Nadia's Farm beer gets big push
Garage Project open Christchurch bar. Couples that drink together live longer! Tree House founder assesses Kiwi hazies. Chuck Hahn starts new brewery at age 77. Growth in American craft "groups"
If Friday’s on your mind, then so is beer!
Welcome to another edition of Friday Night Beers, a weekly release featuring all you need to know about beer — and this week it’s also packed full of great fresh hop beer recommendations.
But first, in what I think is pretty significant news — the power couple that is Garage Project and Royalburn Station (aka Nadia’s Farm) have released their collab brew Swifty in packaged format. Nadia Lim and her husband Carlos Bagrie bought Wanaka’s Royalburn Station in 2019 after selling their stake in My Food Bag.
Swifty, named for the Swiftburn stream on the property, is out now in Liqourland stores nationwide and soon to be in select New World stores.
I think Swifty could turn out to be a big-seller — and it’s as much to do with its provenance as its flavour.
Lim’s status as a Masterchef winner, cookbook writer, reality TV star, magazine cover favourite … in short, given the fact she’s a household name and given the fact that Garage Project are arguably the biggest name in craft beer, this has all the makings of a product that can take-off.
Garage Project co-founder Jos Ruffell acknowledged the impact the current season of Nadia’s Farm (you can stream it on Three Now) will have on the beer.
“We have high hopes for the beer — we think there’s a great opportunity for it. The story of it is being woven into the second season of Nadia’s Farm so you’ll see a lot of it there,” Ruffell told me.
“We’ll be pulling the trigger on promotion and making noise about it next week and about a month later we’ll see it popping up in select New Worlds.
“In terms of the collaborations we’ve done, in some ways, it’s been one of the most enjoyable because it’s just nice to have a partnership based around the main ingredient in beer.
“We’ve gone very deep in terms of hops and getting as close as we can to the source and that led to the creation of Hāpi Research and our investment Nelson Lakes Hops and it feels like we’re there on that front.
“Malt is the body of the beer and we obviously grow fantastic malt here in NZ but I think what Carlos and Nadia are doing on their farm is pretty special.
“Barley grown on the Crown Terrace has always had a strong reputation and they’ve got newspaper clippings about it from the 1890s — they were one of the first farms to supply Speight’s with barley in the 19th century.
“And their farming approach, based around regenerative agriculture and spray-free, produces beautiful barley.”
With Garage Project best know for more outlandish beers, Ruffell said it took a couple of trial batches before they realised they need to pare it back and make the malt the star.
“When it came to brewing the beer, we looked at all sorts of styles and did a few trial batches but in the end, we kept coming back to the idea of doing a beer that’s a nod to New Zealand draught, a simple beer to be enjoyed at the end of a long, hard day.
“It’s been my go-to beer over summer. There’s something about it — it’s very refreshing, it’s easy to drink, it has an incredible head and head retention because of the protein in the malt.
“When you smell it’s got a bit of nostalgia to it — there’s hops there but just enough to keep it interesting.”
Ruffell said he took a few slabs of cans down to the Nelson region for hop harvest and “lots of overseas brewers were really enjoying it”.
The other thing Garage Project are doing to increase the reach, is pricing it under $20 which puts it in the mainstream craft space dominated by Mac’s, Monteith’s and Boundary Road.
“We’re doing everything we can to set this up for success and the price point is a big part of that. We’re launching it at $18.99 for a six-pack but it will be on a rotating, on-and-off, special of $16.99.
“The real success will be if we can kick it up to a 12-pack to be a fridge filler box.”
Garage Project open new bar in Christchurch
Garage Project now have a Christchurch presence after they partnered inner city jazz and tapas venue Vesuvio who will exclusively pour GP beers, Tim Newman reports.
Owner-operators Rachel Powderly and Jonathan Gregory have been putting the final touches on this new space for some time but were undecided on exactly how the curation of the beers on offer would work. When a mutual friend in the hospitality world floated the idea of a fully-branded Garage Project bar to both parties, the fit was obvious. Vesuvio would get to sport that most illustrious of craft beer brands, while Garage Project themselves would gain a steady pipeline direct to the Christchurch market.
With a wine bar already established across the courtyard, the taproom is exclusively focused on serving beer, which means the usual behind-the-bar assembly of bottles is dispensed with in favour of the strikingly spartan display of unmarked brushed steel taps.
