Happy New Beer!!!

New Year, new beer, new cheer and perhaps a new dare?   Dare to try something different that might challenge your beer buds?  Maybe you’re intimidated by the plethora of craft beer variety available, most with bold outlandish flavour variations, so you therefore stick loyally to the reliable bland Beer Baron brews?  Fortunately the ‘Lakefront Brewery’ from Milwaukee, USA may have this conundrum sorted.  With their easy-drinking flavourful but not over the top beers that quietly massage the taste buds without ripping them out like some craft brewers pride themselves on, Lakefront may transition you into the craft beer market.

The ‘Klisch Pilsner’ - named after the two brothers who founded the brewery from a homebrew kit like all successful beermeisters seem to do - is a refreshing summertime brew. Tasting like a crisp sharp clean lager only with a slight Belgium bent via twists of fruit and subtle yeast flavours.

The ‘Fixed Gear’ is red ale with rye grains that create colour, caramel flavours and whiskey overtones combining with big American hops resulting in a tingly tang.  This one will keep your pedals going round while looking for the gear shifter.

And, like all good bike riders, get your coffee hit with ‘Fuel Café’.  Tasting like a cold vanilla espresso, this will definitely give you some mojo for the sprint finish with its 6.4%abv.

‘Eye P A’ wafts of hops, and tastes of grapefruit and brown sugar.  Initially the hop bitterness curls the tongue to the roof of the mouth then the smooth malt flavours flatten it back to normal.

So if you’re a binger or sipper these ’transition beers’ cover all the four seasons we seem to be having this summer!  I can’t think of a better dare?

Bellynote:  Must mention another tongue curler from America but this one is made solely with NZ green bullet hops and funnily enough it’s called ‘Green Bullet’, from Green Flash Brewery.  It’s a seasonal release triple IPA 10%er and man, the strong piney hop taste is as bitter as an Indian O.D.I. player!

DC, doing the drinking for you!

With Kiwi Ingenuity You Don’t Need a Brewery to Make Beer

“We don't have the resources nor the abilities to run our own brewery, so we make do with what we have” says ‘8Wired’ brewer Søren Eriksen. A recipe using local ingredients, and renting the kettle from neighbouring Renaissance brewery is all that’s needed to craft his unique brews inspired with ingenuity in flavour. Now, that’s what I call a crafty hoperation from this 2011 NZ brewer of the year!

Speaking of local, one of 8’s main ingredients is the Nelson sauvin hop. Named after the Sauvignon Blanc grape it has similar characteristics to the wine and imparts a strong tropical fruitiness to 8’s ‘Saison Sauvin’. The saison beer is a style from Belgium, brewed for thirsty farm workers who couldn’t drink the dodgy water, however ‘Saison Sauvin’ ain’t no rehydrater at 7%! .  The brew has a somewhat cloudy mustard colour exactly like the label. Generating a quickly dissolving head and little carbonation this fullish bodied brew reveals notes of hops, pineapples, bananas and cloves, and just enough smooth bitterness to offset any malty sweetness. And with the oncoming season to be jolly, this would make a refreshing quenching festive and summertime BBQ brew.

Another 8Wired sauvin hop dominated brew is their ‘Hop Wired IPA’ (Instant Pleasure Arousal). Clear golden brown with a foamy white head. Wafts of a hop fruit bowl, medium to full bodied and booming hop tangelo tang.  Lingering bitterness and a subtle finishing maltiness with just enough alcohol (7.3%) to ease the silly season stresses.

If you want twice as much pleasure then try the 'Super Conductor' Double IPA. Crack the bottle and get hit with such a distinctive puff of fruity hops you’d almost expect hop flowers on steroids to tumble out whilst pouring.  Spawning a thick creamy white head atop a slightly hazy orangy brown fluid. Instant mouth pucker as soon as the liquid fills the mouth and then flavors of bitter dried apricots from this full bodied brew.  The finish is so dry you’d think you’d just swallowed powdered hop flowers. Better to leave this 8.8% beauty for later on in the evening when BBQing is done and you’ve adjourned to the couch waiting for Santa to descend.

