New Zealand Draught - A Style or Not?

I have been asked several times recently if I consider the humble draught a genuine beer style. Well, here's my two cents worth. English brown ale, the progenitor of N.Z. draught, arrived on these shores in the mid to late 1800's and it grew and developed with our history as a brew close to our grass roots up to the Prohibition period from 1919. Then with the onset of 6 o'clock closing, it proved itself the ideal style for the pressure cooker compressed drinking hours. Sweetish, low carbonation, only 4% alc, it was easy to swill and great for long sessions when you got home once the pubs were closed. It was in reality ideal flagon material.
The most defining change came after the Second World War, with the industrialization of the brewing process, and most importantly, the introduction of bottom fermentation which resulted in the global rise of lagers. This and the growing use of local hops and malt began to move the style away from its original expression. Lacking hop spiciness and being too low in bitterness to be a Vienna, it became an anomaly in the beer lexicon. Fortunately, the style did not just exist within the confines of the two major brewers, but with the remaining regional breweries as well. Often batch-brewed, it did not have the fruity esters of a beer brewed to a higher alcohol content then cut to tap strength, but it did avoid the flabbiness of continuous fermentation. Ah, Monteiths 'Original' and Waikato 'XXXX' spring to mind!
N.Z draught had a reprise with the birth of micro-breweries once Mac's got under the wire. Many of the earlier micros had a standard format of lager, dark and draught, usually in a Newbegin kit. The draught, when on form, had good crystal, caramel character often with nice biscuity hints and chocolate malt for colour. These beers were made of Canterbury malt and occasionally had a reasonable hop note, but they hardly measured more than 10 IBU. The hops were typically Green Bullet and Super Alpha and the strength around 3.5% to 4%. 'Old Thumper' was one of the more quirky ones and remains my favourite; other names have slipped from memory......
So yes, it's a style and it probably deserves a better name. It may not be flash, but at least it is ours! I haven't had one in years, but maybe I'll seek out a good one soon.....

FRASER MCINNES