Crafty
A couple of years back I attended a “beer tasting” session as part of the now defunct Underground Cellar (or should I say in hiatus, Rob?) It was a really cool night and I got to try a whole bunch of old fashioned UK brewed beers. It certainly opened my eyes to a whole new world of flavour anyways!
The guy that was presenting that night (and apologies, I’ve completely forgotten his name) explained to us that beer was very similar to wine in it’s changing market. He reminded us all that fifteen or twenty years ago we (and by we I mean my parents) were buying cask wine at $10 or less per box. Somewhere in the 80s wine became a bit of a chic beast and now we find ourselves quite happily buying a Te Mata Bullnose for $50 a bottle. He went on to say that beer was going to enjoy a similar development and pretty soon we’d be buying a 500ml bottle for $10-$15.
Hands up who thought he was mad? Yup… pretty much everyone in the room.
So fast forward to present day, and my interest in brewing (which probably stems a lot from that night) has seen me broaden my tastes in commercial beer. I’m actually have to say – as much as this website’s splash page (which is very old fashioned anyways) says so – that I really, really dislike Tui. I used to love the stuff – gobbling it down all the time and generally as a whanau we’d put away about 5 or 6 boxes of the stuff over Christmas no trouble at all. But my tastes have changed. And I blame it completely on the budding New Zealand craft beer industry.
I realised a long time ago that there was something special going on over at the Hawke’s Bay Independent Brewery. Their beers are nothing short of spectacular. Particular faves of mine are the Black Duck porter and their Pilsner. But the domestic brewing industry is just exploding at the moment. Tuatara, 8 Wired, Mike’s Organic Beer (Larry?), our local Naturale, and my new personal favourite, Epic - to name but a few. And these aren’t your $15 a box beers – these are your quality, $20 a six pack/$15 for a 1.5l kind of beers – in fact I recently paid $10 for a 500ml bottle of Epic’s Hop Zombie. And you know what? I’d do it again. In a heartbeat.
So was that guy so wrong? Definitely not. Sure – I might be cutting costs on my beer by brewing my own (and it really doesn’t taste that bad), but I’m sure I’m spending more on beer overall with my new found passion for small batch, locally brewed, golden (or blackened!) super-hopped liquid gold.
Here’s my list of great tasters so far:
- Epic Hop Zombie – 8.5% of pure grunt. A (passion)fruity modern IPA that’ll knock your socks off.
- 8 Wired’s Hopwired IPA - a nice modern style IPA with that trademark passionfruit hit.
- Mac’s Hop Rocker – full flavour with a little less kick-ass that the Hop Zombie, but a bit on the more affordable side.
- Naturale Skor Lager – crisp, clear , refreshing and tasty.
- HBIB Pilsner – again a slightly fruity sort of a hint to it and the perfect cure to a summer scorcher.
So, TGMers… have you tried any really good craft beers lately? What can you recommend?
Posted from Hastings, Hawke's Bay, New Zealand.
This post tagged as: beer, Brewing, craft, events
30
Aug
My favourite beer at the moment (and for a few years now) is Monteith’s Radler Bier. I don’t drink a lot of beer but a bottle of Radler at the end of the day is great. Some may say it’s a girlie beer and perhaps it is as it has a citrus zing (thanks to added lemon juice). But it’s just so refreshing and I know a number of males who like it too
Yeah I never really enjoyed it before – but actually keen to try it again now I have developed my tastes a little! Kirsty loves it too and wants me to brew something similar… I dunno where to start!! Saaz hops help apparently.
craft beers? nah, just the usual tui and when its on special grolsch.