Stop the press! Just released in time for Xmas is 8Wired ‘Semi-Conductor’ session IPA. Brewed with a blend of American and NZ hops, this brew has a busload amount of flavor, but unlike the aforementioned high alc brews, the ‘Semi-Conductor’ comes with minimum regret at 4.4%.  Come in for lunch from the beach cricket then enjoy one (or two) of these effervescent hop tangers, feel like you’re indulging a much more alcoholic brew. Get refreshed and quenched with the citrusy hops, and then return to stumps without tripping over every grain of sand on the beach, shamazing!

Sauvin, so there, some great festive brews, all made with the devotion of some fence wire!

Belgium Beers Bigger than Marty Banks Boot

Belgium is to beer what McDs is to America.,  The Belgium beers combines French flair, German precision and Dutch sturdiness into a unique range of beers, some very sweet, some dry, some sour and some mixtures of all. One thing for sure is that they are all big beers and all have a lot of history and world famous for their Abbey beers. The Belgium beers are strong beers as a result of a law in 1919 banning the sale of distilled spirits in bars so brewers strengthened their beers to meet the demand for more robust drinks. This law has only been rescinded since 1984; the end result is big beers with big flavour variations. Belgians also like their yeast and bottle conditioning is more common in Belgium than anywhere else in the world and this has had a large influence on modern craft brewing.

One of these living brews is 2013 world ale winner “Gulden Draak” from Van Steenberge with a gulden medal. Pours a creamy tan head with mahogany red juice. Fruity on the tongue with strong malt toffee sweetness balanced with hop whiskey like bitterness and full body barrel aged woodiness.  Don’t serve chilled as you won’t appreciate the myriad of flavours.  This guy is a sure head wobbler, either from the 10.5% alcohol or from just shear enjoyment.

Contrasting the Draak is the “Sloebar” still a big beer but more subtle in body and flavours. This brew has the slightly yeasty taste which the Belgium’s go for, and gives a pleasant bitterness enhancing an orange hoppiness with a creamy effervescence that makes it refreshing and leaving you thirsting for more.

The “Piraat”, also from Van Steenberge and also a gold award winner, but in 2012, is a hazy amber and tastes rich in complex flavours of malt and hops.  Starts sweet on the tongue then ends with a grassy zing with a dry finish.

 

One of the few remaining historic Belgium beers is the Kwak and this brew is a real kwacker. Beautiful deep bright amber colour with a creamy tan head and a spicy malt aroma. Tastes like  caramel rum sauce over bananas with a background yeastiness to keep it mildly bitter. You can feel this guy smoothly and warmly going all the way down to your stomach as the 8.4% kicks in.

 

Different yet again is the “Duchesse De Bourgogne” and is the sour sovereign of Belgium beers. This is a lambic style beer which is brewed with wild yeasts and with at least 30% raw wheat, the malt flavours are not balanced by hop bitterness but more by lactic acidity. Once your mouth unpuckers from the sourness, flavours will hit from all directions.  This is one taste phenomenon that all drinkers should try and then realise that it’s not how much you drink, it’s how much you have yet to drink!

Big Day Out, A Beerstorming Day in Wellington

Got no holidays at Christmas so took the opportunity of the long labour weekend to spend a holiday in the windy city for some much needed R&R (rugby and rate beer).  And what a great hopportunity that turned out to be.

As luck would have it, not only was the final of the ITM cup on but also ‘The Great Pacific Beer Expo’ was on with 36 state of the art craft brews to sample. Holy hole in the Cake tin Batman, this actually sounds like a daunting task for my little taste buds as I’m only ever a one or two at the most oneday beer sampler. This sounds like a challenge that I cannot resist and I certainly hope that all the single brew a day tastings that I’ve done over the last few months have trained me enough to take on such an event?  Even the two o’clock start time is enough of a challenge as its three hours before my normal beer o’clock.

