What's hot on the Beervana taplist

Plus Peckham's Cidery and orchard or sale. Our slide towards high ABV beers. Why Lion exited UK in a rush. New Hawkes Bay beer festival. They're Lumberjacks and they're OK.

Happy Friday Beer Lovers,

This time next week I will be at Beervana, but I promise this missive will arrive on schedule, potentially with some early highlights from the festival and obligatory typos if I have to end up typing on my phone (inevitable, really).

Before we crack into what I see as the highlights of the festival, drinking-wise, here’s what’s in the email tonight: a look at how our drinking is moving to two different ends of the ABV spectrum; the famous Peckham’s brand is for sale along with the orchard and a fabulous property in Upper Moutere; there’s some analysis of Lion’s exit from UK brands Magic Rock and Fourpure; plus a new festival for Hawke’s Bay; a look at the sometimes meaningless term “session” and three beers of the week, including, um, a sessionable one.

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Beervana beer list revealed

I’ve taken a deep dive into the list of beers and breweries at Beervana, to be held in Wellington’s Sky Stadium next Friday and Saturday. And I have to say, it’s one of the best looking line-ups I’ve seen in a while.

I’m rapt to see a German stand that features some classic brands such as Weihenstephaner, Schneider Weisse, Paulaner, Hofbräu, Löwenbräu and Franziskaner, all pouring fresh, kegged beer. And there’s a US stand with legends like Alesmith and Deschutes, also pouring kegged beer. With Australians including Mountain Culture, Range and One Drop also showing up and Beer Jerk’s trans-Tasman stand, the international vibe is incredibly strong.

There’s so much to talk about I couldn’t fit it all in here.

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Our split ABV loyalties

How do you choose what you’re going to spend your hard-earned beer money on? Brand, style, format, ABV, price? I’ve never really considered this too carefully. Price does come into it, but only once I start seeing bottles (and it’s always bottles) priced above $15. I’ll happily spend that amount on something that catches my eye, but I’ll hesitate when it starts to go past $20 … though not usually for long. But one thing I’ve never considered in my purchases is ABV (unless I’m specifically looking for a non-alc). Whether a beer is 5, 6, 8 per cent, or more doesn’t enter the conversation playing out in my head. Data, however, suggests otherwise.

Earlier this year, in releasing the data on “alcohol available for consumption” to the end of 2021, Stats NZ made these points:

• The volume of low-alcohol beer (below 2.5 per cent ABV) rose for the first time in five years.

• The volume of beer with more than 5 percent alcohol rose for the eighth year in a row, to reach 47 million litres, over five times the volume of 2010.

It’s also worth noting that the total litres of beer consumed — 292 million litres — stayed basically the same as the previous year which was up slightly on 2019.

In that mix of numbers, beer with an ABV of 2.5-4.35 per cent fell 16 per cent, which broadly represents “mainstream” beer that you’d buy in pubs up and down the country — pubs that were empty, or restricted, for much of 2021.

So yes, there was a bit if shuffling around of consumption patterns, but largely consumers moved in two directions — to lower alcohol and to higher alcohol, leaving a hole in the middle that represents how we used to drink. You could call this a “pandemic curve” but that’s not the full story. The full story is that these patterns have been in place for years, accelerating in the past seven or eight years, roughly corresponding with the craft beer boom.

In short, we’re drinking more high alcohol beer AND more low-no alcohol beer.

No sooner had I written down all this information than I found this story from the Washington Post which basically confirms that what I think is happening in NZ is happening in America.

Which brings me to…

Beer of the week No 1

I entered into the consumption of this new release from Boneface with some trepidation. It was Sunday night and a 9.5 per center was not high on the list of things to do that would ensure Monday morning played out evenly. But, you know how it goes, I couldn’t resist. I’ve noted before that I’m a fan of Cold IPA (and I think this puts me in a niche group), but hear me out. Cold IPA is brewed with a lager yeast at (ironically) slightly warmer temperatures than a normal lager, but at cooler temperatures than if you used a traditional ale yeast. This is one of the best examples I’ve tried of the style and I think the huge ABV here marries impeccably to the style (lighter malts, lighter body), so it becomes a relatively nimble beast in terms of structure. And it’s laden with hop extracts that play to the lean framework, meaning the whole thing is like a kevlar racing bike, light but incredibly robust.