The Rise of the Umper Lumpa Brewer

Luke Nicholas is known as the ‘impish brewer’, writer Neil Miller as the ‘Minister of Hops’, publican Collin Mallon as the ‘Handsome Yet Softly Spoken Scottish Proprietor’ and now beer blogger and consumer affairs writer Martin Craig has christened me the Umper Lumpa brewer.
Martin has an extremely dry old school New Zealand sense of humour and while the comment might not sound altogether charitable I take it in the spirit in which it was meant.

Last nights R.S.B. launch went well with only a few negative comments, one of which came from a guy who would like New Zealand beer to taste more like Grolsch so I’m not too worried. Most people were really positive, the beer was tasting great through the beer engine with its fruity hop flavour really coming out amongst the rich malt profile.

Photograph the property of Jed Soane ©2010 all rights reserved.

R.S.B. Launch

Tonight I launch my beer instore at Regional. I will be degassing some of it and serving it through a handpump to the public. I’m excited and also a little hesitant; it will be interesting to see what the punters think of it. It has got off to a good start with it featuring at last night Emerson’s Masterclass , the first of three, and scoring a third equal placing in the public vote, remarkable considering the calibre of the beers it was up against. I’m pretty rapped with the beer, it has a lovely complex malt character and some nice orangey hop flavour, although it is a lot less aromatic than my home brewed version. I made the decision not to dry hop the beer but in hindsight I think it could use some more hop aroma, and would have been better with the Fullers strain rather than the American one. Still it's a good beer and it's my beer.
I have loaded my beer here on ratebeer, the beer nerd in me is extremely proud. Let me know what you think.