sirene's legendary Praline, and new Imperial Praline beers. You can book over the bar or on cultbeerstore.co.nz.

If you don't have the time to spare for the full tasting, we'll also be offering a $20 flight of the four La Sirene beers on tap: Belle French, Botanique, Praline and Biere Henri.
That's next Wednesday only though, so see you there!

NRT: Speakeasy/Brothers Contraband IPA

Back in 2014 Brandon Nash of Speakeasy Brewing (San Francisco) visited NZ, and brewed a collaboration IPA with Brothers Beer: Northern Hemisphere Contraband IPA.
This was a West-Coast style IPA brewed in NZ with all US hops.

Earlier this year, a contingent from Brother Beer headed to San Francisco and returned the favour by brewing Southern Hemisphere Contraband IPA over there.

We managed to secure some of this very interntaional brew in the latest BwB shipment, so this Tuesday we're tapping Southern Hemisphere Contraband IPA for the first time.

Southern Hemisphere Contraband IPA switches up the formula, with the beer being brewed in the US but using only NZ grown hops.

"Made in collaboration with Brothers Beer in New Zealand, Contraband IPA was created using all Southern Hemisphere hops. Pacific Gem and Nelson [Sauvin] were utilized in the boil, then the beer was dry hopped with Wai-iti.
The beer is full of tropical and citrus fruit flavors: lime, lemon, and mandarin orange.
While Contraband IPA is focused on the hops, the malt bill provides a solid backbone of biscuit and caramel flavors."

It's always interesting to see how NZ hops are utilised by US brewers, and the reviews from the states are glowing so far.

We tap Southern Hemisphere Contraband IPA at 5pm this Tuesday, see you there.

Two Weeks To Go

What?! Beervana is just over two weeks away!

Which means our programme of events is less than two weeks away. It's going to be a busy week, so here's what we've got:

Tuesday August 9th: Beyond Barley Beer & Spirits Tasting with Spiritus
Wednesday August 10th: Love Me A Lager with Tiamana
Thursday August 11th: Litmus Fest Sour Tap Takeover
Friday August 12th: 8 Wired Blackout Imperial Stout Takeover

The first three events require bookings, so make sure you lock in your place.

Some Beers You Can Drink Now, or Maybe Later

If there were a Trappist brewery in San Francisco I'd imagine their Quadrupel would taste something like Almanac's Paris of the West Quad.

At 9.5% it's not a starter beer by any means. But it's rich raisiny malt (backed up by actual raisins) works beautifully with the hint of orange. It's all beautifully balanced. If you just want  nip we're serving it up in 200ml Teku or otherwise there's the/ 300ml fancy glass.

I asked Ava what makes Queen About Town a "Winter IPA", thinking there might be a wintery adjunct added.
Thankfully not, she's just amplified the malt character in this NZ hopped IPA to give it a richer base than your usual super-pale west coast style IPA.
It's hopped with Waimea, Brooklyn Moutere, Rakau and Green Bullet.

These four come together very nicely in this very satisfying IPA.

It's Modern Times Blazing World IPA, on tap.
You know it's good, you know it's fresh (kegged mid June), you know you want it.

July 21st, 2016

La Sirène, Le Retour

La Sirene stand out from every other Australian brewer, not just because they consistently make some of the best beer in the country - but also their focus on Belgian farmhouse style beers.

We found this out first hand last year when a small shipment came across the ditch for PBE. Since then BwB has been working on second -and it is just days away from arrival.

To give La Sirene the welcome it deserves, we're holding a simultaneous tap takeover and tasting on Wednesday August 3rd.

The best part of it all is: La Sirene Founder Costa Nikias will be joining live via skype to take us through his range of beers!
Costa will take us through these eight beers from his lineup:

Saisonette: "A tribute to the original Saison producers in the Wallonia region of Southern Belgium.
Saisonette is a low alcohol (3.8%) rustic Saison, produced in a true to style manner.

Belle French Ale: "A French farmhouse style table beer for all occassions."

