Alexandra and I went down to BrewNZ 2006 in Wellington last week. I’m a bit sad to see that it seems less supported, and much more of an “industry only” type event now. There was little advertising, and what was available was a hastily updated version of last years brochure with new (and occasionally incorrect) information on it.

The festive brews themselves were not very inspiring. Monteiths in particular putting in another pathetic effort, and hiding what tiny amount of character it may have had beyond the horrid sugary sweetness by serving it ice cold and carbonated to the point of pain. Next year Monteiths, I suggest you just don’t bother. If other “large players” can make an passable if not stellar effort (Mac’s, I’m looking at you here), then surely you can do better than trying to pass of cold fizzy sweetened yak urine as a festive brew. Perhaps the BrewNZ organisers should consider a “you must be able to brew a quality beer to be allowed to enter” rule? Anyway, enough ragging on Monteiths. It gets boring, and it’s far too easy.

I mentioned Mac’s entry in passing. They were interesting. Their “No. 8 Pale Ale” tasted suspiciously similar to their new version of Sassy Red. I’d had it before a group of friends tried it (two were stewards for BrewNZ, so I trust their palates), and their verdict was the same, without me saying a word. Spooky. Conspiracy theories anyone? That said, as Sassy Red is a decent beer, I was OK with that. It has a kind of chemical taste common (at least to my palate) to NZ Saaz-B hops that I really don’t care for, but it’s a well balanced beer that doesn’t try to dumb itself down too much for the mass market. I give it a 5/10, but that just reflects that other entries were so much better rather than No. 8 being poor.

I’m not really going to rate Rennaissance’s Marlborough Pale Ale, as it was clearly flawed. All I could taste was diacetyl – it was like sucking on a butterscotch flavoured sweet. A shame, as it could have been good.

The Tuatara Publican’s Pale Ale was a very nice drop. Far more of a traditional English Best Bitter than its seriously hoppy fellow contenders, it was very well balanced, with that nice earthy goldings aroma and flavour, sweetish full body, and lingering dry finish. I could drink pints of it. 8/10.

Limburg’s IPA was not very memorable. I don’t mean that in a bad way, I just really don’t remember it, so won’t rate it here. What I will say is that Shed 5 should be reconsidered as a choice for a BrewHQ. It seems quite cold and sterile, with staff who don’t really “get” beer, and an atmosphere not very conducive to drinking. Sorry Limburg, I’ll try to remember you better next year. I do remember having nothing bad to say about it, so that’s something.

Hallertau’s entry was the most complex and interesting of the lot for me. Their Stuntman Imperial IPA was a beer that I’d like to have taken more time to get to know. My glass was served too cold (unfortunately that’s just how it comes at the Malthouse), so I spent a while letting it warm, but the temptation got the better of me and I dived in too soon. Very little aroma was noticable from such a hoppy beer – perhaps due to the temperature, low carbonation, and the high alcohol impeding head formation. What was there was pleasant and herbal, with a faint noble-hop type twang. The body was full and tongue-coating, just the way I like it! There was an explosion of flavour which I am still unable to accurately describe. I got herbal, slightly medicinal notes, with even a suggestion of pine needles, or mint – not a flavour I am used to tasting in a beer, but one I could get accustomed to. The finish was initially strangely short, but accumulated after a few sips into a hanging pall of bitterness. A seriously impressive experience, and one I’d like to savour again. 8/10.

Now for my two favourites… Epic Brewing’s Mayhem, and Emersons 1812 Anniversary Edition IPA. The Mayhem was just a big hoppy blast. So refreshing, and with a beautiful “green hop” taste, reminiscent of the only wet-hopped beer I’ve ever tried. I love the flavour, but have not the vocabulary to describe it yet. What a shame, I’ll need to work on that! The 1812 was subtle, yet strong. The dominant flavour was a heady mix of vanilla and oak, with the bitterness from the hops coming late and hard. The aroma was just stunning. I could have just inhaled it all day, and not drunk a drop. Two very different beers, yet both so amazingly pleasing. I had a very hard time choosing between them, but I think the Mayhem won on the basis of me seeing myself drinking pints and pints of it, whereas the 1812 was a wonderful beer to contemplate, but not something that would be regularly consumed. It was a “mood beer”. I give them both 9/10.

Same time next year… I’ll be there!

Here we are in Sunny Wellington.  Yes.  Really.  OK, so it absolutely pissed down when we got here on Thursday, and we got totally saturated walking from pub to pub, but that’s OK, as the sun started to peek through yesterday.  Saturday has now dawned with barely a cloud to be seen, and the prospect of many hearty brews just waiting to be sampled!

For those who don’t know, BrewNZ is New Zealand’s only (to my knowledge) beer festival.  Fairly disgraceful when you consider that we are a British colony, and England alone has over 4000 beer festivals per year.  Anyway, for this year’s BrewNZ, James, Alexandra, and myself made the trek to the other “tron” to see what was to be imbibed.

