CT Column16/03/2011: Tastes like communal spirit

IN the wake of the Christchurch earthquake many of us have been scratching our heads about what exactly we can do to help.
A week ago those of us in the craft beer community came together to do what we could. A series of fundraising events around New Zealand and Australia were organised by consumer group the Society of Beer Advocates and the Brewers Guild. In Wellington, the local beer community gathered at Bar Edward in Newtown to hold a charity auction and drink from a charity bar. Brewers from around the country donated beer that was sold across the bar while other items were auctioned off with all takings going to the Red Cross appeal. There were some fantastic items donated including a day brewing with Carl Vasta at Tuatara, a beer matched bistro lunch at Logan Brown, tickets to Nelson’s Marchfest, rare bottles of beer, and most poignantly a bottle of Three Boys Aftershock.
Aftershock came about after last year’s 7.1 quake when that one knocked out power to Three Boys Woolston brewery. Brewer Ralph Bungard saved a brew of Three Boys Golden Ale but after being interrupted by the power cut he decided to change the beer and release it as an earthquake themed one off release. Aftershock sold like hot cakes and is now very rare.
The silver lining to this disaster has been the way the community has pulled together and it was great to see that this was true of the beer community just as it has been true of the wider community. The single 330ml bottle of Three Boys Aftershock fetched a staggering $325 while the event as a whole raised over $6300.
While Christchurch brewed beers may be scarce over the next few weeks the best way you can support these businesses is to keep buying their beers. Cheers.

CT Column 9/03/2011 : Underwired

BREWERS often set themselves technical challenges. Sometimes this takes the form of nursing their yeasts to achieve high alcohol levels, sometimes it consists of using unusual ingredients, and in several cases I know of it has involved creating a beer with a very low carbohydrate level, a dubious if highly marketable goal.
Last year 8 Wired brewer Søren Erikson decided he wanted to take up the challenge of brewing an aromatic and highly flavourful beer but at an alcoholic strength that would allow it to fit the legal definition of ‘low alcohol beer’. To hold a liquor license in New Zealand a bar or restaurant must provide a beer with 2.5% alcohol by volume or less. Søren decided he wanted to brew a low alcohol version of a hoppy American style India pale ale, a style that usually uses a relatively high alcohol level to deliver big flavours.
Brewing lower alcohol beers usually means adding less malt, Søren decided to take a different tack by adding a large percentage of an unfermentable type of malt called Crystal Malt. Crystal Malt tends to give the beer it is used in nutty, caramel flavours and helps to give body. Usually brewers use 10 to 20 percent, Søren decided to use 66% meaning that the resulting beer did not ferment out to a high alcohol level but did retain enough body and malt character to balance out the big hop flavours and aromas that Søren packed into the beer.
The result was named Underwired as a humorous reference to Søren’s 7.3%abv assertively hopped IPA Hopwired. The resulting beer offers up a big fruity aroma with some floral notes and a distinct whiff of grapefruit. In the mouth Underwired is fruity and hop accented with just enough body and caramel malt character to balance the hops. While the beer is definitely on the thin end of the spectrum it’s highly drinkable and infinitely more satisfying and characterful than the other low alcohol beers on the market. Cheers!

CT Column 2/03/2011: The quiet revolution

RECENTLY, I have been lucky enough to dine at several restaurants which have put substantial thought into the beers they serve.
Beer advocates sometimes labour the point about beer and food matching. We do this in part as a reaction to the prejudices shown in certain sections of the food writing world that says wine is the only drink worthy of the dinner table, and as a reaction to the incredibly limited range of beers that have traditionally been offered in our restaurants. However the real process of change seems to have been led by customers demanding better beer and restaurateurs responding to the demand. It wasn’t so long ago that almost any expensive restaurant offered multiple varieties of wine but beer was represented by the one generic ubiquitous golden style of lager.
Ambeli in Mt Victoria has recently opened for lunch and I was lucky enough to sample some seriously tasty well crafted food alongside the best craft beer NZ has to offer. I tried charcuterie, chilled almond soup, smoked paprika ceviche and marinated olives accompanied by a glass of the extravagantly hopped 8 Hopwired IPA; then battered Medjool Date, Cumin Goats Cheese & pickled orange salad with a glass of Mussel Inn Captain Cooker; Sherry braised free range pork belly, roasted pear and fennel salad with a glass of Three Boys Wheat; and finally sauteed prawns feta risotto and lemon sauce with Emerson’s Weiss beer. Each dish was as expertly crafted as the beer that it was matched with. I should add that my partner Sarah was accompanying me lest the reputation for gluttony that my Christmas columns have earned me grows.
Another place to find the best of beer alongside the best of food is Wellington’s newest beer outlet The Hop Garden. I was one of the first customers to dine in the newly opened restaurant which successfully straddles the line between restaurant and pub. Here pork belly and smoked potato was accompanied by the fruity yeasty Coopers Sparkling; citrus-spiced zucchini bruschetta with crumbled goat’s cheese found a zesty companion in Twisted Hop Sauvin Pilsner, and salmon and caper berry croquettes with a fennel citrus salad was accompanied by the fruity rounded Three Boys Golden Ale.
Finally towards the end of last year I dined at the Ortega Fish Shack. I must declare an interest here as I helped Davey McDonald formulate the beer list when they launched a little over a year ago, we can’t have done too bad a job as Ortega won the Beer and Brewer award for best beer friendly restaurant. Ortega’s list has four descriptive sections, Light and Crisp, Zesty and Full, Dark and Roasty, and Rich and Rounded. These descriptors help diners choose the beer that will suit the food they order and with 30 beers across a broad range of styles there definitely is something for every dish.
These are a few Wellington restaurants with serious beer lists and we should count ourselves lucky for that. It has been said that the best beer and food match is the one in front of you and with options like the ones available at these restaurants that is certainly true.
On a more sobering note, as I write this the aftermath of the second Christchurch earth quake is slowly becoming clear. This time it seems the city’s craft breweries have been extensively damaged with expletives used to describe the state of some of them. Thankfully, at this point, the brewers and their families all seem to have survived.

