Rare box of champion beers

Best of Beervana. Dunedin's booming beer scene. Cell Division — where art meets science. Japan's official "drink more" push. Beer as an economic barometer. A new book on hops. Vailima stays in Samoa.

Welcome to Friday Night Beers, the last of the winter dispatches.

It’s another packed email of news and views, including why the price of beer is used as an economic barometer, a fantastic “box of champions” put together by the Brewers Guild of NZ, why the Japanese are encouraging people to drink, a new book about hops, three great recommendations (if I say so myself) and we test drive (test-walk?) dog beers!

First up, some quick take-outs from Beervana.

I enjoyed the festival despite Wellington’s mizzly weather. For me the experience was about seeing people and catching up. I didn’t end up having that many beers but I was not disappointed once, which is a rare result as there have been occasions where it’s been a case of tip-out and move on.

The highlights were experiencing a range of beers from New Zealand’s No 1 and No 3 ranked beers on Untappd. Derelict and Wilderness had a shared stand and honestly I could have stood there all day. The Boundless Biere de Coupage and Stonework Fruited Farmhouse Ale from Wilderness were both extraordinary as was the Flanders Red. Derelict’s bent towards milkshake IPAs and dessert stouts was a nice counter-point. Derelict’s I Need A Holiday Milkshake IPA — rested on mango, peach and papaya, with vanilla and lactose — is worth seeking out online but my favourite was a pale ale, Skinny Dippin, which is the dip-hopped beer I’ve tried. So far dip-hopping has left me underwhelmed as a technique, with the beers too smooth and even but this was bristling with flavour, texture and tension. I hope they package it.

The Aussies were impeccable in both structure and impact of the beers and it’s easy to see why they dominated the leaderboard of most-praised beers. Mountain Culture’s Macrodosed NEIPA is possibly the best triple hazy IPA I’ve ever had, so smooth and with a real depth of flavour, while One Drop’s double raspberry sour had to be experienced to be believed. Both those beers were 10 per cent ABV but it was almost impossible to tell.

On the sneaky side, a brewery you may not have seen much of is Chinchiller from Christchurch but they are doing some really good things. Their Mango Banana Sour packed more flavour into a 4 per cent beer than anything in recent memory.

Three Sisters had the best stand, with their “Reinheitsgetbot Jail”, rivalled by Mean Doses psychedelic pyramid thing (I don’t how else to describe it). And Emerson’s rocked it out in the No 1 stand, where Overbooked, the Hoppy Bookbinder, was magical.

The Three Sisters team locked up the best stand award in my books. Photo / Beervana

Garage Project’s Bubble Tea beer was a revelation: it was super fun and tasty as. If you’re not familiar with bubble tea it doesn’t matter, take it at face value. You’ve got a sour beer with a fruit syrup in it, not dissimilar to what Germans do with raspberry or woodruff syrup in their Berliner Weisse. Plus there’s the added textural surprise of a ball that pops in your mouth. And you can drink it with a straw (though not a hot dog straw). To me, this is the kind of thing Beervana should be about. A bit weird, but tasty and experiential.

Beer of the week No 1

People always ask you for your highlights of Beervana. And damn that’s hard to do. There were so many great beers and a lot depends on the time and moment. But there were a handful of beers that really surprised me. One was that Garage Project Bubble Beer, but the other that had me smiling was Urbanaut’s Toasted Marshmallow IPA. I didn’t intend to order this beer, but I was walking with my cousin Jason, who loves a good hazy/milkshake beer, and since I’d already had a serious beer at Urbanaut (their imperial Biere De Garde) I figured I’d go with the disco-flow and try the Toasted Marshmallow. What great fun. Does exactly what it says: creamy sweet, caramel, vanilla … you couldn’t drink this kind of gooey goodness all night but at a certain time and place it’s perfect.

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Box of Champions

It must have been a logistical nightmare but I have huge praise for the Brewers Guild of NZ and Beer Hug for creating a mixed dozen featuring 12 champion beers from June’s NZ Beer Awards. You have to register to be in with a chance of buying the box because there are only 250 and for some of these beers it might be the last we see of them (such as Garage Project’s Chance Luck & Magic and Lumberjack’s From The Woods Saison 2020). It’s an amazing collection of eclectic styles and a great way to get an appreciation for excellent, true-to-style beers.

Here’s an explainer of what’s in the box and how to go about registering to be in with a chance to buy one.