The best of 2024 ...

My pick for the brewery of the year and other "bests". Our writers nominate their beers of the year. The year-ender: The End of Days (or not). West Trusts open Beer Spot franchise in New Lynn.

Welcome to the final dispatch of 2024.

I’ll be back in the New Year, aiming for Friday January 17.

We finish up the year with my “awards” list as well as the top beers from our various Pursuit of Hoppiness contributors.

To get the full list of the Hoppiness 100 — our combined 100 beers of the year, make sure you pick up your copy of Pursuit of Hoppiness over the summer break.

It looks like this:

And if you’re in a bar, taproom or pub and they don’t have Pursuit of Hoppiness, put them in touch with me and I’ll hook them up!

And remember, you can get this home delivered for free when you become a paid subscriber to this newsletter!

But first in some breaking news:

This is lifted straight from an email as I’m currently on holiday and don’t have time to do a proper edit, but in short the evolution of the west Auckland Trusts continues with the Portage Trust — one of two west Auckland trusts (Waitakere is the other) that are collectively known as The Trusts — opening a Beer Spot franchise in New Lynn.

For most of you outside the 09 this is nothing huge but for anyone in West Auckland, it’s massive!

“The Portage Trust are delighted to share the fantastic news that they have successfully secured a tavern license for The Beer Spot at 3008 Great North Road, New Lynn. This new venue will officially open its doors in early 2025, marking a significant milestone in The Trusts' efforts to enhance and refresh hospitality in the area and create a vibrant social hub for our community.

“This exciting development is a result of our partnership with The Beer Spot for a franchise in West Auckland.

“The Beer Spot owner Laurence Van Dam says ‘The Beer Spot is super excited to be joining the West Auckland community with the first ever The Beer Spot in The West. We only support local breweries and businesses wherever possible, so rest assured we keep it local and we keep it fresh!’

“We are proud to bring this renowned brand to New Lynn, ensuring the high standards of service and quality that they are known for. The Beer Spot will provide a welcoming environment with a wide range of beers and self-serve food trucks on rotation, offering something for everyone.

“Marcus Amosa, President of the Portage Licensing Trust says ‘We’re thrilled to announce the opening of our new Beer Spot venue in the Portage area. This is an exciting partnership and is part of our commitment to positively impacting the hospitality scene and adding value to our community.’

“We look forward to welcoming you to this exciting new venue early next year! Stay tuned for further updates as we approach the grand opening.”

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So to my best of the year!

Brewery of the year

It’s nearly impossible to marrying public opinion to awards performance but it happened in 2024. McLeod’s in Waipu scored the most gold medals at the New Zealand Beer Awards in August, took out the champion medium-sized brewery crown, and champion beer. They also popped up in the New World Beer & Cider Awards Top 30. And on social media, where commentary can cross the full spectrum the almost unwavering comment about McLeod’s is that “they can do no wrong”.

Newcomer of the Year

St Leonard’s launched this time last year but this was their first full year in the business. Their Kingsland garden bar in Auckland has been going off and they were undoubtedly the pick of the Kiwi breweries at Beervana. They also, in conjunction with another great newcomer, Twofold, produced one of the best beers of the year, Bernstein, an amber lager that I could have drunk forever.

Departure of the Year

In a year notable for some sad exits — Hashigo Zake, Zeelandt, Badass Beverages, Pacific Coast — the most shocking shop-shut came from Derelict in North Canterbury with Sam and Natalie Cottier deciding it was the right time to call “last orders” at New Zealand’s top-rated brewery on Untappd. We had them for just six years but what a ride.

Quote of the Year

“It’s all positive. We’re certain we’ve made the right call for us. In the end we had more fun than not.” — Sam Cottier on his decision to shut Derelict.

Comeback of the Year

Mike Neilson and Anna Neilson stepping back into the fray and buying Boneface is the good news story the industry was hanging out for. Not that Mike had been away from beer that long — he left “baby” in the hands of its adoptive parents, Lion, when he quit that business this time last year. A few months later he was back in Upper Hutt ready to super-charge another brand.

News story of the year

I’m basing this solely on my stats from this newsletter. The Substack platform keeps detailed stats of views and shares. And it was the shock liquidation of Pacific Coast that got the most reaction, narrowly shading Mike and Anna Neilson buying Boneface.

