Local breweries which have been showcasing these hops have had to disappoint customers, with the likes of Epic revealing that Hop Zombie will not return until possibly 2013, and Tuatara’s wildly successful APA (American Pale Ale) being switched to Aotearoa Pale Ale.

After a lower than normal yielding crop and the loss of several million dollars’ worth of hops in warehouse fires, American breweries began pre-purchasing hops before they’d been grown, reducing the volume available for export to near zero for the more popular varieties.

But if you’ve recently discovered the holy grail of beer that is the American hop, all is not lost. Happily, the US breweries which still have access to their locally grown crops, have recently seen increased distribution amongst Wellington beer bars.

Malthouse have acquired whole kegs of beautiful hoppy American IPA’s. Recently they had the hoppy grail that is Firestone Walker Union Jack IPA (7.5%) flowing, which showed IPA can still be shipped across the world and taste great—as it was originally designed to do. While some slight oxidation was present, the rich malt and massive hop character greatly outweighed this. For the quarter finals this weekend, Malty is putting on Brewdog Hardcore IPA, which may be Scottish but contains no less than three US hop varieties, so get in there and get some while you can.

The west coast of the states is most famous for making hop-focussed beers, so much to the point where a style of IPA has been named after it. Among one of the many beers imported from the states by local beer bar Hashigo Zake is Green Flash West Coast IPA (7.3%) from San Diego. It’s straight to the point in its naming and also its flavour: this one’s all about the hops. Intense grassy hops hit your nose before your tongue is assaulted by 95IBU of bitterness (that’s a lot), balanced slightly by a fruity hop twang.

If big bitterness and intense flavours aren’t your thing, try a Bear Republic Racer 5 IPA (7%), this one’s got balance down pat. You’ll get the tropical fruit bark, but there’s no bite here. A wonderfully rich, biscuity malt tempers the huge amount of hops used, which make their presence known with a tropical fruit flavour which keeps you coming back. While these gems are imported by Hashigo Zake, they’ve found their way to The Hop Garden, Little Beer Quarter and Bar Edward in both bottle and tap form.

Well, that’s me for 2011. I hope I’ve helped someone out there achieve their beer epiphany leading them to the road of tasty beer goodness. If you’ve got any beery questions over the break feel free to tweet me @davethebeerguy.
Might see ya next year—stay beery Vic.

The recent Beervana beer festival brought a rare opportunity to try beer from little heard of breweries from across the ditch.

Oft-hailed as Australia’s best brewery, Feral Brewing beers were among the offerings at the Australian bar. Based in Perth, Western Australia Feral tout themselves as ‘’undomesticated yet sophisticated.’’ Their flagship beer, ‘Hop Hog IPA’ is definitely sophisticated and competes with some of the best IPAs in the world with a huge zesty aroma and massive hop flavour – especially for a 5.8 per cent beer. Feral also take the IPA to the dark side, with their black IPA Karma Citra. This has an intriguing flavour combination of chocolaty dark malts and citrus hop, which just somehow works.

I believe one reason Aussie beer gets a bad rap is context. We must remember that Australia is far hotter than our wee micro-climate, and this is going to influence what people want to drink. This is why many Australian beers are on the lighter, thirst-quenching side. Stone & Wood Pacific Ale is one of those beers. It is made with all Australian ingredients, and showcases the unique Galaxy hop variety. It is a very light beer, which is why many Kiwi palates don’t understand this beer, but imagine you’re in 30-degree heat, and the combination of a great flavour in a wonderful thirst quencher means you could drink it all day.

It’s not just Beervana realising the potential of craft beer from over there, our local beer bars are taking it upon themselves to source small brewery beer. The Malthouse recently brought in a shipment of beer from Tasmanian Brewery Moo Brew, of which I’ve tried the Pale Ale and Pilsner. These are both on the lighter side, but again, on a hot Tasmanian day these would go down perfectly. Hashigo Zake has also imported a few kegs, notably Jamieson The Beast IPA. Jamieson is a tiny town of around 300 people, yet it is home to one of Australia’s leading craft breweries. The Beast isn’t your normal hop-driven pale ale, it brings balance to the big hops with a rich malty sweetness. This balance makes this 7 per cent beer dangerously drinkable.

Lucky for us, all of the above beers didn’t quite manage to sell out at Beervana, so Hashigo Zake and the Malthouse snagged the leftovers. Keep an eye out for these trail blazing craft beers from across the ditch – they’ll be well worth the taste!

