Are you pouring your beer all wrong?

A beautiful box of beers that would make a great gift. English brewery's Irish embarrassment. How climate change will effect hops.

Happy Friday beer friends.

Just some housekeeping before we get going … First, this will be the penultimate installment of Friday Night Beers for the year as I will be taking a short break over Christmas-New Year.

And because it’s that time of the year, I thought I’d note that if you’ve enjoyed these missives during the year, you can buy a subscription for someone as a gift. All you need is their email address to ensure it lands in their inbox each Friday. It’s the gift that keeps giving, because every week they will remember how smart you were to get it for them!

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Are you pouring your beer wrong?

I have to confess that I was once one of those people who tried to perfect the art of sliding a beer down the inside of a glass. It was the way we were taught back in the day. I’m sure there’s plenty of you who have apologised for a “bad pour” when the beer has frothed up in the glass and produced a huge head. I know I have.

But no longer! A big frothy head is actually the way to go these days. And I commend Craig Cooper from Bach Brewing for believing in it so much, he made a beer that doubles as an educational tool.

The Bach Slo-Pour Pils comes with instructions on how to maximise a dense, rocky head — by pouring the beer the exact opposite way we’ve often been taught. The concept makes sense — you just have to get your head (boom!) around it. Cooper’s view is that it’s done as much for the presentation, the visual experience, but it’s also about the taste. And for me the way you pour a beer does impact the taste.

Anyway, in the link below there are a couple of videos showing the technique and I talk to Cooper about why he thinks the vigorous pour is the way to go, as well as looking at some reasons why we ended up with the “slide down the glass” nonsense.

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Beer of the week No 1

Well after that introduction, what else is there to say about Bach Slo-Pour Pils? This is an unusually hopped Pilsner, with Nectaron in there alongside the more typical Motueka. Nectaron is mostly, it seems, used in IPA styles but intriguingly I’ve found it works quite nicely in Pilsners — Rhyme X Reason’s Space Monkey is a great example. There’s also an American experimental hop HBC586 and some El Dorado. But those “fruity” hops characters are restrained and the overall effect is to replicate a European-style Pilsner with an undercurrent of lushness, like a sprinkle of fruit salad on your cereal!

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A beautiful box of beers

If you’re looking for something special, for yourself or a beer-lover in your life, the Zeelandt 10-year anniversary box of beers is as good as it gets in terms of presentation. Honestly, it’s just a beautiful box.

And I can confirm the beers will be good. I’ve had many of them in the past and as a rule, Zeelandt beers are always well-made. At $95 a pop for a variety of 440ml and 500ml cans and bottles it’s pretty good value, especially when you consider how good the box might look, wrapped up as a gift.

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The Malthouse reopens on Willis Street

It was a big week in Wellington with The Malthouse reopening at a new location — 76 Willis Street. Before I was even into craft beer (before we even used the term craft beer!) I can clearly remember visiting the original Willis Street venue, as it wasn’t far from where I once worked. Ahead of the grand re-opening on Wednesday I spoke to co-owner & founder Sean Murrie about coming back “home”.

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Don’t forget your Hoppiness hat!

Just a reminder that we’ve got some cool-looking (I think) Hoppiness hats for sale on the website. A few went out the door last week and there’s only a limited number.

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