CT Column 9/02/2011 :Flaming beer from the other capital

HERE in Wellington we like to think of ourselves as the beer capital of NZ. We have some pretty good evidence to back this up.
Not only does our city boast an excellent range of dedicated craft beer bars and quality retailers but increasingly our ‘middle of the road’ restaurants, cafes and bars are stocking a craft beer option and often a wide selection. We also, of course, have one large regional craft brewery Tuatara, and one contract brewer Yeastie Boys. The Wellington craft beer market is lucrative and many breweries from around the country do a large amount of their business in this town.
There are however pretenders to the throne. Nelson has a claim. The town is poised on the edge of the hop growing fields with a large number of breweries and a handful of lovely bars and pubs in which to drink. Nelson is a lovely place but the word capital really doesn’t spring to mind when you visit. I would describe it more as the ‘workshop’ of New Zealand Craft beer.
Further south Christchurch also has a claim. The town is home to a number of important New Zealand craft breweries, in large part due to the untreated artesian water that runs free through its municipal water system and the abundance of affordable industrial real estate. In addition to some of the big names of NZ Craft brewing like Three Boys, Twisted Hop and Harrington’s counting Christchurch as home there are a whole raft of new start up breweries.
One of these breweries is Cassels and Sons. Located in Woolston, a stone’s throw from the Three Boys Brewery, Cassels and Sons is a brewery with a very unique piece of kit. Modern breweries use electricity or gas to heat the kettle that boils the extracted malt sugars with the hops. At Cassels and Sons they have decided to heat their kettle with a log fire much as breweries would have before the industrial revolution. While many in the brewing world have met this news with raised eye brows, brewing is hard enough with out adding an un-necessary variable into the mix being the common sentiment, everyone I have talked to has been dying to see it in action!
The brewery is currently brewing a pale lager, a New Zealand Pilsner, a dark Dunkel Lager, a fruit beer and my favourite an Extra Special Bitter. The beers are currently only available in Christchurch and the brewery is attempting to work out how they can increase distribution without over extending themselves. There will however be a chance to try one of the Cassels and Sons beers along side a whole host of other beers from Christchurch brewers both new and established at a tasting I am arranging at Regional Wines on the 24th and 25th of this month.
As for where exactly the beer capital of NZ lies, for me it’s pretty clearly our own fair city, but then I’m biased. Cheers!

CT Column 2/02/2011 :Europa, Rapture and Tally Ho!

GOLDEN ales are a relatively young style of beer dating from the early 1980’s. Independent English Ale brewers decided they needed a style of beer to compete with the pale lagers that were becoming increasingly popular with the masses. They devised a beer that was pale, and hoppy with a rounded fruity note from the ale yeasts they employed. These beers were ultimately a far more interesting and satisfying proposition than the mass produced lagers they were trying to rival. Today, both in the UK and here in the Antipodes, golden ales are increasingly being seen as a crucial element of the perfect summer, or at least they are a crucial element of my perfect summer! Over the next few weeks there will be three seasonal golden ales hitting the local taps.
Never ones to do things by halves, Wellington’s own Yeastie Boys are releasing two golden ales. The beers will be identical apart from the yeast that has been used to ferment them. Both beers comprise a very simple recipe of pale malt, wheat malt, and Nelson Sauvin and NZ Cascade hops. The first of the two beers is called Europa after a Blondie song although there have been whispers that it may in fact also be a reference to New Zealand’s local and now defunct oil company. As descendent of a former Europa employee I side with this far less likely theory! Europa has been fermented with a clean crisp Kolsch yeast which has highlighted the subtle malt flavours and lightly fruity hop aromas. At 4.2%abv it makes for a fantastic session beer offering just enough fruity hop character and nutty malt flavour to keep the drinker interested. Rapture which is most definitely named after a Blondie song has been fermented with the Belgian Abbey Ale yeast strain that originated at the Chimay brewery. It will be released early Feb, and is sure to be an altogether spicier more peppery proposition than Europa.
The new Emerson’s Brewers Reserve has been named ‘Tally Ho!’ after The Clean’s 1981 single. Tally Ho! is a golden ale that has been brewed with NZ pale malt, caramalt, English grown Challenger and East Kent Golding Hops and a fruity English yeast strain. At 4.9% Tally Ho! is a little stronger than the Yeastie Boy offerings but I’m sure it will be equally drinkable.
All these beers are sure to start popping up at the now considerable range of good beer outlets that Wellington is blessed with. Keep an eye out for all three at Hashigo Zake, Malthouse, The Hop Garden, Bar Edward and Regional Wines and Spirits.

