NZ's top gastropub revealed
Plus, which pub was named the best in your region? Beer is back, baby: optimism filters through in the Northern Hemisphere. Booktown ticket giveaway.
Happy Friday beer friends,
There’s a fair chunk of reading in here this week, as well as a few more fresh hop reviews (admittedly I’m chasing my tail trying to keep up with the speed of the releases).
I did have a good reason to be delayed in reviewing one beer, thanks to a combination of a bad placement by a courier and a tradie who didn’t a see a box, this happened:
My wife discovered the remains and said: “Well, it smelled delicious”.
Thankfully the good team at Hop Federation found a replacement and I’ll be trying it over the weekend.
Auckland free house pub takes out gastropub title
Fantail & Turtle — a gorgeous free house on Auckland’s North Shore —has been named New Zealand’s top gastropub.
In announcing the winner, Hospitality NZ said Fantail & Turtle, which is located at Smales Farm on Auckland’s North Shore, features an elevated pub menu showcasing local and boutique producers, and the team prides itself on creating an atmosphere that is warm, welcoming, connected and fun.
Fantail & Turtle was voted by the public as one of the top 50 across the country in the inaugural competition, which saw more than 5,000 people cast their vote.
A panel of judges then chose seven regional winners (see below), with Fantail & Turtle coming out on top as the supreme national champion.
Last year I spent time talking to Fantail & Turtle owner, Travis Field, about his venture and the collection of pub-owning friends who live in the same street. And he explains how the pub got its name.
Friends With Taplists | Pursuit of Hoppiness
One of the judges Connie Clarkson, said: “The Fantail & Turtle menu is confident, balanced and presents well, with a commitment to zero waste, provenance and sustainability.”
I can only concur, it’s a great place to visit and the beer list is always diverse and interesting.
The regional winners were:
Upper North Island and Taranaki: The Tahi Bar + Kitchen – Warkworth, Auckland.
Central North Island: The Keg Room – Rototuna, Hamilton.
Lower North Island: Thistle Inn – Thorndon, Wellington.
Upper South Island: Strawberry Tree Kaikōura Limited – Kaikōura.
Central South Island: CBK Craft Bar & Kitchen Kaiapoi – Kaiapoi, Canterbury.
Lower South Island: The Fat Duck – Te Anau.
Booktown ticket giveaway
Author and historian Greg Ryan is going to be talking about his new book Continuous Ferment at the annual Booktown Festival in Featherston next month — and I have double pass to give away to the first subscriber to email me at michael@hoppiness.co.nz … definitely first in best dressed.
Continuous Ferment charts the story of beer in New Zealand — and he talks with journalist and beer lover Denise Garland about a history “of rogues and inventors, big business power and small business determination, national debate and social upheaval”.
The event is on Sunday May 12 from 3:30pm-4:30pm, at Kiwi Hall, 62 Bell Street, Featherston and the double pass is valued at $40.
If you miss out on the freebie but would like to go, check it out at: https://www.eventfinda.co.nz/2024/pioneers-of-hop-and-grain/featherston
Beer of the Week No 1
Nelson-based Sprig & Fern have quick and plentiful access to the pick of the region’s hops, with master brewer Tracy Banner incredibly experienced when it comes to selecting the best.
Banner was an industry leader when it came to brewing fresh hops, going back to her days as the head brewer at Mac’s.
With Monohoppily she’s plucked the very best Riwaka hops for this superb drop. There’s a real burst of grapefruit juice on the nose, and it carries over into the flavour.
At 5.5% ABV, the body is light and spritzy and endlessly refreshing thanks to the amazing depth of citrus and passionfruit that Riwaka brings.
As with many of the beers reviewed here you can find this — and the Sprig & Fern Harvest Pilsner — at select New World stores, your home of craft beer.
Warning for hop growers, but also optimism
All the doom and gloom in the beer industry in recent years begs the question, when will things change? Or as Venture Taranaki put it today in a press release: “when will we hit the inflection point, i.e. when will competition and attrition within the industry correct the oversupply [of hops], and price trends start curving upwards again?”
As I’ve mentioned before, Venture Taranaki are encouraging hop gardens in the area. They are currently supporting two growers in the region who are scaling up their operations from trial size. Quarter Acre Hops and Wayward Hops have recently completed harvest.