Saison: "La Sirène Saison is a beer that is special to our hearts and is a tribute to the style born in the Wallonia region of Southern Belgium, where these Farmhouse styles were brewed to quench the thirst of field workers."

Farmhouse Red: "La Sirène Farmhouse Red is a rustic style Red Ale brewed using age old Flemish brewing techniques.
5 different Belgian specialty malts were used to brew this recipe along with fresh rose buds, hibiscus & dandelions to provide for a provincial farmhouse style Belgian ale experience."

Botanique (winter): "Our current Winter Botanique incorporates in-season mandarin peel with fresh white whole peppercorns infused into a Saison base beer.
The beer has fresh mandarin citrus aromas that meld wonderfully with our yeast driven characters, and warms with the slight heat & spice of the freshly cracked white pepper. "

Praline: "A very special Belgian chocolate ale. Building on a Belgian stout base, it is brewed with organic vanilla pods, cacao nibs from Mexico and hazelnuts and with a creamy body, it is velvety, dark and seductive."

• (GABS) Festival Mx People's Choice Award Winner 2014
• The Local Taphouse Australia's Hottest 100 Beers 2014: #5

Biere Henri: "Bière Henri pays homage to a French flavour invention that revolutionised the the pastry world. Complementary desert flavours with prominent spices to deliver a rounded experience."

Imperial Praline: "The evolution of our renowned and beloved Praline. With it’s own grain bill and the proliferation of cacao, hand scraped vanilla and hazelnut."

A very limited quantity of imperial Praline is coming into NZ. So little in fact, that this beer won't be released for sale. Your only chance to try this beer will be at tastings like this!

Tickets to the tasting are just $45, and are available now over the bar or on cultbeerstore.co.nz.

If you're keen for a La Sirene fix, but can't make it to the Wednesday tasting - never fear!

On the night of the tasting we'll have four La Sirene beers on tap for the tasting:

• Belle French Ale
• Botanique
• Praline
• Biere Henri

So naturally we'll also be offering a $20 tasting flight of each of these beers from midday on Wednesday the 3rd.
Meaning if you're short on time you can still get a taste of Aussies best farmhouse brewer.

Live in the Lounge: Tawhiri Funk

This Saturday's live music act is new to HZ, but contains a fimilar face.

Tawhiri Funk is a new band, and contains Uncle Silverback of Rhino-Boogie fame.

From 9pm this Saturday come on down and enjoy their super-heavy, super-tight, super-hype live funk, jazz and hip hop. There'll be original compositions, funky reworkings and free improvised future funk.

Tawhiri funk are: Thomas Friggins - Drums & Samples, Lorenzo Pradel - Alto Sax-Raps, Rainbow Warrior - Tenor Sax, Uncle Silverback - Bass Trombone-Turntablism & Ayrton Foote - Organ Fonk.

NRT: Te Aro Oatmeal Stout

Our next New Release Tuesday is a wintry Oatmeal Stout from Te Aro Brewing Co.

Head brewer Karl made the gutsy call to use 25% oats - increasing the chance of a tough brewday but also upping the thick texture that oats provide to a stout.

We're looking forward to seeing how a beer that is one quarter oats tastes when we tap this 5.1% brew on Tuesday at 5pm.

RTB Simplified

Now that you've had a chance to digest last week's info dump regarding our Road to Beervana events, you can purchase tickets to your selected events over on our special RTB Cultbeerstore page.
You may notice one event there which wasn't mentioned last week: A screening of the movie PDX: Brew City at Lighthouse Cinema Cuba.

This one's being put on by Beer Without Borders, but $30 gets you entry to the film, a glass of Gigantic Brewing Co. Beer and a Yakitori Skewer from "Kushi" (AKA the transformed Grill Meats Beer Yakitori / Baird Brewing Bar as a part of Road to Beervana).

July 14th, 2016

Fresh 'n Fruity Wednesday

Tickets are still available for our next new shipment tasting, featuring brand new beers from Modern Times, and super fresh IPA's from Speakeasy.