Thankfully the program was divided up into 2 two and a half hour sessions with the main emphasis on the first session being beers with a lower alcohol content served to provide some means of pacing one’s self thus enabling the taster a chance to see the second session. For me this  didn’t work as I’d sampled 10 of the brews in the first two hours which was heaps for me and I still wanted to be coherent for  a proper second session but with nothing else to do for the last half hour before the swop over I had another two more samples. I think that in reality the two sessions were just to provide only half the available brews at a time because of the limited space available at the St James.

I must confess, picking the first brew to try was the hardest part of the day. The plan was to go for ever increasing hoppyness and then finishing with darker beers and stouts.  Also, an emphasis on trying to taste the local brewers, as I felt it to be more likely to purchase these if there were some that I particularly fancied.

Well organised by organisers with food chips being a compulsory part of the provided beer chips, dirty glasses that could be replaced with clean glasses, or even clean glasses with water in as a palette cleaner, but their piece de résistance was definitely  the waterproof beer list.

Good to see the place well represented by the female variety which bodes well  that the variety of craft beer can provide for all and every taste peculiarity and especially nice to talk to some of them to get their perspective on the taste sensations.  Apparently, this expo was unique in that unlike some of the other beer festivals, the pacific beer expo was small and intimate enough that the punters soon spread the word on any exceptionally nice samples and this would then have people descending on the said brewer and the formation of an instant queue. In the end this is how I decided what to try next, by noting what the longest queue was as I was starting a sample and by the time my sample was finished then so would be the queue. 

At the end of the 5 hour long session all that I could manage was to taste 20 brews as my pocket does have a bottom and I needed to successfully negotiate the two flights of stairs to get out of the place.

Here’s the sample of the samples in drunken order of tasting…

ParrotDog Barrel Aged Sleuthhound 6.6% aged scotch ale from Wellington. This was a great way to start the day. This brew did taste like scotch so consequently was to be sipped. It was smooth and dry with imperceptible hops but a pleasant malt finish. 6.5/10

Garage Project Weasel Cah Phe Dah. Strong coffee aroma big thick coffee crema head, dark coffee coloured liquid, and surprise surprise, it tasted like a lightly fizzed cold coffee beans. It is called cahphe after all, derr! 6.5/10

Jungle Tropical Wheat Orange and Mango 4.2% from Singapore. Aroma of mangoes and lemons and a hazy gold colour. Tasted like a cyder with a refreshing fruity bite, not sweet, maybe not beer but would be a great alternative for a cyder and perhaps acquiring a beer palate.  The ladies liked. 6/10

Baylands Pacific Sunset 4.6% Blueberry Wheat Beer, Wellington. Another one the ladies liked and probably maybe because of its pink liquid colour and watermelon smell.  I couldn’t detect the blueberry flavour but I heard it from a reliable source(me missus)  that there was a subtle blueberryness to it. To me the hint of hops and the wheat tinges made for a very refreshing beer that you could have just before a beer. 6/10

Funk Estate Pinky and the Grain 8.8% Pink Pepper Saison, Wellingtion. 8.8%, now we’re talking! After seeing that it was a clear amber colour with no ‘pinky’ I gave it a go.  This tasted like a Belgium beer, with a complex fruity flavour, strong wheat and yeast notes, then a hot peppery bite at the end. Hot enough to make you want to gulp some more, then some more, then some more. 7/10

8 Wired Saeson Chardonnay Barrel Aged 6.5%. I would have liked to have spent more time with this slightly hazy, fruity, dry, slightly sour beer. With similar fruity tastes of a chardonnay wine, it had such complexity to it that I kept bumping up my out of ten score from 6 to 8. Plus it tasted great with satay chicken!

