Goodbye 20's Hello 30's!

Your Invited to my 30th Birthday & Sarah, Max and Molly’s House Warming

Join us on Saturday the 21st of November to celebrate my 30th Birthday and the moving in of Sarah and the kids. We will have ales from The Twisted Hop, O-Street and Townshend Breweries on draught and an Indian and Thai themed Barbeque.

When: Saturday 21st of November 2pm till 10pm.
Where: The Mason’s Arms 381 Ohiro Rd Brooklyn
Bring a koha for the beer and something spicy for the BBQ

Gifts not expected but if you want to give me something a bottle of Thomas Hardy’s Ale for the cellar would be lovely.

Real Ale at the Races

Never let it be said that we let a bad beer selection get in the way of a good time. This weekend I made a mad dash to Otaki for a very short weekend away for my good friend Mulchin’s 30^th Birthday. I had to be back for work on Sunday and ended up having to race the train an extra stop in order to catch it home!

On Saturday we visited the Otaki Maori Racing Club meet at the Otaki racecourse. We knew the usual suspects were on offer from bar so decided to sort our own beer out. We set up a beer engine in the back of the van and enjoyed the good stuff

To make the weekend special I had organised 3 soft packs, a concept similar to nasty cask wine but bigger and without the nasty wine, filled with bright moderately conditioned beer. So my title is a little disingenuous as it was really bright ale at the races but that didn’t have the same ring to it!

Through the weekend we enjoyed Twisted Hop Goldings Bitter, Three Boys IPA and Three Boys Oyster Stout. All were tasting absolutely fantastic. We had the IPA at the races and it certainly hit the spot.

SOBA Homebrew Fest

On Sunday we ran the first SOBA Homebrew festival, which also happened to be the first beerfestival run by our organisation. It was a fantastic success, all our worries about liquor license infringements, violence and assorted other troubles proved to be unfounded. On offer was a range of craft brewed beer and one cider, and homebrewed beer. There were six beer engines in action which I suspect is more than were employed at the recent Hops and Glory Real Ale festival. There was even a pin of Twisted Hop IPA sent up from Christchurch for the event. I served my Chilka IPA, while other highlights included Brendan’s Smoked Porter, Stu’s American Stout and a very popular Automotivly themed Belgian ale from organiser Rob Owen.

The festival served as a prize giving for the recent SOBA National Homebrew Competition. The competition gathered some outstanding entries including a barley wine which had 10 years of bottle age on it. I took out best in class English style IPA with a silver medal for Chilka IPA.

A great day and a lot of hard work for a good cause, great beer.