Beer “style” of the Year

Bright IPA — this was the year clarity fought back against haze. The opening incursions from the bright brigade are promising indeed.

It’s not you, it’s us

Wheat beer. As much as I love wheat beers — they are close to losing their place in our beer culture. There were only 6 entries in the “Wheat and Other Grains” category at the NZ Beer Awards this year.

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Beer of the Week

In keeping with the above awards, I had the latest edition of McLeod’s 802 series the other night and was blown away by the intensity of hop character. This is relentlessly long and popping flavour. It features two powerhouse hops — Citra and Nelson Sauvin — and a relative newcomer in Superdelic, which to me is the hop that makes this beer ping. Superdelic is slowly finding its way into beers as brewers come to terms with its ability to fill out gaps in a flavour profile. On its own it’s a bit one dimensional, but with other big hops, the candy and bubblegum characters get into the crevices of your palate and it brings a real roundness to the flavour.

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Our writers pick their best of the year

Tim Newman

Garage Project x Alvarado Street Nelson Sun Club Fresh Hopped IPA — My top pick for 2024, and on a much shorter list for one of the best beers ever. Precise and pristine IPA that intricately balances power and grace.

Dusty

Parrotdog NZH-109 Bright IPA — Been an outstanding year for Parrotdog and amazing year brew-wise for NZH-109 — the breakthrough experimental hop. This Bright IPA with its greeny melon, zesty lime, resiny bitterness takes my No 1 spot.

Denise Garland

Garage Project British Steel Dark Mild — Lovely roasty aroma and flavour, notes of charred toast and a lovely nutty characterClean and smooth, could drink this all day.

Martin Bridges

McLeod’s Forest Of Giants West Coast IPA — By far the most memorable beer I’ve had in the last year. Absolutely nailed the style to my mind — firm bitterness over a lovely malt cushion with hops popping off the top. Even better than their Malthouse WCIPA Challenge People’s Choice beer, which is saying something.

JoAnne Carr

Double Vision Cola Beer Cherry Sour My partner (a career brewer) once brewed a small-batch Cola Sour with hints of lime. It was, frankly, incredible, tasted like a sour cola gummy, and I’ve not been able to get it out of my mind since. Every year, he asks me what I want for my birthday, and I ask him to brew this. He thinks I’m joking, because it’s yet to happen. Good thing Double Vision crew have got my back. They had this circa-80s, American girl at “cola”, “cherry” and “sour”, and I’ll be drinking it all summer long.

Kieran Haslett-Moore

Thornbridge Jaipur IPA — The flagship of Derbyshire’s finest brewery — the magic of this super pale IPA is to deliver a grippy citrus-laden blast of hops alongside satisfying chewy malt at a just sessionable strength of 5.9%. The bottles travel much better than the cans.

Jessica Allen

Altitude Jam Session Volume 13: Strawberry & Sea Buckthorn — In my humble opinion, it doesn’t get better than Altitude’s Jam Sessions. They hit … Every. Single. Time. I’m a sucker for Altitude – they’re my local watering hole and always delighting my tastebuds. Bursting with strawberry and the unique flavour of sea buckthorn (think tart and sour), this beer has a thick smoothie consistency.

Phil Walter

Small Gods Arms Race — Likened to a beer I'm unlikely to ever have, Pliny The Elder, This is a killer of beer, a giant, and so harks back to the escalation of IBU and ABV in NZ of a decade past.

Joshua Lee (aka Hazzy Hunter)

Beanbag Brewery x Hazzy Hunter Hazy IPA — Although I might be a bit biased with this one as I had a hand in bringing this brew to life but this is the perfect hazy, it’s packed with flavours like tropical bubblegum and pine needles but it goes down the hatch easier than water. If you haven’t tried this brew yet, then you better hunt it down before it’s all gone!

Michael Donaldson

Canyon Brewing To Central With Love — I loved this wild ride of a beer. Locally grown malt and hops, rested on pinot noir grape skins, turning the beer a vibrant red. Fermented on yeast from wild thyme flowers. Tastes like Ribena blended with pinot noir.