Venture Taranaki have just released a huge in-depth look at the industry, which you can read here.
In summary, the paper looks at the hops sector and combines desktop research and industry engagement with a range of industry participants, including NZ Hops Ltd, Freestyle Hops, Hop Revolution, Pikimai Hops, Garston Hops, Nelson Lakes Hops, Kono, MPI, NZTE, Plant and Food Research, Lincoln University, and brewers, among others.
The paper includes a timely update on the state of the hop sector, snapshot data, steps on how to scale up, paths-to-market guidance, growing advice and information on hop varieties.
Key takeaways include:
The rapid growth of the craft beer market, both locally and globally, is considered to have peaked following the boom period between 2010 and 2020. This resulted in an increased supply and left the hops market to be “production led”.
Inflation and a generally weak economic environment have resulted in lower growth and high levels of uncertainty in the craft brewing industry.
This period of downturn is typical in primary producing sectors and the million-dollar question is always, when will we hit the inflection point, i.e. when will competition and attrition within the industry correct the oversupply, and price trends start curving upwards again? A natural correction could take between 18 months to 4 years, according to some industry participants.
Buyers will continue to favour growers who can offer consistent, high-quality products (including packaging), particularly in this downturn cycle.
Taking a long-term view, there is an opportunity for Taranaki and New Zealand growers to claim more of the global market (currently around 3%, up from 1% in recent years), by producing high-quality product, unique flavour profiles, and developing supply chain efficiencies and processing innovations.
Growers scaling up from pilot plots will need to find export markets (just one hectare of hop plants will produce (on average) approximately 1,800kg of dried hops / 1,700kg of T-90 pellets, which is considerably more hops than most small New Zealand breweries use in a year.
“Despite the challenges the hop sector is currently facing, Venture Taranaki is taking a longer-term view and approach. Through our strategic food and fibre initiatives, we aim to support the exploration of hops as a potential future land use and export market for the region,” said Kelvin Wright, Te Puna Umanga Venture Taranaki Chief Executive, in a press release.
“There's an opportunity for us to showcase our local provenance stories on a global stage,” Wright added. “It takes time and there can be steep learning curves, but investing in work like this Industry Paper helps to pave the way for small-scale growers across the country.”
Taranaki’s Shining Peak are using Riwaka grown by Wayward Hops for a second year.
Head brewer Jesse Sigurdsson rates the hops highly. “The Riwaka grown by Wayward Hops provides amazing passionfruit and guava character to our Oapui Road Fresh Hop Pilsner. It has a hint of diesel character, common with Riwaka, although the local hops are a lot more restrained than the Riwaka grown in the Tasman district. The beer itself is super fresh and clean, with a low bitterness level.”
(Watch out for a forthcoming review of this beer)
Tim’s Beer of the Week
If you thought you’d get anything but another fresh hop beer out of me this week then think again! Fresh hop season is just getting into full swing and I aim to get into as much of it as possible.
When one thinks about fresh hop beers, there's a tendency to automatically associate them with IPA, but I often find that it’s the pilsners that can convey the fresh hop character most succinctly. Auckland brewers Urbanaut have chosen the new extra strong, extra hoppy, West Coast pilsner style for this fresh hop offering.
Riwaka hops are known for their powerful citrus character, and that’s exactly what this beer delivers. Zesty lemon and lime abound in the aroma, while passionfruit adds some tropical flair around the edges. The palate is clean and smooth, but that big 6% ABV lends it an added weight and even more room for hop intensity and bitterness.
A great showcase for what Riwaka can do when fully unleashed, and one of the flat-out juiciest pilsners I’ve encountered; ever. — Tim Newman
Beer sales up in US, confidence in Europe
There’s been positive news for beer on both sides of The Atlantic this week. The northern winter (usually not good for beer sales) has seen an uptick in production in both the US and UK.
In America, February represented a 7.9% increase year-over-year (YoY) for beer, marking it the “strongest monthly growth in almost three years, since May 2021,” Beer Institute (BI) chief economist Andrew Heritage wrote in the trade group’s latest round of economic reports, citing estimates from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB).