We'll be tasting:

• Maui Pineapple Mana Wheat
• Modern Times Fruitlands Passion Guava Gose & Apricot Gose
• Modern Times Oneida Pale Ale
• Modern Times City of the Dead Foreign Extra Stout
• Speakeasy Vendetta IPA
• Speakeasy Double Daddy IIPA

Remember, it's just $40 to try all seven of these beers - book your spot on cultbeerstore.co.nz or over the bar. What else are ya gonna do on a Wednesday night?

Bourbon Beer - Balance or Brutality?

Speakeasy Bourbon BA Scarface (9.5%) and Gigantic MOST Most Premium (11.5%) are both bourbon barrel aged imperial stouts, but take vastly different approaches to the style.

Speakeasy Scarface was back-blended with a non-barrel aged version, to find a balance between the beer and bourbon.
While Gigatnic MOST Most Premium is the pure  unadulterated, in your face bourbon barrel aged beer.

To compare the two approaches to this extreme style of beer, this Saturday from midday we'll be doing 100ml bottle pours of both of these big bourbony beasts side-by-side for $12.

These usually come at $45 per bottle, so this is a great way to experience the marriage of bourbon and beer.

On-ee-da? Won-ee-dah? Oh-nye-dah?

The chilled container with the next US West Coast shipment is currently on the final leg of its journey, from Auckland to Wellington.

This means we're definitely on for next week's New Release Tuesday: Modern Times Oneida 2016.

This year's Oneida has come down in ABV to 5.2%, putting it squarely in the easy drinking pale ale category:
"Oneida is Hallertau Blanc-centric. The bright tropical fruit and lemongrass notes give it an uber-pungent aroma, with the grapefruity citrus of Cascade providing a touch of balance.
We've also added experimental hop variety 05256 to the mix, adding a nice hop complexity while keeping it a drinkable pale ale.

While more aggressively bitter than Fortunate Islands, Oneida still has a light body and moderate ABV."

Come on down this Tuesday from 5pm to taste Oneida as fresh as possible! Bonus marks to anyone who knows how "Oneida" is correctly pronounced.

Hashigo Zake's Road to Beervana

I teased last week, but this week you get the motherload of Road To Beervana info.

Before we get too deep into the details, here is a quick TL;DR summation of our event lineup for the week:

• Tuesday Aug 9th, 5pm: NRT; Staffie Series - "Nobody Likes a Buzzkill" Sour Honey Stout
• Tuesday Aug 9th, 6pm: Beyond Barley, Beer & Spirit tasting with Spiritus
• Wednesday Aug 10th: Love Me a Lager, lager tasting with Tiamana
• Thursday Aug 11th: Litmus Fest, sour tap tap takeover
• Friday Aug 12th: 8 Wired Blackout, 4 x 8 wired imperial stouts on tap.

Now for all the details.



The HZ staff all piled in for this special NRT for RTB: Nobody Likes a Buzzkill.

Rory, Tory, Jonny, Mathias and Tristan all piled in to Wild & Woolly brewery and made  just 20L of this sour honey stout.

Yup, Nobody Likes a Buzzkill is a sour honey stout. The team put together a stout recipe, added sediment harvested from Almanac Mandarina Sour and threw in some honey from Tristan's own beehives.
It's still developing, so we'll have more details about the beer closer to the 9th.



What: Road To Beervana - Beer & Spirit Matching with Spritus
When: Tuesday August 9th, 6pm - 8.30pm
Where: Hashigo Zake, 25 Taranaki St, Te Aro, Wellington
How Much: $55
Why does barley always steal the show? We give other grains other than barley the spotlight with Hashigo Zake beers matched to Spiritus spirits made with rye, oat, wheat and more.
Spiritus' range features spirits from small US producers like Koval, Few and Mississippi River Distilling. These distillers create small batches of more adventurous spirits, sometimes using non-standard ingredients.
Jonny from Hashigo Zake and Maria from Spiritus will take you through six beers and six spirits, with a few snacks to keep the stomach lined.

Full beer and spirit lineup will be announced on the event page soon.