Upon arrival I learned that there are two breweries on the small island of 14,000 inhabitants—not a bad ratio. These two breweries were Cook’s Lager Brewery and Matutu Brewery, and I visited both.

Cook’s Brewery is a recent addition to the island, being only 18 months old. Their equipment is top of the line, imported from the states. But suffice to say the beer needs work to match the quality of their equipment…

Matutu, on the other hand, is a craft brewery doing some great things with close ties to Wellington brewery Tuatara. The Matutu brewery is actually the original Tuatara brewery, transplanted from a cow shed in Reikorangi on the Kapiti Coast to a shed in Tikioki on the South-Eastern coast of Rarotonga. Matutu founders James Puati and Eric Newnham spent months travelling to and from Wellington to work with Tuatara, study their kit and learn the brewing process. Then it was all packed up and shipped to Rarotonga.
Four years old, Matutu make two staple beers: Mai Lager and Kiva Pale Ale. I was astounded by the quality of beer being made in such isolation.

In a tropical climate such as Rarotonga, awash with pale lager, I was very happy to see a pale ale. Kiva Pale Ale is hopped with a blend of US-grown Centennial and NZ grown Golding hops, which give a floral aroma. Use of crystal malts give Kiva a rich, sweet flavour, and when combined with light hopping give the impression of an easy drinking English pale ale.

In Cook Islands Maori ‘Mai’ means ‘come here’ or ‘bring me another’, a phrase I was using often with this beer. Thankfully Matutu Mai Lager isn’t an attempt to clone the popular but flavourless lagers mostly available on the island. It uses two of my favourite hops, Motueka and Riwaka, which turn it into more of a crisp, refreshing pilsner very similar to many being made by New Zealand’s best craft breweries. I’d recommend visiting the brewery if you’re ever in the area—Mai Lager unfiltered straight out of the tank is amazing.
Of course these beers aren’t usually available in New Zealand, but I have learned that Matutu has been selected as one of two Cook Island businesses to be exhibited at the New Zealand business innovation showcase held at ‘The Cloud’ in Auckland during the Rugby World Cup. Matutu have commissioned a batch of Mai Lager to be brewed by Invercargill Brewery for the event, and if any is leftover it may make its way to Wellington. So keep an eye out!

If you have any questions about this week’s beers or any comments, please contact me at davethebeerguy@gmail.com or tweet at me @davethebeerguy

A few months after starting home brewing myself, I met Matt Warner and Matt Kristovski, who lived down the road from me. They came over one day to check out my equipment, because they were planning to build their own brew kit for their home brewery, dubbed ParrotDog.

After much trial and error, Matt and Matt hammered out a few solid recipes and the urge to share their successes with the public grew and grew. Eventually they approached their mate Matt Stevens (who is conveniently a chartered accountant), and went thirds in creating a real-life company: ParrotDog Brewing Limited.

They followed the growing trend of contract brewing and brewed their first beer, BitterBitch, at Mike’s Brewery in Taranaki. The brew went well, and the resulting beer was recently launched at a record-setting night at Hashigo Zake.

The launch night packed out the bar, and after the Matts poured the first ever pints of ParrotDog BitterBitch, kegs emptied as fast as they could be changed, with all 120 litres of the launch beer being drained in one hour and 26 minutes—a new Hashigo Zake record.

I managed to get a taste of the ParrotDog Bitterbitch (5.8%) before it seemingly evaporated, and what I experienced was just as good as their homebrew. The Matts went against the Mike’s brewer’s advice, and added more than 10kg of dry hops. This “add more hops” approach did wonders for the beer, with an intense passionfruit aroma and grass characteristics coming through from the Motueka and Nelson Sauvin hops used. The beer lives up to its name with an intense bitterness, but this is offset well by the rich Maris Otter malt and a perceived sweetness from the fruity hops.

It’s been a pleasure watching ParrotDog go from a twinkle in the Matts’ eyes to a resounding success, which I’m sure will continue. The next ParrotDog offering is on its way with ParrotDog IPA being brewed just two weekends ago. Check this one out in late August.

Traditionally, this challenge has involved two beers—Epic Armageddon and Hallertau Humulus Lupulus Maximus. But this year, neither beer was present. Instead, the competition was opened up to all breweries to make their own interpretation of a West Coast IPA and the entries were judged by a panel of beer aficionados to quell any arguments about which took top honours.

