Yeastie Boys on growth path

Four new beer recommendations for your weekend enjoyment, experimental barley trial in Queenstown, a bitter return(?), a history of Hopstock and much more...

We begin this week with news from Yeastie Boys (remember them?). I’m only half-joking but since they moved fully to a UK-based operation last year their presence in New Zealand has fallen away, but that looks likely to change.

Yeastie Boys last year sold a 12.5 per cent stake in the company to distribution agent KBE and moved their headquarters to Britain after trying to straddle two sides of the globe.

In an email to shareholders, Yeastie Boys listed the recent successes, including:

• finding an absolute hero London account in 640East (Canary Wharf) who regularly sell 40 kegs per week across 6 taps (soon to be 8 as they remove Heineken!);

• winning a 600-1,000 keg tender with the Mitchell & Butler pub chain for summer; 

• having Gunnamatta 440ml cans ranged into Asda supermarkets for spring/summer (180 stores... and you may just see these in NZ soon), 

• the selection of Gunnamatta 330ml being selected for Lidl’s “Spring Festival” (3,500 dozen);

• successfully moving Bigmouth from 7,000L batches at Utopian Brewery (Exeter) to 45,000L batches at Cameron's Brewery (Hartlepool).

And then there’s a typically bold Yeastie Boys on-premise look with some cool-looking striped glasses!

Yeastie Boys were brewing and selling New Zealand beers through Urbanaut in Auckland but as that brewery grew, the squeeze came on and we saw very few YB cans in this country. But it now looks like Yeastie Boys have lined up a new partner and it’s looking good for fans of Gunnamatta, Pot Kettle Black and White Noise!

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Beer-ski?

A little heads-up for anyone in the hospitality sector who likes to ski … Smith’s Craft Beer House in Queenstown is crying out for help after being forced to close a couple of times in the past week due to a lack of staff. Covid-19 is still causing major disruptions for their small team so manager Chris Dickson put out the SOS and is offering ski and snowboard passes for the winter for anyone who wants a working winter escape. They are looking duty managers, front of house and kitchen staff and offer competitive wages. If you’re interested get in touch via their Facebook page.

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Two Thumb not Tom Thumb

We brought you the scoop last month that the tiny Two Thumb brewery had purchased the defunct Fermentist brewpub off brewing giant Lion. Turns out that purchase makes Two Thumb one of the biggest breweries in Christchurch according to a story in Stuff this week.

Two Yorkshire men who “could have never guessed” they would co-own a brewery on the other side of the world have now become the owners of one of Christchurch’s biggest breweries.

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Beer of the week No 1

An absolute ripper this fresh hop season is Sawmill’s Nectaron Hazy IPA. There are some people who think fresh hops and hazies don’t go together but I’m a total convert: to me fresh hops elevate hazies by adding a sometimes missing layer of buzz and bite. This does it so well. There’s lots of Nectaron’s trademark pineapple and some slices of fresh orange before the earthy, organic bitterness sneaks through at the end to keep your palate lively.

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Home brew page

For home brew fans, just a heads up, I’ve started a home brew page on Hoppiness.co.nz which I will be slowly building up. It’s a mixture of recipes and discussions about different beer styles. There’s only a couple of pieces there now but keep an eye on more to come…

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Alex Peckham remembered as a cider artist

Following the death of cider maker Alex Peckham from a brain tumour a couple of weeks back, his friend Dylan Jauslin wrote a lovely obituary for one of the legends of the scene here in New Zealand. Dylan also blogs at The Bottleneck, which is worth visiting (still) for his piece on Moa last year.