Book over the bar or on cultbeerstore.co.nz



What: Road To Beervana - Lager Tasting with Tiamana
When: Wednesday August 10th, 6pm-8.30pm
Where: Hashigo Zake, 25 Taranaki St, Te Aro, Wellington
How Much: $45
Tiamana brewer Annika Naschitzki will take you through the breadth and depth of lager styles, including three beers made specially for the tasting!
Annika has brewed a simple base beer and split it into three 20 litre batches, which were then each fermented with a different lager yeast. 
These three lagers will be tasted side-by-side to really analyse the difference various lager yeasts make.

Annika will also take you through some lesser known lager styles, like Doppelbock, India Pale Lager, and Baltic Porter.

Eight beers will be tasted, along with delicious snacks from Annika's homeland of Germany.

the full lineup will be announced on the event page once Annika's back from Germany.

But you can book now over the bar or on cultbeerstore.co.nz.



What: Seriously Sour Tap Takeover
When: Thursday August 11th, 12pm-8pm
Where: Hashigo Zake, 25 Taranaki St, Te Aro, Wellington
How Much: $60
Litmus Fest is your chance to melt your teeth and dissolve your stomach lining.
Your ticket entitles your to one each of five serious sour beers on tap, and rolling hourly bottle pours of sours from the naughty fridge between 4pm and 8pm.

We're not talking kettle sours, or just 'tart' beers here. We're talking seriously sour, and on tap.
You'll be given a set of five tokens on arrival, each of which you can exchange for their corresponding sour beer.

On tap we'll have beers from Belgium's Bacchus and Liefmans, Almanac from San Francisco and a new sour from our very own 8 Wired.

Between 4pm and 8pm on the hour we'll also be pouring samples of some of the more serious sours from our 'naughty fridge' for Litmus Fest participants to enjoy.
Don't worry, the Gaviscon® is on us.

There's limited beer available, so book now to secure your tokens to Litmus fest.
Book over the bar or on cultbeerstore.co.nz



What: Four MASSIVE 8 Wired Imperial Stouts on tap
When: Friday August 11th, 12pm - late
Where: Hashigo Zake, 25 Taranaki St, Te Aro, Wellington
How Much: $20 for a glass of each, over the bar

On the Friday of Beervana, grab a tasting flight of four MASSIVE stouts from 8 Wired.

On tap we'll have Ice Distilled Bumaye (30%-ish ABV), a new Barrel Aged version of batch #2 Bumaye (16%-ish ABV), Barrel Aged Batch 2.18 (11% ABV) & 2014 Vintage iStout (10.5% ABV) from our cellar.

These stouts start at 10.5% and only go up from there, so prepare for some HUGE flavours.

For just $20 you can grab a multi-trip ticket for a glass of each of these impressive beers.
Obviously with the strength of these beers, the size of these glasses will vary from small to very small!

On Tap & Coming Soon

The second and final keg of Tasi's Staffie Brew Plummy the Elder Plum Porter is on tap now.

Somehow, a few weeks in the keg has caused the plum aromas and flavours to really amp up.
This'll be your last chance to taste Tasi's handiwork.



ParrotDog recently started to re-brand their plethora of IPA recipes under one label: The Flora Series.
So far Riwaka Secret has become Flora: Kowhai IIPA and BloodyDingo has become Flora: Rata Imperial Red IPA.
They're releasing Flora beers mainly in their now 500ml bottle, but we've managed to grab a keg of Rata which should come on tonight.

Also, check out ParrotDog's hilarious equity crowdfunding announcement 'press conference'.
Nice.


Once this keg of Croucher Black Forest Sour goes (which is an amazing sour beer in its own right), we'll be tapping a keg of legit Belgian Lambic: Lindemans Gueuze.

We even serve it in pints, so keep an eye out on for this one coming on soon.

July 7th, 2016

New Zeelandt

Zeelandt Brewery hasn't been seen in these parts very often, especially on tap.
Since the brewery opened in 2012 they've been focusing on the local market and upper North Island.
That's about to change this Tuesday, when we tap our first keg from Zeelandt: Negra Royale.

Negra Royale (6.1%) is a blend of two Zeelandt beers: their Schwarzbier and London Porter. This blend has then been aged in a tempranillo barrel for 12 months.
A secondary fermentation has occurred in barrel giving this dark ale a slightly sour acidic kick.

