Our wildly swinging drinking habits

Peckham's changes hands. Garage Project nail it with LA LA IPA. Another blow for Aussie beer industry. Shortjaw's spicy Easter beer. What's our most westerly pub? Would you drink powdered beer?

Good afternoon beer lovers, and welcome to a new edition of Friday Night Beers.

The main thing I want to talk about today is the almost weird set of data released by Statistics NZ this week on alcohol available for consumption in 2022 and what that says about the beer industry.

But before I get to that (and a big development at Peckham’s Cider), I want to reshare last week’s post which somehow I managed to stuff up and it didn’t get to everyone who was supposed to receive it. It’s a shame as I thought there was good content in there!

Gisborne running out of Gold

Beer of the week No 1

This is actually a brewery of the week. It’s because I’ve been staying with a friend who is a subscriber to Beer Hug and one of the recent deliveries was from Duncan’s so the fridge was full of options.

And it turned out that beer after beer was an absolute banger! From the Yum Yum Yuzu Lager, to the Pilsner, to the Pale Ale, to the Whippy IPA, to the Juniper IPA. And we didn’t even get to the ice cream sours!

I mean I knew that each of these was good in its own right, but I’d never had full-on evening drinking only Duncan’s beer and as a class, they all graduated with honours.

It’s really hard to pick a favourite out of all of those and we didn’t even get to the ice cream sours. The hop-dipped single-hop beers were amazing, especially the Galaxy. The pale ale was clean, light and flavoursome. The Whippy IPA was a dream. But if I had to lean one way it would be the Pilsner, as I could slam back many of those.

Anyway, trust me. Buy George Duncan’s beer, you won’t be disappointed.

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Drinking at the edges of the compass

I got an email from a reader the other day which raised an interesting question and offered an opportunity: to have a beer at New Zealand’s most northerly, southerly, westerly and easterly pubs.

Tim wrote:

I'm currently reading A Runner's Guide to Rakiura by Jessica Howland Kany. In it is what one of the locals call NZ's most Southerly pub (no doubt based on the South Sea Hotel).

It got me thinking about pubs on the other compass points around NZ and where the most Northern, Western and Eastern pubs are (for definition of pub I'm thinking here traditional 'kiwi pub' vs say a modern bar/cafe hybrid).

I'd nominate the Te Puka Tavern in Tokomaru Bay as most Eastern and after a quick Google Maps check the Houhoura Tavern as the most Northern.

However I'm stumped on the most Western. I thought it might be the Waiau Hotel in Tuatapere but it's now closed. There is The Moose Tavern in Te Anau but this feels too modern (see definition above) and the Blue Duck Cafe in Milford Sound (technically maybe not a 'pub'). Other than those I can't see anymore listed.

If anyone has got any suggestions feel free to send them through to michael@hoppiness.co.nz

And my aim is now to have a drink at each of those four corners, with so far just one — The South Sea Hotel —to my name.

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