By far the largest challenge yet, this year eight beers competed for hoppy glory. I showed up bright and early to find my own champion by sampling everything on offer. I rated the beers on two scales—the ‘how much I like it’ scale and the ‘how close I think it is to style (West Coast IPA)’ scale.

Epic Hop Zombie IIPA(8.5%)—Batch two of this fruity imperial IPA has just a touch more bitterness, making it far more IPA-ish than the first. Like: 8.5/10 Style: 8.75/10

Hallertau Stuntman IIPA (9%) was possibly the first imperial IPA made with solely New Zealand grown hops, and this latest batch shows those off excessively. When used in huge quantities, New Zealand hops give a ‘funk’ which I can only compare to armpit sweat—but fruity. The beer hides its alcohol well with a huge sweet body, while the funky hops balance it nicely.
Like: 7/10 Style: 8/10

8 Wired make possibly the most successful IPA in the country, but surprisingly they’ve never gone imperial with one—until now. Launched on the night was 8 Wired Superconductor IIPA (8.8%), with 80 per cent more hops than Hopwired. Superconductor shows off big, grassy, passionfruit hop aromas and flavours, with a hint of good ol’ funk. Like: 8/10 Style: 8/10

Local pants and shoes enthusiasts Yeastie Boys were there this year with the Warriors. Not the league team, but two massively hopped IPAs, each showing off hops from a specific region. Yakima Warrior (7%) is hopped using only varieties grown in Yakima, Washington. In true west coast IPA style the big tropical hops are pulled back into a black hole of bitterness. Like: 6.5/10 Style: 8.5/10

Motueka Warrior (7%) showcases hops grown in Motueka, near Nelson. To me this Warrior tasted very similar to an American IPA made by Green Flash named ‘West Coast IPA’—dry and bitter as hell. A true palate wrecker. Like: 6/10 Style: 9/10

Moa went a completely different route with McMoa (aka Jean Claude Hop Damn) (10.4%), an esoteric IIPA made with a Belgian Yeast. This was actually the judges’ pick and it won the WCIPA challenge trophy: The Golden Gumboots. But I wonder how a Belgian IPA wins a West Coast IPA competition? Yeast is prominent in the aromas and flavours here, with banana dominating and big hops on the finish. Like: 8/10 Style: 1/10

My winner on the night was also the most insane, a collaboration between Epic, Hallertau and Liberty—The Four Horsemen of the Hopocalypse IIPA (10%). This beer injects hops into your olfactory—there is a massive, overripe fruit bowl going on here. Somehow, this ridiculous beer manages to remain balanced and drinkable. It shouldn’t work but it goddamn does. Like: 9/10 Style: 7/10

Some of these beers will still be flowing at The Malthouse, and will be popping up at other good beer bars around Wellington in the coming weeks and months. Get some. *
If you have any questions about this week’s beers or any comments, please contact me at davethebeerguy@gmail.com or Tweet at me @davethebeerguy

In the ensuing months Jo has been tinkering with his own 200L brew kit, expanding Liberty Brewing from a home brew supply company to commercial brewery. Since then, Liberty Brewing releases have been steady but only available on tap. That is all about to change.

Liberty’s three most extreme brews were deemed too powerful for tap release, so were packaged in sexy 750ml champagne bottles.
The first in the range is High Carb Ale (7.3%, 45g carbohydrates) a not so subtle dig at the bland world of low carb beer. High Carb Ale is touted as a New Zealand strong ale, featuring NZ Chinook hops. This is a wonderfully rich beer, showing off a huge strawberry jam hop character unlike any other I’ve experienced all balanced perfectly with huge malt.

Next in line is MMMMoMMft4CH (10.4%), which stands for something but it’d put me over my word limit to write it out. This is a black barley wine, something not attempted on the NZ market before. It combines the high alcohol sweetness of a barley wine with a roasty malt character making for quite a mouthful. I think this is a beer to age for 6 months or more, when the flavours will have integrated nicely.

The big daddy of the range is Never Go Back (10.6%), an imperial oat stout. If you think Guinness is thick, you’ll need a bit more courage before attempting this brew. This is thick. It’s aroma is a wonderful mix of vanilla and chocolate, but from the first sip you are assaulted with intense coffee and cocoa flavours all on top of silky malt courtesy of the oats.

