New Kiwi beer podcast is live
Tributes pour in for beer historian and writer. Beervana tickets on sale as South Korean breweries announced. How brew a beer while hiking. "Polish champagne" makes a return.
Kia Ora beer friends on this Matariki holiday evening.
For overseas readers, here’s everything you need to know about Matariki.
A long weekend in the middle of winter seems like a perfect reason to tell you all about a new addition to the wider Pursuit of Hoppiness family: a podcast!
I’ve joined up with Martin Bridges, aka Beer Bigwig, to launch The Third Pint Theory.
We’ve got a few episodes up our sleeve, and they’ll be dropping here on a regular basis, but for now we’ve got Season 1, Episode 1 — our introductory podcast — up and running. There is one small error on my part at the 9min 39sec mark when I say that New Zealand non-alcs are not as good as the European ones, when I meant to say the exact opposite!
You can find it on Apple, Spotify, YouTube
We’re not promising to change broadcasting — in fact we might be a bit rough around the edges on occasion as we try to learn our way around this format.
For someone like me, who’s only ever done written stuff, it’s a massive learning experience. So any feedback is most welcome.
The episode guests we’ve got lined in coming weeks include:
Ralph Bungard of Three Boys, New Zealand’s current Champion Brewery on being local and sustainable.
Bruce Turner of Urbanaut on the crazy one-off Beervana idea that turned into a cult beer.
Matt and Gemma Smith from Brave Brewing on the sensation that is Tigermilk and why they still prefer glass over cans.
Our aim is to bring you stories about New Zealand craft beer — the people who make it and the places you drink it.
You can also watch us if you’re so inclined on:
Beervana lures South Korean breweries
One of upcoming guests on the podcast will be Ryan McArthur, the Beervana festival director, and we’ll be quizzing him about how he manages to lure such interesting overseas breweries to the event.
Post-Covid we’ve had a large contingent of Australian breweries, and a trio of outstanding German breweries. This year it’s South Korea who will be repping the world stage at the Wellington event on August 22-23.
Seoul Brewery and 7Bräu — South Korea’s oldest brewery who take their name from the fact their brewery was built by Germans, and they started making classic German styles.
A third South Korean brewery will be revealed soon.
“Every time we’ve invited a brewer to Beervana, they’re genuinely excited to come to New Zealand’s largest and most unique celebration of beer. It’s a dream for me and the crowds,” McArthur says.
South Korea’s craft beer scene has undergone significant growth in the past decade, but per head of population it’s still a fledgling industry compared to New Zealand. They expanded from 54 breweries in 2014 to 182 at last count in 2023.
Alongside South Korean beer, festival-goers can expect Korean fried chicken, karaoke, and cultural performances. The South Korean Embassy has partnered with Beervana to help bring the breweries to Wellington.
And tickets are now on at Beervana.co.nz
Beer of the Week No 1
I love a good collaboration — and the combo Sawmill and Brave Brewing is a pedigree of the highest order.
This features trial hop NZH-106 alongside Nelson Sauvin and Kohatu. It’s brewed in the modern style, with a light malt base and medium bitterness, but while the malt structure is designed to showcase the hops, they’ve still managed to create a lovely soft texture to the mouthfeel that allows the hop flavours to wash over your palate in a lovely, rounded way.
It’s tropical fruity, a bit piney-herbal and silky smooth. Perfect for Matariki.
Big weekend of beer competitions
There are two major beer competitions underway this weekend — The Smith’s NZ IPA Challenge in Queenstown, where it’s hosted at Smith’s Craft Beer House. And the Aotearoa Stout Challenge in Christchurch, co-hosted by Moon Under Water and Punky Brewster.
Parrotdog are back-to-back defending champions at the Smith’s NZ IPA Challenge while Mount Brewing won last year’s Stout Challenge.
In total across two venues, more than 50 unique beers will be pouring, which is pretty impressive.
And as per previous years, Beer Hug are releasing a box of the best 12 beers from the NZIPA Challenge, which from past experience is definitely worth getting — some great beers have come out of this event.
Farewell to a legend
Legendary beer writer and historian Martyn Cornell passed away earlier this month at the age of 72, and just days before his latest book was due to be released.
For me, from the vast distance between New Zealand and England, Martyn was a colossus of almost mythic proportions. As I started to find my way in beer, he was a guiding light on the history of the subject and someone whose writing I often turned to in order to check if some nonsense I’d written was, in fact, true.