Pretty Things Yeastie Boys Our Turn/Your Turn 6.8% American Wheat Ale with Lindenflower  Wellington/Massachusetts. Hazy amber hue with wafts of lindenflower and hops it had a bitter musty hoppy taste that once again grew on me the more I partook. 7.5/10

Southern Tier Compass 9% Sparkling Ale with Rose Hips, Lakewood New York. Hint of hops in the aroma of this clear amber brew with a light creamy head.  Tastes of citrusy hops that are not over the top, but combine well with just enough malt to make a full bodied smooth easy to drink ale, be careful, 9%!

Kereru Pohutakawa Golden Ale 5% Upper Hutt. Aroma of malt and wooden barrels, dark amber colour and a foamy white head. A bitter ale with no sweetness which was not expected from the malt aroma. A modicum of manuka tang makes this brew taste clean and green and seemed like I was drinking a forest. 6/10

Fork & Brewer / Brayden Rawlinson MoonBlink Black IPA Wellington. I rate black IPAs so was looking forwards to partaking. Strong hop aroma and a dark liquid underneath a creamy ash head. Taste was big on hops but lacking on malt which seemed strange coming from such a dark brew. 7/10

Four Horsemen of the Hopocalypse 10.3% Triple IPA, Auckland.  An extremely hard name to pronounce to the barman when soberish.  A rather nondescript aroma but a beautiful clear red brown colour with creamy off white head. This brew has got something special apart from its full bodied viscous mouth feel and it might be, believe it or not,,,,strawberries, but not as we know them! 9/10

Lobethal Double Hopped IPA 5.9% Lobethal Aussie.  Clear copper with creamy white head. Medium bodied with both vibrant hop and malt flavours and a smooth mouth feel. 8/10

Mike’s Hemp IPA 5% Urenui Taranaki. OK, only tried this just to see if it was good for trips and pleased I did, not because of any trips but because this was a powerpacked 5%er. Clear copper manhogany with a foamy white head. Medium bodied with an earthy bitter hop taste. One of the best 5% IPAs I’ve tried. 7/10

Southern Tier Crème Brulee 9.6% Spiced Imperial Milk Stout, Lakewood New York. This brew had the biggest queues and for good reasons, it also had the biggest flavours. Smells like Kahlua, tastes like bubbly Kahlua. This had the flavour explosion that I had come for. Distinctly a dessert brew and when combined with the crème brulee from the food choices, was sensational. Possibly everybody’s favourite? 9/10

666 Brewaucracy Devils in the Detail, Highly Hopped Belgium Tripel, Hamilton. Pale amber colour, medium bodied and tasting of bitter, slightly citrusy tasting hops.  Unfortunately was not quite as Belgiumy tripel as a Belgium tripel 6.5/10

8 Wired Wired Feijoa 10% Strong Pale Ale Barrel Aged with Feijoas, Blenheim. Aroma of sour feijoas. Tasted like sour feijoas and ripe bananas but I liked it. Fruity and refreshing, not sweet with plenty of complexity to savour. 7/10

Renaissance Barrel Fermented Grizette 4.6%, Blenheim. I like Renaissance beers, especially their Stonecutter scotch ale and I like sour Lambic style sour beers, but the Grizette, pink with no head, delivered a sour dry bland taste and was my grizaster. I am getting pretty fussy at this stage of the day so might need to go back to this if I see it at the lollyshop?  4/10

Murray’s Wild Thing 10% New South Wales, Aussie. Black almost purple liquid under a brown creamy head. Aroma of sweet malt. Tasting of smooth malt with pleasant whiskey notes and no harsh coffee taste that’s often in strong stouts. This one is an all nighter winter beer (10%, maybe half the night!) 8/10

Speakeasy Double Daddy 8.5% Imperial IPA, San Francisco. Clear amber colour underneath a white creamy head. Powerful hop aroma with a good hop flavour without the extreme bitterness that you get with most U.S. west coast brews. A refreshing dry finish. 8.5/10

Liberty Darkest Days Stout 6% Auckland. Nothing new here, you can buy this stuff from your local lollyshop no probs. It’s still a very drinkable bitter chocolate coffee with smooth mouth feel stout. (I wished Liberty had their Alpha Dog there as this is a real bitch of a beer). 7.5/10

At the end of the day my favourite drink may have been the Hopocalypse cause it was the only drink I had two of and I wanted to finish on this big beer, and see if my enunciation had improved over the afternoon.