I've never tried Tempranillo barrel aged beer before, so it'll be interesting to see how the barrel comes through - and what the barrel flora has done to the beer.

We're tapping Negra Royale at 5pm this Tuesday, apparently only two kegs are coming to Wellington - so don't miss out!

Fresh 'n Fruity 'n Hoppy

A new BwB shipment from the west coast of the US is on its way - that means brand new beers to try!

This next shipment focuses on San Diego and San Francisco breweries Modern Times and Speakeasy (plus a bit of Maui), so on Wednesday the 20th from 6pm we'll be tasting seven new beers from both.

These new beers seem to either be fruit-focused or hop-focused, so we'll start off with the fruit and end on some big hops!

We've managed to secure two versions of Modern Times' sensational seasonal Gose 'Fruitlands' - which we'll be tasting side-by-side to compare the two; Apricot & Passionfruit Guava.

We'll be tasting:

• Maui Pineapple Mana Wheat
• Modern Times Fruitlands Passion Guava Gose & Apricot Gose
• Modern Times Oneida Pale Ale
• Modern Times City of the Dead Foreign Extra Stout
• Speakeasy Vendetta IPA
• Speakeasy Double Daddy IIPA

Even better, it's just $40 to try all seven of these beers - book your spot on cultbeerstore.co.nz or over the bar!

The Death Ho's Return

Reuben Bradley and his Death Ho's are back in the HZ lounge this Saturday.

They're playing "Jazz Metal", which involves taking the music of Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Steely Dan and Band of Gypsies, stretching it apart & improvising.

The Death Ho's feature Daniel Hayles on Keys, Nick Tipping on Bass and Reuben Bradley on Drums.

The Jazz Metal kicks off from 9pm this Saturday, and won't cost you a thing. As always!

The Road to The Road To Beervana

It's hard to believe, but there's just one month left before the biggest week in Wellington beer.
A group of volunteers from Craft Beer Capital, various Welly beer bars and Beervana have been busy putting together the series of beery events known as Road To Beervana, for the third year running.

It's looking like the biggest RTB yet, with 50+ beer focused events over the week. Apparently there's even a venue in Christchurch getting into it this year.

We've got four events lined up for the Road To Beervana. We can't give out too many details at the moment, but we have one event a day from Tuesday through Friday. Three of the four are collaborations (with Tiamana, 8 Wired and Spiritus), while the fourth will feature a few hardcore sour beers on our taps....

Keep an eye out for event announcements on The Road To Beervana's website, Twitter and Facebook so you can book as soon as event go live. Our events have limited places and are likely to sell out!

June 30th, 2016

Smash 'n' GABS

Seeing as we sent out a special email on Tuesday, this is just a quick reminder that the first six Smash 'n' GABS beers are on tap now!

The lunch crowd had a good go at them, taking advantage of the 200ml Teku pours to try a wide variety. At the moment it's looking like the Biere Henri is going to be the first to go, so get in soon!

We have three more to come on as the beers pictured right run out:

• 8 Wired Palate Trip IPA
• Croucher Black Forest Sour
• Kereru Black Ruby Imperial Stout

Barley Wine vs Barrel-y Wine

Winter is Barley Wine's time to shine, and this Saturday we've got two amazing massive barley wines from Dutch brewer De Molen to keep you warm.

Bommen & Granaten translates to 'Bombs & Grenades' - a fitting name considering its strength of 15.2ABV!!

When tasting Bommen & Granaten in the past I've found it been sweet, malty and complex. The kind of barley wine that gives you sticky lips. It's been a while since I last had it, so it may have dried out a bit by now.

This Saturday we'll be tasting two different versions of the 2013 vintage head to head.
The Bourdeaux barrel aged version will be going up against its non-barrel aged counterpart. From midday we'll be pouring 100ml of each for $12 - believe me, 100ml is plenty with these beers!

So come on down this Saturday and see how Bordeaux barrels change the flavour of a massive beer. If you like them, don't forget you can take some home for your cellar - these beasts have a best before of July 2038.

