Shining Peak, Parrotdog resolve Greyhound race

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Welcome to Friday Night Beers which this week features a couple of extra “beers of the week” — mainly because I’ve been on a good sampling run of late — and a bunch of great stories from around the country and the wider beer world.

It turns out that this is one of those “good news” missives, which reminds me of when the Sunday News, about 15 years ago, decided to do a newspaper full of only positive and uplifting stories — and it was their worst-seller in yonks!

Before we start, you’ll know the hop harvest is underway and that means fresh hop beers are about to hit the shelves. Getting your hands on these ephemeral offerings is easier than ever thanks to the team from Beer Hug, who have a Fresh Hop box that’s selling fast.

I’ll have more fresh hop features and recommendations in next week’s email, which I will compile after we finish judging the New World Beer & Cider Awards in Christchurch next week. The awards have drawn a record number of entries, which given all the negatives floating around the beer industry in the past year is surely a good sign.

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Shining Peak, Parrotdog in Greyhound race

The first good-news story could have been a bad news story about two breweries clashing after they came up with the same name for a low-carb beer.

I’ve known other situations like this which have ended in bad blood and it’s a testament to those involved that this was resolved amicably.

Almost simultaneously, both Shining Peak in Taranaki and Parrotdog in Wellington announced the release of low carb beers called Greyhound.

Shining Peak like to name their beers after local stories and in this case it’s because Taranaki was the first region in New Zealand to introduce greyhounds for hunting hare in the late 19th century (or ‘coursing’ as it was known).

And Parrotdog like to use bird and canine names for their beers, such as their soon to be released non-alcoholic beer called Watchdog.

And greyhound is a natural for a low carb beer, right?

When the team at Shining Peak realised there was a double up, a dialogue started and Shining Peak agreed to rebrand when their current packaged stock runs out, so if you want a collector’s item … Technically Shining Peak were first out of the traps with the name, but as brewer and cofounder Jesse Sigurdsson noted to me, Parrotdog have more at stake, given they are on a big growth push, including a crowdfunding bid that has a week to run so he was happy to step back and come up with another name.

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Beer of the week No 1

As new as can be, this Pilsner is from just-opened brewery Pacific Coast in Mangawhai, and it is going straight to the trophy round in the battle for beer of the year for me. What a debut! It should be no surprise given the talents of brewer Sam Williamson, who learned his craft at Steam Brewing, and honed it at Galbraith’s and Sawmill. This is a bold beer, a statement about New Zealand hops and the direction beer is going. At 6% ABV it’s a chunky pilsner and the hopping regime is pushing it towards IPA territory. There’s grippy grape skins, grass and diesel thanks to the almost perfect meshing of Nelson Sauvin and Riwaka hops. The pungency of the hops is tuned nicely to the lighter pilsner structure resulting in a beer that’s dank and drinkable.

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