After locating our apartment building (The Terrace Apartments), we found a map and worked out where festive brews were being served.  It was getting close to lunch time, so we made our way to the Malthouse, and enjoyed a pint of Sunshine Brewery’s “All Malt Ale” (or some equally bland and unmemorable name).  It was a tasty drop, but could have been improved by more body, a longer finish, and a slightly better hop balance.  I courted controversy by taking the Monteith’s Wild Food option for lunch, and having the Jugged Hare.  What was controversial about that, you ask?  The beer match was the Monteith’s Radler – a fairly nasty offering that tastes of lollies.  Surprisingly, it really did work well with the citrus notes in the gravy and meat, and provided a nice little lunch option.  Unfortunately, I finished my meal and still had plenty of beer left.  It tasted awful without the flavoursome meat to offset it.  I downed it a little too quickly, and we moved on to the Emerson’s Bookbinder.  James and I both LOVE this beer.  It was even nicer on tap.  A real treat, and a low-alcohol option also, at only 3.7%.  Floral, herby, surprisingly full bodied for such a low-alcohol beer.  Fantastic.  Alex had a wheat beer, which tasted more like a wit.  A better Hoegaarden than Hoegaarden, but the name of the brewery escapes us at the moment.

It was fair pissing down by now, so we came back to apartments, had a bit of a rest after lunch, then headed out in search of more good beer.  We started with Shed 22 (a.k.a. the Wellington Brewing Company.  The folks behind Macs Sassy Red, and the “real” Lion Brown).  Their festive beer is another they are brewing under contract to Macs – Demonic Ruby.  This is a HUGE beer.  6.5%, full of toffee and smoky caramel flavours.  It is a rich dark amber, with hints of ruby (hence the name, we guess), and slips down dangerously easily.  So far this is one of the best beers I’ve had.  It reminds me of Young’s Old Nick, but vastly superior.  I’ll be going back for more.

After the Shed 22 experience, we were feeling quite optimistic about the rest of the BrewNZ festival.  We plotted a rough course on the map to allow us to avoid most of the still-pelting rain, then made a dash to the Courtney Arms.  Big mistake.  This bills itself as an “English pub”, and has St. George memorabilia and dart boards for Africa.  Very friendly staff also, but unfortunately we were there for the beer.  They didn’t have a festive brew on, but we saw they had Young’s Special London Ale on tap.  This is a bit of a fave of James and I, so we had a pint each.  First up, it cost $10 per pint!  Secondly, it tasted so skunked, we wondered if the keg had been there since the pub first opened.  We downed it, grimaced, and wandered, somewhat defeated, to the next pub.  Bodega!  That’s more like it.  Our faith was rekindled.  More extremely friendly staff – thank you “Steph”, you rocked – and free samples of the THREE festival beers that were on there.  The beer was a bit disappointing, but as we hadn’t paid for it, that wasn’t so bad.

The Cock and Bull entry was the King Kong ESB.  This was my biggest disappointment, as I expect quite a lot from the Steam Brewing Company.  Their product is consistently excellent.  To be fair, there was nothing wrong with the ESB, it just didn’t live up to its name, or to my expectations.  It was well balanced, almost to a fault, as with the BrewNZ theme (The Magnificence of Malt) I expected more malt dominance.  It finished early, and left nothing of itself in the mind.  I will have to sup a full pint of this on a clean palate in order to give it a more balanced and less hurried trial.  Can you tell that I want to like this beer?

The Twisted Hop brewery entered an unusual beer called the Islay Porter.  I was unable to judge this as a beer, as the underlying brew is like a blank canvas, and is totally overwhelmed by the Laphroaig scotch whiskey that is added to the brew.  I love Laphroaig, but beer needs to taste like beer, not watered down scotch.  I won’t be trying this again.

The third brew at Bodega was the Tuatara ESB.  This was another very well balanced beer, though it left more of an impression than the ESB.  It had more of a hop profile, with the fuggles hops really coming through.  Probably not appropriate to the theme, but a nice beer nonetheless.  Not a great, but a good enough.

This is getting long, so I’ll skim over Friday’s efforts, as they were largely disappointing.  We started at the Occidental with Monteiths Maximalt.  Why bother?  I mean seriously, do Monteiths even understand beer and brewing, or do they simply brew the same bland crap, and add different amounts of ethanol and colouring to each variety?  The best I say about the Maximalt is that the 6.5% brew left us with a happy glow, which almost overrode the non-existent flavour, texture, aroma, and appearance.  Monteiths, you are taking the piss.

We couldn’t stay away from Shed 22, so after a long, and somewhat misdirected walk around the Crack Houses of Newtown (sorry James), we popped in there for a few pints.  We had the Sassy Red (just a great bitter.  We love it.), the Verboden Vice (a boring but true-to-style wheat beer), a Demonic Ruby (I missed it already!) and a James Squire IPA.  Awful beer.  Avoid.  Feeling a bit unsteady on it, we headed to Imbibe Antipasto for the Emersons offering.  The Lunar Dunkel is an excellent drop.  James was not as impressed as I was, but I loved the toffeelike dunkel.  It was almost a meal in a glass though, and I struggled to finish my pint.  Finish I did though, and we staggered home to prepare for Saturday, and the festival itself at the town hall.