Jonathan describes the space as being designed like a “cave” with low lighting and unadorned surrounds. It’s a singularly stark and slick aesthetic that suits the sharply curated beer list.
Patrons will be able to get their first taste of this classy new aesthetic, and a full 10 Garage Project beers at the official opening tonight from 6pm till late.
Beer of the Week No 1
Everything you’ve heard about McLeod’s Fresh Hop 802 is on the money.
This is a powerhouse beer that showcases the array of characteristics that fresh Nelson Sauvin brings. While best known for its white wine — sauvignon blanc — flavours, this hop offers plenty of other flavour edges, including citrus, pine and herbaceous notes.
What I found in this beer was a super-ripe orange component, that oily pungent note you get when oranges are just about to turn. Plus there’s a savoury note that skirts the edge of onion weed.
The bitterness is like waves coming up the beach, ebbing and flowing but never overwhelming.
It’s a full-on sensory experience from the look, the aroma, the texture and the taste. Sensational.
And yes there’s two cans there because my wife and I had one each … which leads me right to the next story.
Couples with similar drinking habits tend to live longer
This will seem blatantly obvious once you read it, but I guess someone has to study these things to confirm them.
Recent research has found an intriguing connection between the drinking habits of couples and longevity. The study, published in The Gerontologist, suggests that couples with similar alcohol consumption habits tend to live longer compared with couples with discordant drinking behaviors, where one drinks and the other does not.
Past studies have looked at how the drinking behaviors of couples affect their marital satisfaction, the PsyPost website reported, often showing that similar drinking habits can lead to better relationship outcomes, such as reduced conflict and lower divorce rates. But the implications of these drinking patterns on physical health have not been well understood until now.
The researchers found that couples with concordant drinking behaviors—where both partners either drank or abstained from alcohol — exhibited a higher survival rate compared to couples where drinking patterns were discordant. This effect was most pronounced in couples where both partners drank as opposed to those where both abstained, suggesting that the social, and possibly relational, aspects of drinking together might play a role in this observed benefit.
Couples in which one partner drank and the other did not showed the least favourable survival outcomes. This pattern suggests that beyond the physiological impacts of alcohol itself, the compatibility of lifestyles and the harmony within the relationship regarding drinking might significantly influence health outcomes. These results align with previous research indicating that marital discord or lack of alignment in behaviors and values can have negative health implications.
The researchers cautioned against interpreting these findings as endorsing alcohol consumption for longer life. Instead, they highlighted that the results might reflect broader dynamics of relationship quality and compatibility. For instance, couples who drink together may engage in more shared activities or have higher relationship satisfaction, which in turn could positively affect their health.
Beer of the Week No 2
Well, the reincarnation of the squashed Hop Federation Fresh Hop Pilsner (see last week’s post) was a return from the dead worth waiting for. This is loaded with Motueka and Taiheke and it screams fresh hop at the top of its lungs. There’s a rush of lemon and lime backed by a broad strokes of grassy green bitterness and grated zest. The hops are full noise and coat your tongue and gums with layers of grippy textural elements. Superb.
Your best place to find fresh hop beers is the home of craft beer, New World.
Tree House brewer picks his fave NZ hazy
Tree House founder Nate Lanier has been trekking around New Zealand and doing some cool videos. His visit to the Canterbury farm for a fella’s home brew was cringeworthy yet exceptional.
But I did enjoy his taste-off of four NZ-style hazy pale ales that he found in a Tekapo supermarket: Stoke, Panhead, Cassels and Sawmill.
See if you can guess which one comes out on top.
BTW, in a comment under the video, Tree House did note: “We know this is not an exhaustive tasting of New Zealand Pale Ale — please understand our limitations on this very time-constrained trip. We were delighted at the chance to taste what we had access to. We have more tastings upcoming — one featuring Double IPA and another featuring a variety. We are grateful for your feedback and comments!”
And speaking of Tree House. I’d previously reported on their plans to open a golf course, and honestly, I didn’t expect it to happen, but:
Tree House Brewing Company Just Opened… a Golf Course? | VinePair
Tim’s Beer of the Week No 1
For as much as I’m a champion of fresh hop beers, I’ll be the first to admit they tend to fall into a pretty staid and narrow group of styles. There’s always good ones and bad ones, but the field itself is typically composed of modern IPAs and pilsners sporting fresh additions of go-to hops such as Riwaka, Nelson Sauvin and Motueka.