There you go, finally, beer there, drunk that, shamazing!

Emerson’s, the Lion’s Share of the Craft Brew Market.

Emersons, one of the original NZ craft brewers to enter the market, established back in 1992. One year ago was bought out by Lion Nathan and at that time the news of the takeover resulted in a storm of comment on social media with some drinkers speculating that the craft beer maker's product quality would decline under Lion's ownership. In the interests of quality, I’ll partake and see.

Bookbinder.

The label says it all, “anytime refreshing new world ale” and the Booky is exactly that, tasting bigger than its 3.7% abv would suggest. The booky is a well rated beer by overseas beer aficionado Roger Protz in his recent “300 More Beers To Try Before You Die”. Roge has penned over 20 beer books so should be my idol but I rather prefer Ben Smith. Of the eight NZ beers listed, three are from Emersons, suggesting no dodgy beers from this brewery. For me, it’s an all occasion beer, from watching the footy, to rehydrating during a marathon.

1812 Aromatic Hoppy Ale

If cutting the grass on a hot spring afternoon develops a wicked first and the smell reminds you of hops, then this is the brew for you. Don’t drink from the bottle or you’ll miss the marmalade and malt bouquet. Pours a foamy head atop a clear bright amber medium bodied brew. More malt taste than you’d expect from a hoppy ale but its balanced so well with the bite of grassy piny hops and leaves a crisp dry refreshing taste.

Bird Dog IPA. 

Crack the bottle and straight away you get a whiff of fruity grapefruit, then pour out the dark amber full bodied brew that metamorphs into a big foamy white head. Wait a mo for some to settle, then drink the liquid and head together, for a creamy hop hit. I’m guessing American cascade hops in this brew has it has huge bitterness with a spicy citrus tang. Don’t why it’s called bird dog when it could be called the bee’s knees and is perfectly suited for hopaholics and my favourite.

Since the takeover Emersons have won five awards at the recent 2013 Brewers Guild NZ Awards including gold and class trophy for their Dinner Bell in the European Ale Styles.

So, watered down inferior quality product? Yeah right!

Spring has sprung, the pollen is drifting and the lambs are bleating.

A quick gawk around the lollyshop fridge and my parched eyes settle upon this little gem, a “Lean Lamb barrel aged sour” from the Mussel Inn.  I thought I’d tried them all, from peaches to pancakes, chillies to whiskies, and bacon to butterscotch, all of them different varieties of craft beer but one made out of lamb? Oh well, it’s lean so gotta be good for you? I must say, that a lean lamb and being sour certainly gets my curiosity going plus the label sports a couple of wheat stalks as well as a lamb. Certainly the right time of year for this brew then so here she goes.

Pours a thin bodied slightly hazy dark amber colour with small head that gets going once provoked.  An aroma of apple cider vinegar and fresh wood with a bite that jerks the nose back like you do when smelling ammonia. First taste and instant mouth pucker.  This is one grizzly beer and has some serious sourness and is like biting straight into a lemon. After the initial sour shock and realisation that you’ve spent good money on this so you’re going to drink this whether you like it or not I give it another go. Hmmm, better, it’s a lot like doing shots of tequila and biting lemon without the sucking the salt.

Once you’ve braved a few more sips your taste buds start to acclimatise and this brew gathers momentum and starts to reveal what its style is all about. This brew is complex enough to be interesting but unfortunately I’ve finished the bottle without appreciating this style’s finer points.

