Beer with a social conscience

Brew Moon celebrates 20 years. Funding for training in Mental Health First Aid for brewers. Escalating hop wars. The value of independence. How Allbirds and the sober curious intersect. And more

Welcome to Friday beer lovers and a wrap of news and views from the world of brewing.

To kick off, who else here follows Three Boys on Twitter?

If so, you will know there’s eff-all about beer on that particular platform. It’s where the brand has its say on all sorts of things from climate change to local politics to, most recently, education. Naturally it surprises people that a brewery can have an opinion.

Three Boys Brewery @threeboysbrew

I own a beer company and this is our twitter account. I'm actually a human. If you are more interested in beer than social debate (which is an equally fine choice), follow us on Instagram or Facebook.

Jane Furnivall @JaneFurnivall

@threeboysbrew Wait, you're a beer company🧐

I love that Three Boys, notably founder Ralph Bungard, are so vocal. In our lead story this week, Ralph talks about why they do what they do, which includes a recent decision to get rid of all their merchandise.

---

Brew Moon’s 20th

Staying in the Canterbury region, Brew Moon, turn 20 this month and are celebrating with an event at their Amberley brewery on Saturday, October 20.

Reporter Tim Newman went for a visit and came back with this quite interesting observation about the brewery’s often under-rated yet very good Hophead IPA:

Consider the absolutely fundamental effect Epic Pale Ale had on New Zealand craft brewing, and then realise that this (stylistically similar) beer came first. If Hop Head IPA had been pouring in downtown Auckland or Wellington, rather than sleepy North Canterbury, it could easily have been Brew Moon that was remembered as the progenitor of the hop-forward craft beer revolution rather than Epic.

---

Auckland Beer Week is back

Big ups to Maree Shaw, the driving force behind Auckland Beer Week, which returns next month with some great events from November 12-18.

The programme kicks off with a McLeod’s “Rare Treasure” showcase at Galbraith’s with some of the Northland brewery’s hard-to-find Smuggler’s Bay range on offer.

There’s bottomless fried chicken with Eddyline at 16Tun, clay sculpting at The Lumsden, an oyster and beer matching at Hoppers, a “Blenderville” beer blending event at Urbanaut and much much more, including new collaboration releases from Garage Project and Other Half.

---

Beer of the Week No 1

If you recall, I raved about 8 Wired’s Burton IPA at Beervana, the first of the Brave Old World range of historical styles redone in a modern manner. There’s also an English Imperial Stout but the beer I’ll be going back for is their Oktoberfest Munich Lager, a malty, rich, deeply flavoursome 5.6 per cent beer that is made with all German ingredients. I don’t know if it’s just me but when I taste European noble hops in a malty beer that combo gives me this hint of lanolin, which obviously I think is an appealing smell — I guess it’s what others might call earthy. Anyway, I love it. And I loved this beer.