But Christchurch brewers Two Thumb have pulled a double divergence here by releasing not just an English-style IPA, but one fresh-hopped with the legendary (and legendarily unfashionable) Green Bullet hop. These earthy, spicy and strongly bitter hops are the principal component in Steinlager Classic but see scant application in the near exclusively fruit-driven flavour profiles of popular craft beer.
Here they find their element sublimely, conveying spice, dried apricot and a subtle, complex earthy aromatic that I can only describe as the smell of an autumnal forest after rain. Beneath the aroma, the broad malt backbone and gripping bitterness present a beer with a flavour and finish that vastly outdoes its (comparatively) tiny 4.8%. Delicious and daringly different. — Tim Newman
Ed’s note: I heartily concur! This is a beer worth seeking out for a different take.
Canyon’s Fresh Hop Showcase
Kudos to Canyon Brewing in Queenstown for delivering an event in the true spirit of craft beer.
For the third year in a row, Canyon will be turning over their taps to breweries around the country for a total fresh hop takeover over this weekend.
As a popular tourist destination, Canyon could easily keep all the taps full of their own beers but opening them up to others creates a great vibe around fresh hop season, says Canyon’s marketing and brand manager Mikaela Turner.
“We usually showcase only our own beers but fresh hop season is such a fun time of the year we want to celebrate it.
“Also our own fresh hop beer is done with Garston-grown hops so we want to give punters a taste of Nelson hops as well as showing different styles of fresh hop beer.”
Canyon work with Christchurch-based Punky Distro to secure enough kegs for the guest taps. Guest breweries this year include Beer Baroness, 8 Wired, Parrotdog, McLeod’s, Urbanaut, Pacific Coast, Rhyme x Reason and Searchlight.
“We leave it up to them — they know we want a balance of styles and they know what different breweries are doing and will deliver a good mix.”
The first iteration of the event was designed to be one-day only, but it proved so popular they are spreading it over the weekend, which means extra kegs from “popular” breweries.
“We get a lot of locals coming along especially for this, but also, because of our location there are always lots of tourists calling in as well, but for the most part it’s locals in the region coming out for it,” Turner says. “The Saturday is one of our busiest days of the year.
“We love it and I have a feeling it could become more of a ‘thing’ in the future.”
Canyon Fresh Hop Tap Takeover, 1 Arthurs Point Road, tomorrow from 1pm
Brewing ‘groups’ lead craft growth in the US
The five largest craft brewers in America by volume in 2023 remain unchanged from 2022, according to the Brewers Association (BA), which released its annual craft brewery production report this week.
Those five breweries ranked in order are D.G. Yuengling & Son, Boston Beer Company, Sierra Nevada, Duvel Moortgat (Firestone Walker, Boulevard, Brewery Ommegang), and Gambrinus (Shiner, Trumer).
A pattern repeating from last year is the emergence of “groups” — with more craft brewers look to partner with (or buy) others to achieve scale.
Sixth place went to the beer division of Canadian cannabis company Tilray, which includes SweetWater, Green Flash, Alpine, Montauk, 10 Barrel, Redhook, Widmer Brothers, Breckenridge and Blue Point.
Next was Artisanal Brewing Ventures (ABV), the rollup of Victory, Southern Tier and Sixpoint.
Brooklyn Brewery jumped two spots to No 8, ahead of Monster Brewing (Oskar Blues, Cigar City, Deep Ellum, Squatters, Wasatch, Perrin), which dropped one spot to No. 9.
Non-alcoholic craft brewery Athletic jumped three spots to No. 10.
The other “commonality” among fast-growing brewers further down the list — such as Georgetown, Fiddlehead and Jack’s Abby — “is real geographic focus,” said BA’s chief economist Bart Watson.
He added: “Many of them are not super widely distributed. They're really going deep in particular markets. Many of them — and this is more qualitative, but in talking to them — have succeeded partly by continuing to focus on draft, suggesting there's still a lot of draft opportunity out there for brewers who make that a focus part of their strategy.”
