Massive success for NZ breweries in Aussie
Plus: Lakeman take out Supreme Beer crown at New World Beer & Cider Awards. No more wristbands at Beervana. Brewery's Netflix collab a signpost for the future. The juice-ification of beverages.
Happy Friday beer lovers,
It’s been a huge week of celebration for breweries around New Zealand with the announcement of the New World Beer & Cider Awards and there was massive success at the Australian International Beer Awards in Melbourne last night with an incredible clean sweep of the champion international brewery crowns by NZ breweries. And what’s crazy is the three champion breweries were the same three that took out their respective titles at the New Zealand Beer Awards last year!
They were:
Champion Large International Brewery: Garage Project
Champion Medium International Brewery: Behemoth
Champion Small International Brewery: Three Sisters
This is phenomenal performance as the AIBAs draw huge overseas entries, with nearly 3000 entries from 21 countries. We’ll come back to some more highlights from AIBA in a moment. But first …
Lakeman swimming in success
In my role as chair of judges at the New World Beer & Cider Awards, it was a pretty cool to see Lakeman’s Primate Pilsner win Supreme Beer.
The beer dominated the first round of judging with 90.5/100 — the highest score among 700-plus entries.
It then won a taste-off of against other top-scoring pilsners (we pit the best from different judging tables against each other to make sure the best one comes through) and then it went through to the best-in-class taste-off where our most senior judges determine the best in show. There it was up against big beers such as a Belgian quad, a double IPA, a Baltic porter … so it had to be a damn good pilsner to rise above that challenge.
I’ll let you in on a curious little fact … I had a small hand in making this beer better! I visited Lakeman last winter when I was down in Taupo for a holiday and had a great time talking beer with Lakeman founder James Cooper and his head brewer Rory Donovan at the farm-brewery. One of the things we discussed was a story I’d just done about yeast, and how best New Zealand pilsners are made with an ale yeast (see story here). It’s all about the hops and the overall profile of the style.
James and Rory were using a lager yeast with their pilsner and after that conversation decided to change it. They also consulted with Sam Williamson, now the brewer at Pacific Coast Beverages.
Long story short, if you’ve had Lakeman Primate Pilsner and aren’t quite convinced it’s as good as the judges say, give it another go!
And if you want a quick laugh, check out their glorious video about the awards on Instagram.
I caught up with James at a function yesterday and he was most delighted that he’d finally made it into Farmers Weekly!
And you can peruse all the Top 30 and Highly Commended here.
Beer of the Week No 1
Well, it has to be Lakeman Primate Pilsner, right? This is what the judges’ notes said: “Vibrant and bright. Delicious hop aromas and flavours. Sweet malts are present but do not dominate. Clean, simple and balanced. Very clear, wispy light head. Some low dank, sweaty hop notes on aroma. Flavour is integrated, good balance between malt and hop.” This is a showcase for New Zealand hops, for easy-drinking, for balance, for well-integrated flavours.
I’ve done short tasting notes for the Top 30 to help you decide what you might want to try. And for more reviews check in daily at hoppiness.co.nz where chief reviewer Tim Newman will be posting daily takes on the Top 30.
Garage Project rule, again
The AIBA awards were a triumph for a number of New Zealand breweries and the three champions, GP, Behemoth and Three Sisters basically dominated in three different style categories.
Garage Project won four golds for sour style beers including Chance Luck & Magic 2021 (heading off its sibling 2020 vintage which just won a World Beer Cup silver medal), Carllion (Oud Bruin), Pickle Beer and White Mischief.
Behemoth dominated the hazy / hoppy category with four golds to Sunny Nelson Sauvin, Brain Smiles, HopHopopotamus, and Chase The Sun.
Three Sisters had golds for darker, maltier beers — Tmave Pivo (dark lager), Rumours In The Dark (Munchner Dunkel, which is also in the New World Top 30), I Am Not Well (Barleywine). They added another for Wayward Son, their fresh hop beer.
Other gold medals went to Shining Peak (Gung Ho! Vintage Stout), Sunshine (Imperial Brown Ale, Grand Cru), Mount Brewing (Mermaid’s Mirth), Sprig & Fern (Best Bitter), Bach Brewing (Sticky Buds), Alibi (Bad Juju), Deep Creek (Aloha, Dear Rabbit).
It’s quite hard work piling through all the results, so apologies if I missed anyone. There were heaps of other bronze and silver medals to Duncan’s, Parrotdog, Waitoa, Burkes, Brew Moon, Cassels and Puhoi.
If you want to scroll the results at your leisure, they are all here.
No more wristbands at Beervana
Some great news out of Beervana this year: no more wristbands! That’s right. No long queues to start your session (there were some angry people last year). No wondering how much credit you have left. No worrying about getting a refund for the money you didn’t spend. At this year’s event in Wellington on August 18 & 19, you can just use your credit card for every drink or food purchase. It will only be Visa and Mastercard that can be used. And Beervana is wearing the paywave fees for vendors, which is cool as they can be expensive.
And because you’re special people who read this newsletter, we’ve hooked into a deal with Beervana to get you access to early bird tickets to Beervana, which are live until 11.59pm on May 28. Click the link below and use code LIQUORLAND to get tickets. Every presale ticket goes into the draw to win three free passes for friends. General release tickets will be on sale from June 12.
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