The label blurb says Lambic hence the Lamb name (derr!) and this style of Lambic is a Gueuze.   Lambic style beers were started when there was no knowledge of yeast cultures and were left to naturally occurring wild yeast and bacteria. Before yeast was identified as a living organism, it was known as ‘God is Good.’ They knew it as a something, but in absence of a firm scientific explanation, it was assumed to be a divine something. A Gueuze style is a blend of several different aged Lambics mixed according to the brewer’s taste.

Lambics are brewed with at least 30% raw wheat and the malt flavours are not balanced by hop bitterness but more by lactic acidity so probably not best to drink one before exercise.  The hops that are used are deliberately old and so have fewer flavours and are used just for their preservative compounds. Lambics are therefore a tribute to the art of controlled spoilage.

O.K. back from the lollyshop with another bottle and now that I know what to expect, can give it a second go for some finer appreciation, what the hell, it’s one of the cheaper craft brews in the shop and my taste buds need to get out of their comfort zone as much as possible.

This time, after the initial effervescent tang on the front of the tongue, I can detect flavours of apple cider, pickled onions and an aged barrel woodiness that you get from good whiskey. Each sip finishes with a lingering malt background and dryness on the back of the tongue. So much complexity with this brew that each sip has something different about it. This is a must do taste experience for every craft brew drinker and is sure to expand the palate boundaries. Actually, it’s like discovering a new alcoholic beverage that you can call beer.

If you appreciate what a blue vein is compared to a tasty then you’ll appreciate what a lambic is to ale. You’re not put off by the smell of the cheese and same with the Lamb as this brew is as delicious as it is stinky. Perfect for the adventurous beer taster, just make sure that if you try one, get two bottles.

Canny Can Plan

They Can so we can knock em back
30 years ago there were just 3 craft breweries in NZ. Today there are over 47 registered breweries and with Wellington claiming themselves as the craft capital of NZ.  But just because they may have the highest number, I’d argue that Nelson would rank higher on a per capita basis and after a few more beers I’m sure I could do the maths to confirm that.

One such Welly brewery is Garage Project and they have just started to can their craft. Their justification, the advantages of Fresh beer, fresh can, no pasteurising and no filtering and for us beer buffs, a cheaper way to experiment with the offerings from craft beer.

For me, 330mls is only a teaser and not enough to explore the full complexities of craft beer flavours so this could be a canny plan just to get you to buy more, plus, I like to know how much is left without having to shake!

Here’s three of their latest offerings, fresh out of the smelter

Pils n Thrills

Pilsners are distinguished from other lager styles by their more assertive hop character and ‘Pils n Thrills’ is bang on here. With a flowery citrusy aroma, soft white head, and clear golden straw colour, this medium bodied grapefruit tasting brew is zesty and very refreshing. My wine and cider swilling Missus took a liking to this brew, which is high praise coming from a non-beer drinker. She’s the boss, what more can I say?

Smoke & Mirrors

A lager that has a dark brown colour must be sleight of hand. Distinct smokey taste on first gulp, but once taste buds have acclimatised this mellows, revealing a myriad of malt flavours. Great BBQ brew and easy to drink but couldn’t taste the mirrors.

Angry Peaches

Don’t be like me and be fooled that this brew might taste like a fruit punch or alco pop. Whoa, I was gloriously wrong. Clear copper colour with strong floral and grapefruit hoppy aroma. Smooth full body and a tart dried apricot, yes apricot flavour combined with strong hops and balanced perfectly with a malty background. This brew is angry and does have a knockout punch

Bellynote:  Can’t mention garage project without mentioning their award winning brew’ Cockswain’s Courage Tastes Like War!’, a blended porter that’s as complex as a Team NZ yacht and a deserved winner.  If this tastes like war, then what does peace taste like?