Liberty’s bottles are available now at all good beer outlets, while sporadic tap releases of more experimental brews appear at Hashigo Zake
Another garage brewery has emerged in quake-torn Christchurch. Golden Eagle Brewing is the brainchild of home brewer David Gaughan, who now has a 200L brewery residing in his garage. Golden Eagle’s line up consists of Coal Face Stout, South Island Pale Ale, Ah Reet Golden Ale and Apache Amber Ale. A few of these have made it to the taps at Hashigo Zake, but due to the size of the brewery supply is sporadic. I can vouch for the quality of these beers; if you’re lucky enough to find any on tap, don’t miss out.

When the most imperial of IPAs won’t cut it, many beer drinkers turn to whisky. However, a new Yeastie Boys release looks to fill that niche with beer.
Yeastie Boys’ Creative Director Stu McKinlay has long been a Scotch whisky fan and so, one day last year, he created an experimental test batch using Peated Distilling Malt (PDM), usually used in whisky from the Isle of Islay (pronounced “eye-lah”). This wouldn’t be such an extreme undertaking if Stu had followed normal brewing sense, which is to only use PDM as a maximum of 5% of your total malt (the smoky Scotch ale stonecutter has only around 1%). Stu used 100%.

What should have been so smoky that it was one note and undrinkable, was surpisingly complex and tasty. I was lucky enough to taste the second test batch, with 95% PDM and 5% caramel malt. Oddly, reducing the percentage of smoked malt made the beer less drinkable, with the caramalt adding too much richness. The lesson was learned, and two metric tonnes of PDM was ordered from Scotland. There wasn’t enough in New Zealand to make even one batch.

Here we are months later, and the child of beer and whisky, Yeastie Boys Rex Attitude (7%), is on the shelves.
My first sip was like licking an ash tray, but after a few more, my palate had time to adjust to the intense smoke, and the more subtle elements of the beer emerged. I was less blinded by the smoke, and more intrigued. The ash tray smoke turned into smoky bacon, and invited another sip. US Willamette hops provide a faint citrus flavour, which works well with some malty sweetness.

Almost all of Rex Attitude was bottled and these will be available at all good beer outlets in Wellington from here on out, making for Yeastie Boys’ third year-round offering. A select few outlets will be brave enough to put Rex on tap—confirmed so far are Regional Wines & Spirits, Malthouse, Bruhaus and Hashigo Zake. *

If you have any questions about this week’s beers or any comments, please contact me at davethebeerguy@gmail.com or Tweet at me @davethebeerguy

Nelson is home to at least 13 breweries—and I might even be forgetting one or two. This anomalous number may have something to do with Nelson being the only region where hops are grown in New Zealand. Every year, a beer festival named Marchfest is held to celebrate the harvest of these hops, and this year 12 breweries participated.
Marchfest organisers task each participating brewery to create a unique beer for the festival, along a certain theme. This year’s theme was ‘revolution’, and each brewery created their beer with that theme in mind. There were too many beers on offer for me to mention, but there were a few standouts.

Sprig & Fern’s Marchfest offering is the same every year, and always manages to capture the essence of fresh hops. Sprig & Fern Harvest Pilsner (5%)—named Red Star for Marchfest—is a green-hopped lager. Green hopping is when hops are picked from the vine the day of the brew and tossed straight in the beer. This means every last drop of flavoursome hop oil is extracted into the beer. This year’s Harvest Pilsner shows off the big, fruity, floral aromas of Riwaka and Nelson Sauvin hops. It’s so fruity many comparisons have been made to a Marlborough sauvignon blanc.

Stoke Brewery brought along Smok’n Guns (5.5%), a smoked lager. With my previous experience with Stoke beers I didn’t know what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised. The smoked-bacon aromas and flavours of beech smoked malt shone through, with a pleasantly rich body. Hopefully Stoke can one day translate this beer to a full sized batch for everyone to enjoy.

The beer which created the most fuss was 8 Wired Brewing’s Uber Pils (7%). Only 100 litres were made for the festival, and it was only available once an hour for 5-10 minutes. Every hour, at the top of each hour, dedicated fans queued up for a chance to try this truly revolutionary beer. Uber Pils has taken the flavour of a classic New Zealand pilsner (a la Emersons Pilsner) and amped up every aspect. Big passionfruit aromas wafted from the glass, which then showed up in the flavour. A rich and rewarding drink, it is worthy of a large scale brew so all can enjoy its unique experience.

