There were roving legions of craft beer fans in town, Malthouse’s 21st Birthday Celebration Week, the diverse range of Road to Beervana events, the launch of Beervana, the famous Mashing in Party, the Beer Awards Dinner and four sessions of Beervana itself down at Westpac Stadium. 

The week produced plenty of winners, including brewers and bars selling their wares, breweries picking up medals and trophies at the Beer Awards, craft beer drinkers wherever they were imbibing, patrons at Beervana, and the organisers of Beervana. David Cryer, his magnificent mane and his excellent team ran what beer and music blogger Scott Anderson characterised as a near flawless festival. [1]

However, the biggest winner was surely Townshend Brewery which received both the New Zealand Champion Brewery and New Zealand Champion Manufacturer awards on Thursday night. This is remarkable for a number of reasons – it is a one man operation (Martin), he brews from the family home, they make only 50,000 litres a year and Townshend was up against a record field, including 73 other Kiwi breweries who could have taken either title. Congratulations to Martin Townshend on a magnificent achievement.

Champion Brewery is relatively well understood but the Champion Manufacturer is a new award this year and may need some explanation. The Brewer’s Guild explained that all “entrants will be asked to specify the production site where the entry was produced when entering their beers.  All beers and ciders produced for any brewing company at this site will be eligible for this trophy.”  Essentially, this award allows contract and production breweries to receive credit for the beers they make for or with others.

The eighth Brewers’ Guild of New Zealand Beer Awards had a record 670 beers from 84 breweries (74 from New Zealand) entered into 15 categories.  Here is a list of the trophies and key awards:

Champion New Zealand Brewery: Townshend Brewery
Champion New Zealand Manufacturer: Townshend Brewery
Champion International Brewery: Boston Beer Company
European Lager Styles: Emerson’s Brewery Gladiator Bock (Gold)
International Lager Styles: Monteith’s Black (Silver)
British Ale Styles: Wigram Brewing Company Tornado Strong Ale (Gold)
Other European Ale Styles: Emerson’s Brewery JP 2014 (Gold)
US Ale Styles: ParrotDog BloodyDingo (Gold)
International Ale Styles: Panhead Custom Ales BossHog (Gold)
Stout and Porter Styles: Three Boys Brewery Oyster Stout (Gold)
Wheat and Other Grain Styles: Renaissance Brewing Black the RIPA (Silver)
Flavoured Styles (including Fruit, Spice, Herb, Honey and Smoked): Wigram Brewing Company Captain Cook Spruce Beer (Gold)
New Zealand Specific Styles: Townshend Brewery Oldhams Tap Riwaka Pilsner (Gold)
Speciality, Experimental, Aged, Barrel, Wood-Aged Styles: Panhead Custom Ales Black Sabbath (Gold)
Cider and Perry Styles: Zeffer Cider Company Slack ma Girdle Cider (Gold)
Cask Conditioned: Moa Brewery Five Hop Handpull (Gold)
Festive Brew: Behemoth Brewing Company Brave Bikkie Brown Ale (Gold)

A large number of Honours were also conferred by the Brewer’s Guild for outstanding service over a long period of time.  These people truly are champions of New Zealand craft beer.   Many are long-time friends of Malthouse.  Here is the 2014 Honours Board:

Richard Emerson – Honorary Fellow
David Cryer – Honorary Fellow
Tracy Banner – Honorary Member
Martin Bennett – Life Member [2]
Ted and Frances Verrity [3]
Geoff Griggs – Industry Achievement [4]
Te Radar – Presidential Award

The final three awards were:

Packaging: Tuatara Brewing Company Delicious Neck
Morton Coutts Trophy for Innovation: Steve Nally, Invercargill Brewery [5]
Brewers Guild of New Zealand Beer Writer of the Year: Neil Miller

I am deeply honoured and thankful to have received the Beer Writer of the Year award. Rumours that I carry the trophy around at all times are untrue… mainly because it does not fit in my pocket.

The seemingly indefatigable Handsome yet Softly Spoken Scottish Malthouse Proprietor Colin Mallon insisted that this week I also talk about beer.  In fact, he specified three beers he was particularly proud of obtaining – rare beers from De la Senne Brewery in Brussels, Belgium.

The brewery was (eventually) founded [6] by Bernard Leboucq and Yvan De Baets. Joe Stange, writing in Draft Magazine said “their work has built a strong following among Belgian beer geeks at home and abroad.”  Certainly Colin was impressed when he bumped into them during a trip to Belgium.  However, De la Senne warn “let’s be frank, our beers are not the easiest to be found in shops” and they were talking about Belgium. What chance does faraway New Zealand have?