Back home in Hamilton now. We had a fantastic time, though the weather was fairly miserable except for Saturday morning. That said, it doesn’t need to be fine to drink a good ale!

Here then is a summary of what I posted to the NZ Homebrewers mailing list, as it’s easier than writing the same thing twice!

We got to the Town Hall just before 11 am, and commenced sampling around about “opening time” (as James put it). It certainly doesn’t seem too bad when you think of it like that!

The beers were many and varied, though there were not many we hadn’t already tried while out and about. The Speights Chocolate Ale was the first to be sampled, and was not bad for a Speights beer. It at least had some flavour! Chocolate and coffee notes pervaded, with some plum fruitiness in the finish. It could have used a bit more hop balance, even if only for bitterness, and not flavour or aroma. Too sweet for my tastes.

We moved on to the Twisted Hop beers, having only tried the Islay porter before. Their Bitter managed to divide opinion. I thought it initially tasted like dishwater. A few more samples and I had it up a few notches to “pleasantly citrussy, but a bit weak in body”. It wasn’t that bad! James thought it was quite “English”, and got all misty eyed – or that could have been the huge amounts of “samples” he kept having of the Emersons APA. More on that later. I really enjoyed the Twisted Ankle, but found the Islay Porter was just way too dominated by the Laphroaig scotch to rate on its own character. Less so than when tried on Draught at Bodega though. I was speaking to one of the Twisted Hop brewers, and he claimed only 2 (presumably 1125ml) bottles of Laphroaig were used in the (I think) 800L batch. It certainly goes a long way!

Of the other brews we had not already sampled, Sunshine Brewery’s Black Beauty stood out. Enormous malt flavours, and a satisfyingly gravylike mouthfeel. It still had plenty of hop bitterness to ensure the sweetness didn’t become cloying, and there were just so many flavour components that I had to have about 5 samples to be sure I had tasted some of the more subtle elements. That’s my story, Your Honour, and I am sticking to it.

Emersons were excellent as always. I had tried all their beers, but I mention them here due to the effect their APA (American Pale Ale) had on James. He was transfixed. I think he managed to drink about 2 litres of it, all in sample-glass size portions! It was nicer than I remember it too, less of a hop blast, and a bit more balanced. I look forward to its impending re-release.

The Tuatara ESB really impressed me also, but I wished I had taken notes. It was so perfectly balanced, that no particular flavour stands out. A lovely drop though, and one I wish we could get here in Hamilton.

I really enjoyed my first BrewNZ overall, but a few things could be improved I think. Prepare for a whinge, and please remember, it’s just an opinion. Except the stuff about Monteiths. They really suck.

1. The venues serving the festive beers (Brew HQs) should be more rigorously checked. Bar Bodega, while a real fave in the past, and having really great staff, needs to learn to clean their lines. The beer tasted totally different (and better) at the actual tasting itself.

2. Better consideration of which venues are able to present beer. Brickbats to Shed 5, and the Loaded Hog for having NO idea at all about how to present a beer, and knowing very little about beer in general. This was especially sad in the case of Shed 5, as they were blessed with the fantastic Limburg Oud Reserve.

3. Some kind of “you must be this high to enter” standard for who may actually enter a beer. We couldn’t get over just how amazingly bad the Monteiths entry tasted (or rather didn’t taste – utterly bland), and we heard a rumour that the Loaded Hog’s festive brew was nothing but their Hog Dark rebranded. It’s tasteless brown water at the best of times, so we weren’t really surprised. Amazing though that all the smaller brewers could enter beers of complexity and finesse, and the likes of Monteiths with all their resources, couldn’t pull off something decent. Come on guys, even Speights got it together!

4. Better advertising! We got to Wellington on Thursday (we wanted to be ready!) and saw almost nothing mentioning the festival anywhere.

Now the good stuff:

1. The bar staff! Even when they didn’t know their beer, they were consistantly extremely friendly, and welcoming (except Shed 5. They don’t know how to smile). Special mentions to:

• Imbibe, who put on a free Taieri George for the three of us when the Lunar Dunkel keg wasn’t quite working.
• Bar Bodega – Steph and (I think) Sally, really made us smile.
• Shed 22 – our favourite pub of the trip. And not just because they had Demonic Ruby. Friendly, fun people who looked like they were actually happy to be at work.

2. The quality of the entries. As I said, this was my first BrewNZ, so I can’t compare to other years, but I will definitely be back. Our faves were, in no particular order; Limburg Oud Reserve, Macs (Well, Wellington Brewing Company) Demonic Ruby, Sunshine Brewery’s Black
Beauty (it was HUGE!), and the understated, but delicious Tuatara ESB.

3. The fact that it’s in Wellington. Best city ever!

4. The excellent little “beer guide” infopak.

Well, that’s it until next year. Rest assured, there will be another trip next year!

There are some photos online, but be warned, the quality is terrible. I wasn’t in a good state to be using a camera!