Four on the Fourth

Every year at Hashigo we celebrate USA beer on the anniversary of their independence.
July 4th is a Monday this year, but we're still partying with four beers brewed in the U-S-of-A on tap, and enough red, white and blue to that you'll have an instant need to own a semi-automatic rifle.

On tap this Monday will be:
Gigantic The Business Pale Ale
Gigantic IPA
Giganic Ginormous IIPA
Almanac Peach de Brettaville

Even better, for just $35 you can grab a flight of all four; including a US-pint of The Business, a Fancy of Gigantic IPA & Ginormous and a TeKu of Peach de Brettaville.

We'll have some special food available in keeping with the USA theme, inlcuding Beef Chilli & Corn Chips, Hot Dogs and Warm Apple Pie with Ice Cream!

Old Smokey

After four years of aging our final keg of Nøgne Ø Sunturnbrew is coming out of its snow cave up at the BwB cool-store to blow some minds.

After aging, this 11% Barley Wine with 30% smoked malt should have calmed down somewhat and integrated into the big, barleywine malt base.
Being a barley wine, Sunturnbrew was originally quite sweet, but with four years age the sweetness should have dropped. Replaced by port-like aged characters that should work well.

"Brewed just before Christmas, the Sunturnbrew honors the Norwegian legend that says that the sun turns on December 21st, the shortest day of the year. While the rest of the world argues that the sun doesn’t turn at all, Nøgne Ø raises a glass to Norwegian stubbornness with this celebratory beer!
It’s a smoked barleywine, brewed with 30% smoked malt and 20% rye. Brewmaster Kjetil reportedly had great fun playing with the recipe, ending up with a wonderful beer way out of style."

We're tapping our final keg of Sunturnbrew at 5pm this Tuesday. Here's hoping for a cold day!

July 23rd, 2016

Auckland Tasted Like Jaffas

Last weekend Auckland showed it has what it takes to be a great beer city, when the Great Australasian Beer Spectapular made it's way across the ditch for the first time.

I was lucky enough to have been to the original GABS in Melbourne in May, so know how slick GABS is when run in its home town. I was very curious to see whether the magic of GABS Melbourne translated to New Zealand, and whether Aucklanders would even show up.

We arrived on Friday, and headed straight to Auckland's beer Mecca Galbraiths.
The hype created by SOBA's 'Auckland Beer Week' events was palpable when we walked in. Galbraiths was hosting a U.K. tap-takeover, and a table full of excited Wellingtonian & Auckland brewers and importers greeted us.

Over pints of Bob's and Bitter & Twisted we learned that the stall-holders present were impressed with the communication and organisation of GABS so far, and were excited to head in and set up. This boded well for Saturday.

Saturday arrived, and with minor hangovers we set out for the ASB showgrounds. This is where Auckland's main weakness as a beer city showed itself.
Urban sprawl is rampant in Auckland, and all of Auckland's large event venues are spread far and wide, away from the CBD and main public transport routes. Luckily SOBA had organised busses from the Britomart hub, which saved many from an expensive taxi ride stuck in traffic.

The main hall setup was impressive. "Wow" was the main description heard when people entered. A festive mood was set with a huge "#GABS2016" sign, hundreds of festive lanterns and four big screens displaying social media photos.

The guts of GABS is tasting paddles, and many GABS veterans were initially confused and frustrated by ABV restrictions imposed by Auckland's draconian Liquor Licensing Authority.
Tasting paddles were restricted to five tasters less than 9%ABV OR two tasters of beer over 9%ABV.

This meant many peoples paddle plans went out the window, which seemed to cause a lot of intial delays and lines. The lines diminished over the session as volunteers got the hang of pouring and punters paddle planning improved.

While enjoying my first paddle, the magic of GABS emerged, when the roving acrobats began performing by the nearby giant jenga set.
While enjoying a Croucher Black Forest Sour, the three acrobats proceeded to stack on top of each other. They then formed a human tunnel which the roving band marched through while playing. It's these surreal moments that make GABS really stand out for me. 