A pretty good chance it turns out. De la Senne is best known for two main reasons – their passion for bitterness and their commitment to tradition. The brewers say “Bitterness is the key characteristic of our beers: it is their foundation.  Our approach was simple: we wanted to brew beers to our liking that we could no longer find on the market.  We took on the challenge to bring this flavour – so fundamental in the evolution of human societies but sadly neglected in our modern societies – up to date.”

The website says of Leboucq and De Baets: “They work in a small brewery honouring the traditional ways of brewing beer: unfiltered, unpasteurized, free of any additives and using only the finest raw materials of the highest quality”.

Malthouse has managed to procure three De la Senne ales and all three are rated between 93 and 96 on the usually reliable RateBeer.

First up is De la Senne Taras Boulba Extra Hoppy Pale Ale 4.5%. It pours a cloudy gold with a soft fluffy head. There is a fresh nose of floral hops, citrus and peppery spices. The beer has a light body, notes of citrus and dry grass/hay, then a medium grassy hop finish. It is definitely not a West Coast IPA Challenge contender, but then it is not trying to be. 

Next into my tasting goblet of choice is De la Senne Zinnebir Brussels’ People Ale 5.9%. [7] This is a Belgian Ale, which in itself can be a pretty broad definition.  Again, it is cloudy golden colour but here the head is high and rocky and a plug of thick white foam sinks down with the beer as it is drunk. Zinnebir looks positively Belgian from the get go. There is a bold nose of citrus, yeast and apricot, a smooth mouthfeel, dancing competing notes of orange, spice and sweet hints of caramel and candy.  There is a clean, bitter finish and my beer just disappeared. [8] Some reviewers have found sourness but I got no real sense of that in my sample.

Finally, it is time to bring out the big gun – De la Senne Jambe-de-Bois Belgian Revolutionary Triple 8%. It is a serious Abbey Tripel and with 49 IBU it claims to be the bitterest Triple in Belgium. In the glass this beer presents a hazy, orange-gold with a towering cloud of snow white foam. The aromas include lemon zest, spice, spicy Belgian ale yeast and ripe banana. Jambe-de-Bois is surprisingly moderate in both taste and weight, with notes of pears, grapes and yeast, a flash of sour then the expected hoppy bitter finish.

De la Senne notes that “no Dutchmen were harmed in the making of this beer.”  Perhaps it is my old spin doctor suspicions but that seems to imply that some of their other beers may involve hurting male inhabitants of The Netherlands.

Next time, we drink to the guy behind the bar at Mou Very in Dunedin who talked to my friend Graham about the Beer Writer of the Year results recently. Thanks dude! 

[1] When the main complaint is that there were not enough salad options at a beer festival, you have got pretty much everything else right.

[2] I first met Martin on the way to an early Beervana many years ago, before the Twisted Hop had even began production. It was being held in the Wellington Town Hall. Martin approached me in Civic Square and his first words to me were literally “Excuse me, you look like a man going to a beer festival.  Do you know where it is?” 

[3] Probably the biggest cheer of the night and rightly so for the Royal Couple of New Zealand Craft Brewing.

[4] Geoff was the first man I ever met who proved you could be paid money to write and talk about beer. He has been, and remains, a true inspiration.

[5] The ever huggable Steve Nally cunningly puts low-carbonation beers into 20 litre plastic bags which are perfect for pubs using traditional English handpulls.

[6] They endured a string of incredible bad luck including (but not limited to) endless bureaucratic hurdles, huge holes in their driveway, a bank error which meant they had no money for months and a break in which saw brewery plans and recipes stolen.

[7] Sorry, 5,9% – crazy Europeans.

[8] This is a technical term for beer reviewers.

Cheers

Neil Miller
Beer Writer of the Year 2014
Beer and Brewer Magazine
Cuisine Magazine
TheShout Magazine
New Zealand Liquor News Magazine

Links

2014 Beer Awards – http://brewersguild.org.nz/awards
De la Senne brewery – http://brasseriedelasenne.be/EN/ 
Malthouse Facebook – www.facebook.com/pages/Malthouse/7084276173
Malthouse Twitter – www.twitter.com/#!/malthouse
Malthouse Taps on Twitter – www.twitter.com/#!/MalthouseTaps
Neil Miller on Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/#!/beerlytweeting
Beer and Brewer Magazine – www.beerandbrewer.com/