Bier Essentials - The Beer Festival

Like many good days, the day of the Beer Festival started with a good breakfast. After somefantastic pancakes cooked by my parents I got on the road to head to Auckland in time for the Festival (my parents live in Rotorua after all). After a quick lunch I headed off to the Ellerslie Racecourse to enjoy the day's festivities.

After making my way through a relatively short queue and sorting my VIP pass I met up with Hugh, Craccum's wine guy, who kindly greeted me with an Epic Mayhem. Given the hot walk I underwent to get there, this was incredibly welcome. So I sat down, recovered from my journey and contemplated the exciting afternoon I had before me.

Making my way into the beer hall, I began my tasting with a beer brewed in my old stamping ground of Rotorua, Kaimai Brewing's Tauranga Brown. Kaimai Brewing specialises in beer made with rye malt. I found the Tauranga Brown to be fairly mild in flavour, the malt balanced with a slight bitterness. A good beer to ease my way into the afternoon.

Tauranga Brown: 7/10.

Next on the agenda was Wigram, a Christchurch-based brewing company who particularly impressed me last year with their spruce beer. This year I tried the Kortegast, which is made using wild West Coast hops (wild hops from the west coast of the South Island, not coast hops from the Wild West). It had a strong aroma with notes of wild honey, matched by a sweet flavour with a slight bitterness. These guys keep impressing me with their distinctively New Zealand beers.

Kortegast: 8.5/10.

Continuing with South Island beers I went and had a chat to Brian from Renaissance, a Blenheim-based craft brewery. He mentioned that he was somewhat testing the waters with this event, seeing whether it was more about the beer or more about the drinking. My take is that there were people present representing both views, but as to which view was dominant it was hard to say. Brian also mentioned that they're soon to start distributing to Canada, which is a good step forward in expanding their market. Anyway, I sampled the Discovery IPA, which had a good strong hop aroma (just as an IPA should).

Discovery IPA: 8/10.

Following this I moved onto a beer I had been anticipating greatly for some time, 8wired Rewired Brown Ale. 8wired is a new brewery started by Danish brewer Søren Eriksen, who has made his way to New Zealand. I met Søren at Beervana last year, and since then I've really wanted to try his beer. The Rewired Brown Ale has a solid malty aroma with hints of chocolate. The chocolate continues into the taste with a sweetness that gradually dissolves into a lingering bitterness. A fantastically delicious beer - I look forward to trying more of Søren's brews.

Rewired Brown Ale: 9/10

Moving on, I had a chat to the ever entertaining Maurice Bennett. If ever a brewer had character, then that would be Maurice. I took my good friend Darcy along to meet him as I knew they have both been involved with our student radio station, bFM. After chatting about his involvement with student media and bFM (and trying to pinch vinyl records) in the past Maurice assured me that "Bennett's Classic Black is God's gift to mankind." With a recommendation like that I just had to try it. The aroma was that of burnt oats and it was accompanied by a smooth malty flavour without too much bitterness. A very drinkable black beer.

Classic Black: 7/10.

At this point I was joined by AUSA administrative vice president and fellow beer enthusiast Joe "McCory" McCrory. By this stage the queues were becoming quite sizeable, so we had to wait a while before he could put money on his Beer Festival card. All the beer and food purchases at the festival were made with these cards on to which you could preload money. A good system as it meant that the various stalls didn't have to worry about handling cash or EFTPOS, but it did have a couple of downsides - if you ran out of money it would take at least half an hour to put more on, and if you didn't use all the money on your card then you've wasted what's left.

In order to help Joe get over the queue frustration we revisited Epic to sample their Armageddon pale ale. The Armageddon is pretty much the epitome of loading as much hops into a beer as possible, and this gives it a huge flavour. Bitter and refreshing, it is the favourite beer of a few of my friends. Epic is also planning to release a stout later this year, which should be very interesting.

Pale Ale: 8/10

Joe and I then made our way to Bath Ales as we enjoyed their beer last year. The guys manning the stall were glad to see that there were plenty of people at the festival trying stuff that isn't golden and dull. Last year Bath Ales was manned by former AUSA president Richard Foster, but when we asked where he was we were told that Uncle Dickie had been grounded - he had to babysit instead. So sparing a thought for those that couldn't make it we tried the Barnstormer and the Dark Hare. The Barnstormer had a nice earthy feel with a fairly mild aroma while the Dark Hare had chocolate flavours with a hint of caramel. It was good to see other festival goers giving British ale a go as well.

Barnstormer: 7/10
Dark Hare: 8/10

We then visited Wellington favourites Tuatara, the Waikanae based brewery with a fast-growing fan base. Whilst a lot of New Zealand breweries have been pushing hop-fuelled beers of late, Tuatara has made sure that their range includes beers that can be enjoyed by people who aren't hop-fiends. Their latest addition, the helles (a German-style lager), could be seen as somewhat of a bridging beer to introduce mainstream drinkers to the craft brewery scene. Their hefe is also a nice, relatively unhopped beer that has been very popular for its banana cake taste, but for tasting purposes we just tried the Pale Ale and the Helles. Their Pale Ale was hoppy, crisp, refreshing and easy to drink while the Helles was mildly sweet and definitely appropriate for its target audience with its smooth, easy drinking flavour.

Pale Ale: 6.5/10
Helles: 7/10

At this point I should mention that a number of people saw the festival as a chance to get dressed up in funny clothes. This ranged from classic Bavarian style garb to superhero outfits to huge fake breasts under a wet t-shirt. It's amazing what people will wear given an appropriate excuse.

After catching up with some flatmates of a friend we wandered up to have a chat to Paul Croucher of Croucher Brewing. Amazingly enough, he'd been reading my beer reviews last year and was very complementary of what I'd written, even when I mentioned that their Pilsner was pretty average. In fact it was also his sentiment at the time, and he's put some serious effort into improving it. Apparently the issue was due to too much yeast action bleaching out the flavours of the hops, but a more controlled brewing process has really improved the flavour. The new and improved pilsner (with the same recipe as before) really has improved, its mixture of Rewaka and Motueka giving a beautiful passionfruit aroma and crisp fruity flavours well balanced with bitterness. This is a pilsner that is definitely approaching the quality of the Emersons Organic Pilsner, which is generally considered the New Zealand-brewed Pilsner to aspire to. We also tried the Vicars Vice, a beer based on the Hoegaarden Forbidden Fruit. Nice fruit flavours and mature fermentation made this a real treat.

Pilsner: 9/10
Vicars Vice: 8.5/10

Whilst heading outside to get some fresh air, Joe grabbed my notebook and scrawled out a quote that he insisted I put in my review. And thus he spake: "There is an earnestness about New Zealand brewing, anoptimism that can't be defined as anything but encouraging. Slowly, people are choosing to try something new." I can't help but agree with his passionate discourse.

We decided to round off the afternoon with a chat to Richard Emerson, one of the most widely respected brewers in the country. In addition to looking after his own brews his stall was also serving the Yeastie Boys Nerdherder, which had a mild aroma and a smooth, simple flavour with a full mouthfeel.

Yeastie Boys Nerdherder: 6.5/10.

To finish off the money on our Beer Festival cards we grabbed some spring rolls and a couple of glasses of Croucher's Cherry Bock and then made our way to our ride home (thanks Sophia). All in all it was a fantastic day, and I already look forward to next year.

By Stephen Bier
Craccum