Last year there were about two thousand people in the festival’s paddock and about two police officers. The cops had a largely social time because the crowd was so well behaved and good natured. The worst thing I saw was some terrible dancing to 80s music in front of the live band right at the end of the event. Disclaimer – it may have been me. [1]
This year I will be judging the Brew Day home brew contest and presenting an unusual beer and cheese matching session at the festival. Working with artisanal cheesemonger C’est Cheese we will be giving paid punters five beers and five cheeses at the same time. I have made my recommended beer matches but participants will be able to try every cheese with every beer and let me know why I was completely wrong. [2] It could take some time.
Malthouse is ready and able to be an after party venue for Brew Day patrons. It is a celebration of local Wellington beers and Malty has long supported beers from the Craft Beer Capital of New Zealand. Of course, there are always beers provided from elsewhere which are on tap. Here is part of the current selection provided by the bootylicious, buccaneer and Byzantine Malthouse unit manager Ciaran Duffy:
Thornbridge Jaipur X (10%): So Thornbridge Jaipur is pretty much the best English IPA in the history of time. [3] Jaipur X is a triple (stronger) version. It has orange, pineapple and pine needles on the nose and now I need to run away and marry this beer.
Beavertown Saint Clements (4.5%): I adore this brewery but loathe Berliner Weiss beers with the intensity of a thousand suns. So obviously I am a bit torn. It has lemon, coriander and sourness and, in the background, a faint hint of despair at not making a real beer.
The motto of the Wild Beer Company of Somerset is “Drink Wildly Different Beers” and they are not even close to kidding. They are Dai Henwood level not funny here. Their signature manoeuvre is using a “combination of ancient and new techniques”, usually the use of wild yeasts and/or barrel aging.
Wild Beer Squashed Grape (5%): Hands up – this one completely surprised me. I’d never even heard of ‘grape must.’ It’s a beer made with the skins and stalks of grapes that made wine and would otherwise be thrown out. It’s earth-friendly, responsible and more than a little terrifying. Here is what the brewery says:
“Using grape must – the crushed fruits and stalks after grapes have been pressed for their juice to be made into wine – we have brought wine and beer together. We love wild yeasts and ingredients at the Wild Beer Co and frequently use locally foraged ingredients. We decided to team up with a nearby wine producer to create a beer with incredible locality and a truely wild character.
Grape must is discarded as a waste product at vineyards, only the juice is kept. However, this is where all the natural, wild yeasts are and we wanted to harness these unique bugs to sour bring them to beer. We used white grapes at the beginning of the fermentation to add sourness and then red grapes in the conditioning to add extra flavour and funk.”
Oh and there is some cider orchard action in there too but the science is well beyond my fifth form grade of “could do better”.
Wild Beer Sourdough (3.6%): Described as being loosely based on the sour Berliner Weisse style [4] but it is made with a nearly 60 year old sourdough bread yeast from the local Hobbs House Bakery. The Wildings say “Sourdough is an intriguing celebration of the tremendous similarities between making bread and brewing beer over the last few thousand years.”
There are also hoppy beers too. Fork Brewing Godzone Beat Pale Ale (5.9%) is the current Champion Pale Ale of New Zealand. It is on tap at Malthouse but has also just become available in bottles at many other venues with the most perfectly written label containing numerous flavour and music descriptors in less than 30 words. [5] This beer well and truly exceeded my expectations – punchy, hoppy and lovely.
Also on tap is Epic Armageddon (6.66%). [6] It is on a bit of award winning roll at the moment with recent silverware including:
- BEST IPA – New Zealand Beer Awards
- BEST IPA – Australian International Beer Awards (second largest international beer awards)
- BEST IPA – Stockholm Beer & Whiskey Festival, Sweden
I’m deeply proud to have (unexpectedly) named this beer during a beer tasting at the Backbencher in Wellington many years ago. It’s also a wonderful beer.
Finally, there is Epic Hop Zombie (8.5%) on tap. [7] This Imperial India Pale Ale has notes of… who am I kidding? You get between me and a tap of this at Malthouse and I will trample you like a mummy hippo protecting her children. Yeah – it is that good.
Next time we drink to getting professional wrestling references into the title of blog posts with no one actually noticing.
[1] Even by “White Scottish Person Standards” I am considered a sub-par dancer. And it was me.
[2] I am expecting the Kereru For Greater Justice Wood-Fired Toasted Coconut Porter with C’est Mahoe Blue blue cheese to steal the show.
[3] English history seems to last a lot longer than normal history. And Timothy Taylor Landlord may have a claim…
[4] What have I done to deserve so many Berliner Weisse beers in one blog? I paid my tab!
[5] This is so tedious but otherwise the trolls get hungry – I am a shareholder in Fork Brewery and I wrote the label.
[6] 6.66% = the Number of the Yeast. The fact this footnote number six = complete luck.
[7] Zombies being one of the few things to survive Armageddon. Apparently “Epic Cockroach” and “Epic Winston Peters” were not enticing beer names.
Cheers
Neil Miller
Beer Writer
Beer and Brewer Magazine
Cuisine Magazine
TheShout Magazine
New Zealand Liquor News Magazine
Links
C’est Cheese – https://www.facebook.com/Cest-Cheese-178075662286199/?fref=ts
Malthouse Facebook – www.facebook.com/pages/Malthouse/7084276173
Greater Wellington Brew Day – http://www.brewday.co.nz
Malthouse Twitter – www.twitter.com/#!/malthouse
Malthouse Taps on Twitter – www.twitter.com/#!/MalthouseTaps
Neil Miller on Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/#!/beerlytweeting