He founded the influential Zythophile blog, and he was a founding member of the British Guild of Beer Writers. Those who knew him well would always praise his support of other beer writers struggling to get up to his speed.
He wrote many books including: Beer: The Story of the Pint, Strange Tales of Ale, Amber Gold & Black, and Around the World in 80 Beers.
His latest, and timely, book Porter and Stout: A Complete History, was set to be be published this month.
I found a couple of lovely tributes online this week.
A world without Martyn Cornell
Martyn Cornell, 1952-2025 — Beervana
Tim’s Beer of the Week
Earlier this week I had the pleasure of judging the annual NZ Stout Challenge, and the event itself kicks off tomorrow in Christchurch (jointly at The Moon Under Water and Punky Brewster). As always, the stouts on offer are going to be big, and they’re going to be flavoured, so, in honor of stouts about to get weird, here’s something of a warmup from Garage Project.
Beast With Two Backs, is a whisky & bourbon barrel-aged, espresso & banana imperial stout is a blend of two different whisky barrel aged stouts, Tadesse Meskela coffee beans from Peoples Coffee, and dried Vietnamese bananas … suffice to say, there’s a bit going on.
The aroma is suffused with caramel, coconut, and sticky date pudding, while the palate oozes with incredibly rich malt, oaky vanilla and banana lolly cake. Considering the wild 13% ABV and downright chewy viscosity, this stout presents a shockingly easy drinkability. The coffee and gently drying barrel tannin lend just enough agility and buoyancy to the flavour and finish to get this hulk of a beer, not just off the ground, but soaring over the palate. For a great many years, Mutiny On The Bounty (also from GP) has been my measure for the finest dessert stout in NZ, and this may just have surpassed it. Unmissable. — Tim Newman
Brewing beer on the trail
It’s a long weekend so why not have a meet-cute beer story. This is about a couple who set a brewery after meeting while hiking.
But what intrigued me most about this story was how Matt Leef, aka the “Beer Hiker”, would brew a beer while walking.
Leef contends that his trail formula is actually one of the simplest kinds of beer to make. He would mix four ounces of dry malt extract—which looks a bit like granulated sugar—with a pint of water and boil it in the same pot he used to cook last night’s ramen. He would add some bittering agents he found along the trail, like sage, pine needles, or even rocks “for the minerals.”
After letting the mixture sit for 30 minutes to cool, he would pour it into a liter soda bottle that housed a yeast culture and, as the yeast began fermenting, he would burp the bottle to release building CO2 gas.
Five or six days later, the beer—more or less a Saison style with an ABV of 7 or 8 percent—was ready for consumption.
How Two Brewers Launched a Beer Venture While Hiking
Dusty’s Beer of the Week
The second iteration of my birthday brew courtesy of brewer extraordinaire Harley at Wise Owl Brewing Co. Deezul Dust is a 7.9% haze lord running Sabro, Nectaron, Riwaka and a dose of Nelson Sauvin Amplifire hop oil because why not?
Upfront notes of coconut, tangerine, peach, and cedar lead here followed by bitey grapefruit and green grape. Mouthfeel is soft plump and silky smooooooth, such a beautifully balanced and layered brew.
A true testament to Harley’s dedication and perfectionist approach to brewing. — Dusty
Polish Champagne makes a comeback
I’ve never had an actual Grodziskie, a Polish oak-smoked wheat beer, but I’ve always yearned for one; loving smoked beers as I do.
This story below is about how this style of beer is being resurrected and one of the breweries responsible is Pinta. That might be a name a few of you know from their array of collaborations with Mount Brewing.
So, really, this is a not so coded message to Mount Brewing’s Pawel Lewandowski to get a Grodziskie collab going.
The beer that came back from the dead
Beer of the Week No 2
West Aucklanders Black Sands are on a roll at the moment, with the beers tasting great and this a fine example. Seamlessly smooth, and pineapple juicy with a light pine needle bitterness. Good carbonation brings a nice fizzy drink feel to the experience. And I do like that artwork.
Too many beer styles
I’ll leave you this week with Jeff Alworth’s latest rant (that’s his description, not mine) following the Brewers Association in America adding eight new beer styles to its already long list of different beers. Admittedly the BA is listing these 100+ styles for the purposes of judging and they have little relevance in everyday drinking life … but Jeff still has some very good points.
I HAVE A MINOR COMPLAINT: Too Many Styles! — Beervana
Thanks for reading and let me know what you think of that podcast!
Michael