White Rino – Imperial India Pale Ale

Back in November my team won the 2007 Gisborne Gold Beer Options. Our team was called White Rino. The name stemmed from when team member Pete attended his work Christmas function at a Loaded Hog. The Loaded Hog is a dire pub chain that has its own brewery which brews beers so balanced you would swear you were drinking coloured chilled soda water. Due to Pete’s dislike for wine and the lack of any beer worth drinking he chose to drink actual soda water. The usual raised eye brows followed and he was asked:

Co-Worker 1 “Why aren’t you drinking?”

Pete “I don’t like wine and I don’t want to drink these beers”

Co-Worker 1 “What beer do you drink?!!”

Pete “A wide variety”

Co-Worker 1 “WHITE RINO!!!? I HAVE NEVER HEARD OF THAT BEER”

Pete “No I said a wide variety”

Co- Worker 2 “I heard you say White Rino!”

And hence White Rino entered our vocabulary, a faux cockney slang born out of miscommunication. When team White Rino won I promised to brew a beer in their honour, and so on Sunday I will be having a stab at one of the most over the top style out there, imperial India pale ale. It should be a fun day of slaughtering hop bines and will have the added element of a journalist from an Engineering Publication sitting in for a forth coming article on brewing large and small scale. There is some irony in me being included in the article as I am somewhat renowned among local homebrewers for being a bit of a luddite.