Good lord, it's Good George again

Hamilton brewery wins Smith's IPA Challenge. Swarbrick's private members bill seeks to end sport's relationship with alcohol. GABS highlights. Eddyline's huge investment. Why Stone sold to Sapporo.

Good George might not get the publicity of some other big name breweries but you can’t argue with success. Last weekend in Queenstown they took out the Smith’s IPA Challenge for the second year in a row.

Their NZ Hop-heavy hazy IPA, the appropriately named Haze of Glory, won over the judges and saw them beat Garage Project’s Block Party #25 and Bach Brewing’s Bad to the Cone. Parrotdog’s LB NZ Hazy IPA was the People’s Choice winner.

The winning beer used an established trio of Nectaron, Riwaka and Nelson Sauvin plus the in-development hop known as NZH-102.

I asked Brian Watson of Good George about the secret to their success and he’s response is that they’ve increased their focus on quality when it comes to hop selection and how the hops are used.

If the brew open a bag of pellets for dry-hopping, for example, they do a quick sensory analysis and if the hops aren’t quite right, they won’t be used.

“Not all hops are created equal,” Watson says. “We’ve got all the brewers smelling the hops every time they dry-hop, rather than just dumping them in.”

As Watson points out hops quality can vary depending on what farm they’ve come from and when they’ve been picked.

He was also singing the praises of the still experimental hop NZH-102, saying they’re using it in more of their beers. “That’s a brilliant hop and we’re using that more and more.”

The event did have a bit of a downside with many who ventured to Queenstown testing positive to Covid-19.

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In what could be huge news for breweries up and down the country, this happened on Thursday:

Chlöe Swarbrick @_chloeswarbrick

🚨 #Breaking: My Alcohol Harm Reduction Bill has just been drawn from the ballot. No more political dodging and handwringing. Local Councils representing more than half of the country have already backed it; time for MPs to get on with it.

If this bill, officially known as “Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Harm Minimisation) Amendment Bill” is passed it will effect dozens of breweries as one of the key objectives is to break the “cultural connection between sport and alcohol”. In short that means “banning alcohol sponsorship and advertising of all streamed and live sports and banning alcohol sponsorship at all sporting venues”. This would be huge for big brew brands such as Lion and DB (notably Steinlager’s support of the All Blacks) but it will also effect dozens of smaller breweries who support local sports teams such as Shining Peak’s sponsorship of the Taranaki rugby team, Fortune Favours support of the Hurricanes, right down to breweries that sponsor local sports teams.

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In Auckland, the GABS Festival returned to the ASB Showgrounds after a two-year Covid-forced hiatus and it looked to be a successful event.

To my untrained eye, the crowds were not as big as they’d been pre-Covid but the atmosphere was great and there seemed to be a good diversity. In terms of the beers I tried, they were mostly the festival brews and among the standouts were Alibi’s Coconut Chai spiced imperial stout, Garage Project’s Mega Mecha Hop — Mosaic, Cowabunga’s S01E11, a cranberry-spiked saison, Shining Peak’s Double Skunk Juice and one from Australia, Reckless Brewing’s Bloody Mary Gose, which basically did exactly what it said, tasted like a bloody mary!

Speaking of the curiously-named Cowabunga, I was impressed enough with the saison to seek out some other beers from this new-ish Auckland brewery. So …

Beer of the week No 1

Cowabunga Radical RPA is best described as hoppy amber ale, with a touch of rye. At just 5 per cent ABV it’s got bags of flavour presented in a balanced, nuanced way. There’s good (but not rich) malt, firm (but not aggressive) hopping. I love a balanced beer at a sessionable ABV and if I see this anywhere in the near future I’d buy it again, for sure. And having had this beer and enjoyed I wanted to shout at one reviewer on Untappd who marked it down as “fails to register as an IPA or a Rye Ale” — neither of which it actually claimed to be. Which is why I hate Untappd.

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