State of the Beer Nation surprisingly positive

For paid subscribers: Brewery cats. Trappist beers under threat. Why Guinness has become so cool. How Germany came to rule the non-alcohol beer world. Dogfish Head bet on cocktails

Welcome to another addition of Friday Night Beers.

Before we kick on with the news of the week, a heads-up that next Friday I’ll be taking a wee break for Easter, and the first round of The Masters golf tournament, which is also a holy day of obligation (that’s one for the raised-Catholics amongst us).

We start this week with a look into the State of the Beer Nation. There’s been a lot of talk about the dire conditions facing breweries — CO2 shortages, supply chain issues, hyper-competition for space on supermarket shelves, trying to keep prices low while costs increase, including ingredients, excise duty, packaging, freight. And this against the backdrop of consumers being hit by rising prices for food, higher interest rates and general shit-house moods thanks to the lingering impact of Covid, diabolical weather and frightful nature of the news cycle.

Anyway, I fully expected some doom and gloom when I went out to brewers and asked them whether their pint-glass was half-full or half-empty.

Surprisingly, they were all quite positive, but for lots of different reasons.

State of The Beer Nation | Pursuit of Hoppiness

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Beer of the week No 1

Many of you may know that I’ve been residing in Pukekohe for the past few weeks after the landslide disaster in Titirangi. One of the nice things about where we are in Pukekohe is that it’s a pleasant walk down to The Franklin pub. They are tied up with Fortune Favours and over the past few weeks I’ve tried the range on offer: Pilsner, Pale Ale, Hazy and IPA. A clear winner for me has been The Naturalist pale ale. While unfiltered, it remains light and bright — a lean malt base offering a restrained fruity-floral hop flavour to skip across the surface. It’s an easy-drinker that’s perfect for an autumn afternoon in the sun.

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What’s going on Wellington?

A follow up of sorts on our story last week about DB’s takeover of Kāpura and how that might impact the Wellington hospitality scene. It was good to see mainstream media pick up this yarn and weave it into the fact that a number of Wellington bars have gone under in recent weeks.

Long time Wellington venue operator Matt McLaughlin said the industry had been in bad shape since before the pandemic, and things were getting worse for the little guys.

Wellington nightlife under pressure as several bars go under | Stuff.co.nz