Dusty’s Beer of the Week
Quite possibly the most beautiful fresh hop ever made! The combination of Riwaka and pilsner has been a phenomenon in 2024 and Brave Brewing’s Helping Hands 2024 — a 6% double NZ Pilsner — had the expletives flowing on the first sip in the best way. Soft greeny passionfruit and grape meets an oily mouthfeel with an effervescent carb with a juicy finish. The delicacies and intricacies pop this straight into “Beer of the Year” category!
Guinness and Heineken fighting over football
Two brands that have for decades been among the biggest commercial backers of elite rugby are now engaged in a multi-million-pound bidding war to become the Premier League's next brewing partner.
Sky News reported that Guinness, owned by drinks giant Diageo, and Heineken have tabled rival proposals to replace Budweiser at the end of this season.
Guinness has traditionally been more closely associated with rugby union, having been the title sponsor of the English rugby premiership before backing the Six Nations.
Heineken, meanwhile, was the title sponsor of the elite European club rugby competition for years.
A deal is expected to be finalised in coming weeks.
Tim’s Beer of the Week No 2
Green Limousine from Hop Federation is among a (very) small cadre of annual fresh hop releases that I consider to have achieved classic status. This one in particular, with the brewery’s proximity to the growing regions (the fresh Nelson Sauvin cones here spent all of 30 minutes going from bine to brewery), I look to this as a marker for the quality of a given year's crop. With the quality of the hops harvested this year already widely reported as exceptionally good, it was with high expectations that I cracked into this one.
Explosively pungent Nelson Sauvin radiates off the aroma, carrying gooseberry and crushed blackcurrant leaf over tart passionfruit and crushed green herbs. The palate leads with some old-school rich IPA malt, but once the surge of singular flavours from the Nelson Sauvin catch up there is no stopping them. Firm, focused and a keenly bitter IPA that dramatically showcases one of the country’s most standout hops. — Tim Newman
Chuck Hahn hops back into brewing, aged 77
Charles “Chuck” Hahn — the man who helped revolutionise Lion Breweries in the 1980s — has come out of retirement, aged 77, to start brewing again.
He’s teaming up with his son, Scott, to create a brewery called Chuck & Son’s Brewing Company, due to open next month in the Sydney inner west suburb of St Peters.
“Typically, a father tries to get his son to come into the family business,” Chuck told the Australian Financial Review. “I retired, and he’s trying to get me to come back and help him form a family business.”
It is difficult to imagine a single person having a greater impact on Australia’s beer (or even alcohol) scene than the New York-born Hahn. After graduating with a PhD in chemical engineering, he joined the Adolph Coors Company brewery in Colorado and, in the late 1970s, developed Coors Light. Today, it is the second most-consumed beer in the US.
After his stint at Lion, where Doug Myers hired him to move the brewery away from a short-lived trial of continuous fermentation and back to batch brewing, he created his own brand, Hahn, and then brewed the James Squires range of beer.
In a perhaps unsurprising move for a man embedded in traditional beer, Chuck & Son’s will start with four foundation styles: an American Amber, a Pilsner, a Pale Ale and a Radler.
He noted there’ll be no “lactose-filled, donut-flavoured” beers.
Scott added: “It’s nostalgic craft if you like. That consistent part of the craft beer-fridge lineup. We do see an opportunity in terms of craft low-carb. Getting a little more flavour, but knowing that it’s that little bit better for you in comparison to others.”
Beer of the Week No 3
It’s not often you see Emporium beers in cans, but they do it occasionally for orders via Beer Jerk.
Now this is the kind of beer that reminds you what fresh hops truly are — little green bundles chockfull of oils and leafy green material, and that lupulin is a sticky, resinous substance.
From the outset, your tongue is coated in goodness, and the lush Nelson Sauvin brings a certain aliveness to the tastebuds.
And I love the use of XPA as a base style as the ultra-light malt provides a blank canvas for the hops to paint on, and the richness of the oils helps build up the textural element.
Really good beer. And I can highly recommend the other freshie from Emporium, Wet Exit, which is a Cold IPA dry-hopped with fresh Motueka and Riwaka. It’s another shining example of how to deftly use the right beer style to maximise the hop presence.
Mug club rebooted
A couple of weeks ago I alerted you to soon-to-be-open Twofold’s Mug Club. Unfortunately they had a glitch in their payment system and a few people were unable to sign-up, but they’ve fixed it now. For more info ahead of next week’s opening, stay tuned at @Twofold
Thanks again for joining me and catch you next week.
Michael