GABS also had plenty of brewery stalls, which came in handy when the festival stands were crowded. So after my first paddle I ventured over to the Mata stand nearby to try their two new festive brews.

Tammy and Gloria had a small crowd at their stand, but still found time to catch up. Mata's Caribbian Queen was back, and tasting deliciously full of coconut and vanilla as it's Beervana release.

Jaffa Junkie Porter (5.5%) was a brand new addition to the Mata line up, and was one of my stand out beers of GABS Auckland.

Tammy explained how she spent hours zesting hundreds of oranges to achieve the massive orange aroma and flavour present in Jaffa Junkie. The base porter is super chocolaty, which is brought out even more with cacao nibs and coconut. 
The overall flavour is incredibly close to the orange lollies, while not being too sweet to have a pint.
I don't even like Jaffa lollies, but I loved this beer.

Jaffa Junkie stood out so much for me, we asked to hold the Wellington launch.

​​​​​​​So if you want to see what all the fuss is about, we'll be tapping Jaffa Junkie at 5pm this Tuesday. We'll even provide Jaffa lollies to compare!

The food stalls at GABS Auckland were varied and of high quality. American BBQ, Chinese Bao, Japanese Temaki, French crepes and more were on offer. However there were only six or seven stalls to feed over two thousand people, so two thirds through the session the wait for food was approaching 45 minutes.

Overall I left GABS Auckland feeling like they captured the essence of what they succesfully achieved in Melbourne and Sydney and will only continue to perfect Auckland in years to come.
Hopefully the liquor licensing authority relaxes next year, after seeing how well behaved everyone was this year. And I'm sure many more food vendors will flock to next year's event after the word gets round.

If you can't make it to Melbourne for GABS next year, I'highly recommend attending GABS Auckland 2017.

Surf Rock Saturday

This Saturday the Vincent Vega Trio are back the lounge, playing their awesome surf rock and funk.

Chris Armour (guitar), Greg Crayford (drums) and Nick Lisette (bass) kick off at 9pm, and will play through to 11.

As usual there is no charge to enjoy the Vincent Vega Trio. But our highly trained staff can recommend some excellent beers to match the surf rock/funk - and perhaps even induce synaesthesia.

New & Coming Soon

If reading about GABS triggered your beer FOMO, we've got you covered with a couple of festival beers on tap this week.

Funk Estate Jungle Boogie was at all three instances of GABS and features in the festival six packs which are making their way around Liquorlands at the moment.

"With blood orange, lemon and passionfruit, embrace the sour fruit. Hazy and slightly pink beer with touch of citrus on the nose and sour on the tongue."

Hallertau's Auckland GABS offering was a re-brew of the orignal recipe Maximus Humulus Lupulus IPA.

This is a beer I have many fond memories of, and would make a huge splash every year it was released.
Since then Maximus has been toned back to 5.8%, and is a completely different beer.

This one took me straight back to 2009, having my taste buds ruined by biterness and loving it.
Look out for it on the NZ IPA tap shortly.

After our planned NRT beer was recalled by the brewery, we decided to tap something special from our Belgian keg stock instead.
Lindemans Pecheresse was tapped, and is still going today. It's certainly not a sour lambic, but is packed to the brim with peach flavour. It's the most fun beer I've tasted all year, and it's only 2.5%!
If you need sourness, don't worry. We've got a keg of Rodenbach Grand Cru on next.

We missed out on To Øl's Releaf Me in the first shipment, so it's great to see it coming on tap this weekend. It sounds like a reminder of summer:
"A bright and refreshing Belgian Blonde Ale,, infused and brewed with the freshest Thai Lime Leaves. Lime aromas on the nose turns to a sweet fruit flavour, counteracted by the dry Nelson Sauvin and bitterness from Citra.

Keep and eye on your HZ app for this one.

June 16th, 2016

It's Alive! Alive! Alive!

Mikkeller are renowned for their super-geeky series of beers. From single hop IPA series to their many fruited Spontanale series, and even a single yeast series. These experiments make many Mikkeller beers suitable for fun, geeky flights.

