What is New Zealand's best beer region

8 Wired release feijoa grappa to commemorate 10 years of Wild Feijoa. Did Bill Gates make the right move investing $1bn in Heineken? UK brewery closures treble. Ruapehu Brewing's journey to the top.

Happy Friday Beer Lovers

There’s screeds of news and features to read in this week’s newsletter, so strap yourself in.

I spent a chunk of this week googling populations in various New Zealand regions and recounting breweries, as I was inspired by this story Mapped & Ranked: The States With the Most Craft Breweries in 2022 | VinePair to work out New Zealand’s best beer region.

Before we get to that, the top-10 American states with most breweries per 100,000 people are.

1. Vermont 15.59

2. Maine 14.16

3. Montana 12.54

4. Alaska 11.21

5. Wyoming 10.53

6. Colorado 10.04

7. Oregon 9.80

8. New Hampshire 9.29

9. Washington 7.66

10. New Mexico 6.66

I got to wondering if we had a beer region as densely populated with breweries as Vermont. And the answer is yes!

With around 16 breweries per 100,000 people the Nelson-Tasman region is our Vermont, which seems about right to me in terms of a general vibe of our main hop-growing region.

Our equivalent of Montana is the greater Otago region with 13 breweries per 100,000.

After that it tails away a bit, with Wellington not as high as you’d think, with 5 breweries per 100,000 … but if you drilled down to cities, it would be a different story with Wellington city being quite densely populated with beer, in case you haven’t heard.

Most breweries per 100,000 in NZregions

1. Nelson-Tasman 16

2. Otago 13

3. Marlborough 6

4. Hawkes Bay 6

5. Northland 6

6. West Coast 6

7. Wellington 5

8. Canterbury 4.5

9. Taranaki 4

10. Waikato 3

11. BoP 3

12. East Cape 3

13. Southland 2.5

14. Manawatu 2.5

15. Auckland 2.5

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Beer of the week No 1

I’m a big fan of a simple pale ale done well, and I’m a big fan of Baylands and what they bring to their hoppy beers. Their Skull Cracker Double IPA in the New World Beer & Cider Awards is a real … cracker — it’s so well made that you don’t notice you’re drinking a 7.5% beer. And it’s kind of the same here with the Petone Pale Ale, this core range pale ale is tightly-packed with punchy flavour, more jabs than haymakers but still punchy, and drinks effortlessly, cleanly, with a pleasing malt-hop balance. A subtle mint-pine aroma and flavour is underlaid with a hint of pineapple and it finishes with a mild bitterness. Smashable as they say.

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8 Wired’s Wild Feijoa celebrates 10th birthday

Just released is the latest edition of 8 Wired’s Feijoa Wild Ale. It’s the 10^th edition of this cult beer and I spoke to 8 Wired brewer-founder Soren Eriksen about how the beer has changed over the years. Plus they have a limited edition grappa that they're selling in conjunction with the 10^th birthday celebrations for Wild Feijoa and it’s probably a collector’s item of some merit as it’s made with the leftover skins of the original batch of Wild Feijoa, which in itself is some story!

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Dusty’s Beer of the Week

Winter may have turned up but so have Sawmill to combat that with their seasonal release of thjeir robust baltic porter. Its dark chocolate/toffee is an instant warmer, offset by subtle berry fruit. So smooth rich and beautifully layered. If you drink one dark brew this winter this should be it.

You can follow Dusty here.