Wednesday, March 3, 2010

The last brew

Well it all did go to plan. It was a wonderful thing to witness. The heady aromas of green fruity Motueka hops being pummelled in the hopback by hard working brewers all for the sake of creating a special harvest ale. . It was also sad. The loss of Macs from Wellington is bad for Wellington undoubtedly, but also I fear it may spell the end of a craft ethos for the brand. Witnessing the brewing of Brewjolias drew it all into perspective, watching the brewers sweating away working the wort from the kettle through the hop bed was like some scene from a Victorian brewery, it was pure daft labour intensive work all in order to create something special. In short it was the sort of thing that a craft brewery would do, but not the sort of thing a large brewery would do. I hope I am proved wrong and Christchurch carries on the craft ethos that undoubtedly existed at Wellington. I will cross my fingers but I wont hold my breath.








6 comments:

The Beer Nut said...

It was the first pub I went to on arriving in New Zealand. It's sad to think of the brewery not being there any more.

Thanks for seeing it off properly.

Tandleman said...

What's the story here Kieran?

Kieran Haslett-Moore said...

Macs are a pioneering Craft Beer brand in NZ, they were the first independant brewery to open in NZ in the modern era in 1980. They were bought by Lion Nathen in the late 90's, and later effectivly moved from Nelson to the brewery/brewpub on the Wellington waterfront. Now Lion has decided that it is to expensive to continue brewing in downtown Wellington (and that the brand no longer requires a flagship brewery) and is moving production to the large brewery in Christchurch.
The brewery produces-ed some good characterfull beer, particulary considering they are owned by a macro.
The beer I went to watch being brewed is Brewjolais a green hopped beer that marks each years hop harvest.

Kieran Haslett-Moore said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Tandleman said...

Cheers Kieran.

Leigh said...

Motueka are my new hop obsession. We've had spate of local breweries using them in the last couple of months, all pales, and they've all been great. As a homebrewer myself, I'm really getting into NZ hops. This looks great, man.