As Mikkeller seems incapable of not doing a barrel aged version of any and all of their beers, we've ended up with quite a few different versions of their quite interesing It's Alive!
This Saturday we'll be putting three different versions of this Bretted Belgian Pale Ale in a a fun, geeky flight for you to nerd out with.

The base It's Alive! is based on the legendary Trappist ale, Orval. 
As such, the wild yeast Brettanomyces is added to the beer for bottle conditioning.

Brettanomyces is a lot hungrier than normal beer yeast, so over time it devours the sugars left by lazy ol' saccharomyces and develops the flavour of the beer in the bottle. A farmhouse-y flavour characteristic of brett (that some describe as 'horse blanket') comes out with time. This works great in Belgian pale ales, so as The Flight of The Conchords say "Brett you've got it goin' on."

The It's Alives in our flight are over a year old now, meaning the brett character should be fully developed.

But Brett is a common factor to all three beers in this flight. Barrels are what we'll be comparing this Saturday. We'll have:

• It's Alive White Wine Barrel Aged
• It's Alive Grand Marnier Barrel Aged
• It's Alive Chardonnay Barrel Aged with Mangoes

This Saturday only you can try all three of these beers in a 3x125ml flight for just $20, and taste the difference that various barrels and fruit can make to a bretted pale ale.

The Return of GABS FOMO

This weekend is the third and final showing of the Great Australasian Beer Spectapular, when it hits Auckland for the first time.

If you're not making it up for it, prepare to mute your social media and untappd feeds for a while as thousands enjoy the many beers brewed specifically for GABS.

However once it's all over, the embargoes on serving the GABS beers expires, and we can get our hands on them down in little ol' Welly.

This Tuesday you can begin to cure your GABS FOMO with Beer Baroness' GABS Beer: Madame Buderfly IPL.

Rice is generally frowned upon among beer enthusiasts, tainted by big-lager using it as a cost cutting measure. However it can be used to great effect in certain styles of beer to lighten the body, as Ava has done in Madame Buderfly:

"Madame Bud-erfly is a hoppy strong lager made with rice added to the mash. Rice gives the beer a lightness and a uniquely complex malt balance unlike many lagers.
Combined with a blend of some of NZ's and the USA's most interesting and flavourful hops to give sweet lemon and mandarin flavours with delicate floral notes. The hops combine well to give the beer a thirst quenching bitterness and layered flavour profile."

We're tapping Madame Buderfly IPL at 5pm this Tuesday. First person to make a marijuana joke gets a high five!

New & Coming Soon

If you failed to make it down on Tuesday for Tasi's Staffie Series beer release "Plummy The Elder", there is a wee bit left in the keg for tonight, but it wont last long.
Failing that, if you're lucky this weekend you might even get some of the 10L that was made for handpump which will be showing up soon.

Nelson's Townshend Brewery is back in a big way, with the always-excellent Old House ESB currently on handpump.

Keep an eye on your HZ apps for Cathcart's NTA and No.9 Stout on pump and their new Chain Mail APA & Fresh Hopped Oldham's Tap Pilsner on tap.

Also in bottles is limited stock of the amazing Townshend/Yeastie Boys Wynnes Fall Apple beer. This 8.7% barrel aged mixture of beer and cider manages to taste like neither, and wowed audiences at PBE 2015. We just got two cases in, which will no doubt be the last we see of it!

After a faaaar too long hiatus, Garage Project Venusian Pale Ale is coming back!
If you don't remember, that's the Garage Project beer with all the adjuncts, that end up working amazingly with the base beer. Wait....
VPA substitutes some of the more aromatic hop characters for the actual ingredients: Lemon grass, kaffir lime leaf and grapefruit peel.
There's also a load of hops to reinforce the tropical flavours of this excellent IPA.
Catch it soon on the NZIPA tap.

An old friend from Oregon is returning soon, but be careful because they party hard.
Rogue's 9.5% ABV XS Imperial IPA is back on the import IPA tap soon.
XS IIPA was one of the very first imperial IPAs to be released back in the 90's. You'll be able to taste a little bit of IPA history - but only in small glasses!