Heritage noted that “2024 is off to an excellent start for the beer industry … Brewers are reporting strong shipments growth in the first two months of the year. Wholesalers are correspondingly reporting purchasing growth.
“January and February are generally lower-volume months,” he continued. “We will see in the coming months if volume growth continues and if retail sales begin to grow as we move into the spring and summer selling season.”
There’s also optimism in Europe ahead their upcoming summer, which features the Euro 24 football championship and the Paris Olympics — as well as brighter weather forecast after last year’s wet summer.
The 2023 summer, according to Dolf van den Brink, CEO of Heineken, was “brutal” for brewers. The heavy rains that fell across much of continental Europe in July and August kept people indoors and beer sales flopped.
This year, however, things are expected to be different, with forecasts of increased consumption and production for the entire industry.
Meanwhile, in the UK a report from the independent (i.e. craft) brewers’ trade body Siba, due for release in May but shared with the Guardian, will show double-digit growth in production volumes. “Increased output correlates tightly with sales,” the Guardian observed, “reflecting Britain’s enduring thirst for the complex and diverse flavours that the craft sector offers, particularly compared with mass-market rivals.”
Dusty’s Beer of the Week
Always one of my most anticipated fresh hop drops is Sprig & Fern’s Harvest Pilsner. Riwaka & Pilsner are made for each other IMHO, especially this iteration which also features trial hop NZH-106, a daughter of the aforementioned Riwaka. Plenty of resiny greeny bitterness, the infamous Riwaka diesel notes of grapefruit/passionfruit/lemon & there’s some soft tropicals on the backend, before finishing prickly and dry. Great example of fresh hop Riwaka!
Inside the Lion’s den
You may recall a post earlier this year about Lion’s centenary. Well, the NZ Herald finally caught up with the news and sent one of their best writers, Jane Phare, to do the story. And kudos, it’s a really good look into the way Doug Myers built the Lion empire, with some well-explained history.
Beer of the Week No 2
Wanaka’s Rhyme X Reason are often one of the first out of the blocks at fresh hop season and this time they’ve hit the ground running, or rather skating if the label on their Bowl Rippers Hazy IPA is any indication!
With Pacifica and Rakau used as late as possible in the brew process there’s maximum aroma and flavour without any green bitterness.
As a result this is a rich, sweet, deeply flavoured hazy with a giant dose of grapefruit and apricots in the flavour department. The texture is smooth, juicy and resinous from the hop oils.
At only 5.2% there’s a lot of fruity flavour for relatively low ABV.
Masters golf fans are drinking Belgian Witbier
Sports fans will know that the Masters golf tournament is on this week at Augusta, Georgia.
There’s a lot of secrecy about what goes on behind the gates at the Masters and one of those intriguing elements is the beer available for fans to drink.
It has no brand and no provenance, and fans have no choice — if they want a beer, they get served a “Crow’s Nest”.
So golf.com set off to try to find out more information and basically came up short: whoever brews it for the event is obviously sworn to the deepest secrecy.
But they got a sample in front of someone who knew their stuff, and it turns out the patrons are being served a Belgian Witbier. And what’s more it costs only $US5 a pint!
And it makes sense they might have that style, as from 2016 to 2021 they served the iconic Blue Moon.
As the writer observed, it could still be Blue Moon, just with a different name. Either way, kudos to the crew at Augusta for lifting themselves above the ubiquitous American light lager.
Beer of the Week No 3
That seems as good a segue as any to one of the best fresh hops I’ve tried this season, a SMaSH Belgian Ale from Wilderness. This single malt (Gladfield Ale) and single hop (Motueka) is stunning in the way it layers such simple ingredients to create a complex and beguiling beer. The fresh Motueka could easily be lost against the perfumed fruit of the yeast-derived esters, but the hop announces its presence in the mouthfeel, the late bitterness, the hint of dank earthiness and some bright “green” notes to cut back against the sweet yeast character. Sublime.
The rising tide that is Hop Water
Since we’ve been talking a lot about hops, I’ll leave you with this look at the emerging trend of Hop Water.
I’m a fan of the Simple Life Hop Water that Bach Brewing created this past summer and I believe we’ll see more of these hit the market next summer as brewers get their heads around them.
What is hop water / Inside Hook
Thanks as always for your company on a Friday and catch you next week.