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Dusty’s Beer of the Week

A new sud tube from Laughing Bones — their 17th iteration in the Mountain IPA series — the 6.2% From The Cradle leads with an all-Aussie hopped, three-pronged attack featuring Galaxy, Vic Secret & Eclipse reppin’ the east coast side of the brew, and Cascade, Chinook and Columbus out the west side of things, the result being big crispy juicy mouthfeel upfront with notes of peach, grapefruit, guava, pineapple before the westside makes its presence felt with hits of pine, floral and a pithy bitterness. Awesome example of a Mountain IPA. Hoppy Friday!

Instagratification: Dusty's Best of the Latest Releases | Pursuit of Hoppiness

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Tim’s Beer of the Week

Cold IPA remains a fascinatingly amorphous beer, with each new release pushing the irregular boundaries of the style in a slightly different direction. While the trend (for now) is to lean towards very hop-driven beers, Hopulence (6% ABV) from Eddyline Brewery in Nelson really embraces its lager DNA.

There's gentle aromas of bright citrus, grape and gooseberry, while the palate is smooth and dry with a crispy malt backbone and subtly herbaceous and floral hop character. The finish (like the palate) is short and snappy, with a strong and energetic bitterness that leaps out right at the end.

Of all the (many) Cold IPAs I’ve now sampled, this is one of the most distinctively divergent, and, consequently, or otherwise, one of the best. Satisfying and sublimely refreshing like the best lager can be, but characterful and impactful in a way that a ‘real’ strong lager is never going to be.

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The year-ender: End of days

I’ll leave you with a year-ender piece of commentary from the inimitable Kieran Haslett-Moore, because the sentiment captures perfectly the year past in a much better fashion than I could have.

The day after I was born a human error was made on a US national security computer the size of a car.

A training tape was fed into the machine and in return it concluded trouble. Screens across America showed the sky was full of Soviet ballistic missiles. As is often the case, things were not what they seemed.

Someone’s nerve held and mutually assured destruction was averted. The end of humanity and most life on earth would have sucked. Also, I would never have known the briny joy of an oyster, the deep umami hit of a glass of Emerson’s London Porter, the bony tactile perfection of a lover’s knee enclosed in my hand, the leafy golden joy of a pint of Galbraith’s Bob Hudson or even the sensation of eating solid food.

My existence would have consisted of a few hours with my worn-out mother who was reeling, damaged by the experience of bringing me into the world and by the surly matrons of St Helen’s Hospital Newtown who were setting about making the experience worse.

It is human nature to think the sky is falling. It is also human nature to deny it ever could fall.

Perhaps we are divided into people who see the end of it all as imminent and people who see the stretch of humanity as inexhaustible. Perhaps these two groups are the same as people who can picture their own funeral in high definition and those who are secretly convinced of their own immortality. Perhaps.

One day those of us who see the end will be proved correct to the cosmic gallery, unless the other lot are right in which case we are the cosmic gallery. My point is just because we have been predicting the “end” since forever that doesn’t mean the end will never come.

The same can be said for the little project we all care about, fight about, angst about and which we collectively call “Craft Beer”.

The seas have been choppy recently. Economic upheaval, the breakdown of social cohesion, skyrocketing costs as the earth’s gears grind and shear and the tax collectors turn their screws, the coming generations of drinkers opting for boozeless beverages, an emboldened prohibition lobby determined to repeat the mistakes of the past and an industry which has enthusiastically transformed itself into a novelty flavoured children’s entertainer.

The case for the prosecution is clear. The past 18 months’ have seen liquidations, fire sales, winding ups; we’ve seen foundation brands put on the market, fortunes lost and lives put into disarray. The fairy tale is over.

But let me step into the role of counsel for the defence for a moment. This was never a fairy tale.

As our industry has matured the waves of boom have started to enter the churn period that any mature market finds. The economic storm we currently find ourselves in is swamping the breweries that are over-extended, debt-laden or caught in the juncture of changing models.

The hard reality is that booms often lead to an over-abundance of players and that is inarguably the case in New Zealand. Corrections come in many forms.

None of this helps those whose dreams and life finances have been smashed, nor does it help loyal drinkers who mourn the loss of their favourite brewers. But I don’t think we are witnessing the end of craft beer just yet. The current market corrections, as painful as they are, will hopefully leave the remaining players stronger and more resilient going forward.

Then again, one day that sky might just actually fall you know.

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Thanks for coming with me on another year in beer and we’ll do it all again in 2025.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and cold beers all the way!

Michael