CT Column 26/01/2011 :Sacred vows

Last week I was very kindly given two very rare bottles of beer from the Saint Sixtus of Westvleteren Abbey in Belgium. In the low lands of Europe there are seven beer brewing Benedictine abbeys where the monks are known as Trappists. While at first the image of monks brewing beer might seem somewhat strange, Benedictine Monks are in fact expected to support themselves and their charitable activities ‘by the works of their hands’, and this tends to take the form of brewing, wine making, liqueur production or cheese making.
While some of the Trappist beers such as Chimay and La Trappe are well known and readily available at supermarkets at this end of the globe, the Westvleteren beers from Saint Sixtus are intentionally produced in very limited amounts and their commercial availability is actively discouraged by the Monks that brew them. The beers are only officially available from a serving hatch in the wall of the abbey on certain days through the month with only one type of beer being available at a time and a limit on how many cases each customer can take. If all that doesn’t sound un-commercial enough customers are required to book in to purchase the beer by phone prior to queuing at the Abbey wall. The beers themselves have no labels and are identified by different coloured caps. All these discouraging practices are aimed at limiting the production of the brewery so that it serves the Monks needs but does not impact upon their monastic way of life. Despite all customers to the Abbey being told that the beer is not to be resold a healthy black market has developed around the world no doubt fuelled by the fact that the beers are so hard to come by and thankfully taste fantastic. The beers are identified by a number that refers to an old way of calculating strength. All the brewery’s beers are brewed from pale malt, and northern brewer variety hops with the dark beers that I tasted having a healthy dose of Belgian ‘candi sugar’ added to provide colour and flavour. Westvleteren 8 was exceptionally fruity and warming with a suggestion of plum brandy, toffee and a long dry hoppy finish. Westvleteren 12 offered up a rich complex aroma that reminded me of a fine ruby port, with a rich velvety malt character and a smooth rounded finish. Both beers scream out for a cheese board of pungent washed rind cheeses and dried fruit. While a certain NZ beer retailer does have black market Westvleteren 12 for sale at a black market price those wanting to respect the Monk’s wishes and try something similar should try the Rochefort beers from the only slightly less reclusive Trappist Abbey of St Remy. St Remy Abbey survived pillage and plunder during the Eighty Years War, The French Revolution, and a large fire in December of last year. Rochefort 10 offers up a whole range of ripe fortified fruit and rich malt aromas and flavours and is available with the Monk’s blessings from Regional Wines and Spirits

CT Column 19/01/2011 : Beer from the wilderness

I’ve become reacquainted with a beer that has been out forging its own stylistic path for the best part of the last decade. Moa Methode is a very original beer which starts its life as a zesty fruity New Zealand style pilsner before it is bottled with an addition of priming sugar and champagne yeast, the alchemy that then occurs in the bottle turns it into something completely unique. When champagne yeasts are used in beers and ciders they create spicy fruity aromas and flavours that are reminiscent of the character you might expect to find in Belgian ales. When young, Moa Methode is brimming with aromas of tropical fruit with a hint of Christmas spice and rich nutty malt, as the beer ages it becomes drier and more peppery and spicy.
The Moa brewery was developed by Josh Scott, son of Marlborough winery owner Allan Scott, and has always used wine making methods in the production of its beers. It’s easy to see where the inspiration came for using the champagne style bottle conditioning process on the Moa beers. While the brewery has long used the contacts of its sister wine company to gain access to export markets a recent investment of both money and expertise from Geoff Ross, the man originally behind 42 Below Vodka, is sure to catapult the brand to a new level.
Moa Methode is available in both its bottle fermented incarnation and in a champagne yeast free keg version offering the drinker to opportunity to compare the two and taste exactly what effect the yeast has. Look out for keg Moa Methode at Bar Edward, Pollux, Regional Wines and Wellington’s newest beer outlet The Hop Garden. The Hop Garden is the latest venture of James Henderson, the man who brought good beer to Newtown in the form of Bar Edward. Situated in the funky premises that used to house the Greek Taverna in Pirie St, The Hop Garden will be offering a great range of local and imported craft beers, a relaxed atmosphere and some great beer friendly food. Most importantly to me it will be exactly 350m from my office. The Hop Garden will be open from Friday 21 January.
See you there!