Last week I held a sold-out beer tasting at D4 here in Wellington. The beers all came from D4’s tap range, and so there were some unusual and eclectic matches. The first pairing was Erdinger Weissbier and Coopers Sparkling Ale. Coopers Sparkling was the first craft beer I tasted, many years ago, in Australia. It’s […]
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Come and join me for a back-to-work beer tasting to end the summer break in style. We will be having a blind tasting of range of craft beers from New Zealand and overseas on Wednesday 26 January. D4 on Featherston is providing the beer and food, and there will be prizes and giveaways too. Come […]
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When major breweries rationed supplies to freehouse D4 on Featherston, proprietor Dermot Murphy found a new market for craft beer. Dermot came to New Zealand from Dublin, and named his first bar after the postcode where he grew up. His accent came with him, and his beer specialist Finbarr Clabby is another Irish import. Finbarr […]
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Hashigo Zake is a bit complex. It’s a craft beer bar with a Japanese theme operating out of some old police cells in central Wellington. NZBeerBlog caught up with proprietor Dominic Kelly in between preparing for his bar’s first birthday party and planning a trip to Japan. “There’s an Old World/New World divide in beer, […]
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Marlborough has been a quiet achiever in the New Zealand craft brew industry. It has an international profile for its grapes and winemakers, but there’s more to Marlborough than wine. One of the pioneers of the current generation of craft brewers was Pink Elephant, with the quirky and challenging Pink Elephant PDA. This was on […]
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Thornbridge is an English craft brewery with strong links to New Zealand. Those links will be strengthened next week when the Malthouse launches three Thornbridge imports at Beervana. English pale ales always seem a bit understated and stiff-upper-lip to my New World tastes, but Jaipur India Pale Ale proves me wrong again. Thornbridge describe it […]
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When I visit a restaurant or bar for the first time, I’ll often ask to see the beer list. I do it out of curiosity, because I like a good beer, and to be slightly annoying too. Sometimes I get a funny look, sometimes they’ll flick to the back page of the wine list, and […]
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Morton Coutts was New Zealand’s most influential brewer, but he had some strange ideas about hops. I was at the Macs Brewery Bar in Wellington last week with a colleague. He had a Mac’s Gold and when it came to getting a second round, I suggested he try a Hopsmacker Hoprocker and tell me if […]
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What do you say when a friend tells you all beer tastes the same? People who pride themselves on good taste in wine will tell you they can’t tell one beer from another. Those who know good coffee will say they’ve never had a good beer. I can completely sympathise with beer sceptics, because it’s […]
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I was at the Malthouse on Saturday for the third West Coast IPA Challenge. I was expecting hops, hops and nothing but hops, but I didn’t get it. And that’s a good thing. Now don’t get me wrong – there’s no shortage of healthy, resinous, clears-the-sinuses American hops in both Epic Armageddon and Hallertau Maximus […]
Filed under: Beer Bars, Beer Makers, Gushing forth, Reviews | 7 Comments »