Keep an eye out for other brewery’s offerings popping up in Wellington in the coming weeks. Leftover Marchfest beers from Renaissance, Moa, Sprig & Fern and possibly more are on their way as we speak…

If you have any questions about this week’s beers or any comments, please contact me at davethebeerguy@gmail.com or tweet at me @davethebeerguy.

Still, looking back at them now I focused on the negative side of things often while ignoring positive aspects of the beers I’m reviewing. For example, it’s bloody hard to brew a beer that tastes of very little.

Maybe it’s time to revisit the beers which I have criticised over the years, but from a more neutral standpoint taking into account the brewers intentions. First of all:

Tui

The good: Since my original column Tui has been packaged in long neck bottles, giving it a classier appearance. A good move in my books, stubbies are so ’90s. The beer is very well made with no nasty flavours like in some other big-scale beers.
The bad: No nasty flavours, great. But there’s no flavour at all. I enjoy a little character to my beers, but if all you’re after is something cheap and easy drinking why not go for it. However, my main annoyance about Tui remains—it is NOT an India Pale Ale as advertised, it is a goddamn lager.

Steinlager Classic

The good: There are worse beers out there to be widely seen as this country’s main beer export, and it showcases NZ grown green bullet hops.
The Bad: The green bullet hops often taste skunky due to UV light damaging the hop oils through the green bottle. Cans are the way to go here.

Steinlager Pure

The good: I recently learned that this beer contains one of my favourite hops, Nelson Sauvin. And if I concentrate I can just taste it. It’s also fairly dry, giving it a thirst-quenching quality.
The bad: If I don’t concentrate I might as well be drinking Tui.

Steinlager Edge

The good: At 3.5 per cent it is a good choice for a drinking session if you’ve got to be up early for work.
The bad: A thinner, blander version of Steinlager. Drinking it seemed like a waste of energy. Just go for one of the other two versions, unless you’re at the Basin Reserve for a cricket match where unfortunately this is all they’re serving.

So sure, I’ve talked shit. And I will continue to, but only when I think it’s necessary and will spark some constructive debate and discussion about the issue. If you’re just making negative comments for the sake of being nasty, you’re just trollin’.

Oddly, more often than not, the beer that the punter is tasting contains no wheat at all. Usually the flavour they’re trying to identify is something other than a grain—it is a yeast flavour. Beers like Three Boys Wheat, Tuatara Hefe and Hoegaarden Witbier have popularised the yeast-focused flavour of Witbiers and Weissbiers—styles of wheat beer.

The majority of a wheat beer’s flavour comes from the compounds created by the yeast during fermentation. These can taste like anything from bananas to clove, and have crazy names like Isoamyl Acetate. Remove the yeast flavour from a wheat beer and the flavour can be as clean as a pilsner, even though it may feature 50% or more wheat malt.
To showcase just what yeast contributes to a beer, the local brewing badasses Yeastie Boys decided to do a little experiment, dubbed ‘Yeastherder’. They released two beers—‘Europa’ and ‘Rapture’—named after Blondie songs in true Yeastie style.

Europa and Rapture are exactly the same beer, except for one aspect: the yeast. Europa features a German Helles yeast which ferments cleanly—meaning it creates very little flavours. Rapture features the same Belgian yeast strain used in the famous Chimay beers, and as such, adds a huge yeast character to the beer.
Europa (4.2%) might best be described as a summer golden ale due to its crisp dry body and zesty hop flavour. Europa is a simple beer, but not detrimentally so. Its crisp flavour and simplicity make it a rewarding beer to sip on those rare, sunny Wellington days.

Rapture (4.5%), on the other hand, is something a bit different. Yeast is the main show here, with a big aroma of cloves that are followed up with even more in the flavour. Rapture brings the big character of the Chimay yeast, but in a much smaller package than usual.

The yeastherders have already been gracing taps and handpumps at beer bars throughout Wellington, but there’s still some left so keep an eye out and get amongst this brilliant piece of beer geekery.

The Yeastie Boys donated the proceeds from online sales of Rapture and Europa to the Christchurch relief fund, one of many gestures of kindness from the beer industry. Mad props to them all.

If you have any questions about this week’s beers or any comments, please contact me at davethebeerguy@gmail.com or tweet at me @davethebeerguy