The winds of change came like an unforecast southerly blast. The weather was still warm, Auckland deep in its drought. And I craved a cold lager. The craving took me…
The Art and Heart of Kiwi Beer
Beer Nation Posts
Double Vision Brewing took a daring dive into politics with Juice Cinda, a Jacinda Ardern-themed beer and now, despite online haters and lost customers, the brewery is taking a double dip.…
Urbanaut Brewing’s “novelty” blender series of paired 250ml cans is fast becoming serious business with Australian supermarket Coles taking a large export order. The upstart Auckland brewery in the restaurant-heavy suburb of…
Popular brewery Funk Estate will live on after distributor Brandhouse rescued the brand as part of the liquidation process. The brewery went into liquidation in March. Brandhouse rescued Blenheim brewery Renaissance from voluntary administration…
You know a person has a connection with a place when their surname is the same as the road they live on. So it is with Annette Eggers – the…
Luke White from Beer Jerk tagged me in a post the other day referencing a story I wrote for the Sunday Star-Times (checks calendar) … six years ago. It was an…
Revered brewer Shaun Hill believes a trip to New Zealand in 2004 set the wheels in motion for a career that has made him a global beer star. Hill…
Mic Heynekamp of Eddyline Brewery has seen all sides of the brewing puzzle both in New Zealand and the United States so he’s well-qualified to cut through any doom-and-gloom views…
Inspired by a bunch of other writers and critics with too little to do in the festive season at the end of the decade I’ve decided to apply to beer,…
Liberty Brewing, New Zealand’s Champion Brewery, almost didn’t enter the NZ Beer Awards. Owner founder Joe Wood confessed it took a rev-up from his wife and business partner Christina for…
The concept was straightforward – how has West Coast-style IPA changed in the past decade? The measure was even more straightforward – compare the inaugural Malthouse West Coast IPA Challenge…
Urbanaut Brewing are just over two years old but already they’ve become one of the innovators on the New Zealand beer scene. Their Copacabana was the first commercially released Brut…
Like New Zealand’s most famous breweries, Taupō’s Lakeman is founded on a free and plentiful local water supply. Speight’s in Dunedin is built above a natural spring that resulted in…
Is it a beer? An orange juice? Or a mango smoothie? Welcome to the world of hazy beer, a trend that started by accident, but has been accelerated by Instagram…
Andrew Childs lowers his 195cm frame on to a bar stool and pops the top off one of his irreverently amusing Behemoth beers. Apart from being New Zealand’s tallest brewer,…
I’m a beer writer on a low-carb lifestyle – what could possibly go wrong? Well, so far, not too much because I think I’ve cracked the secret – and breweries…
Pete Gillespie of Garage Project calls it an illicit tryst. The Ministry for Primary Industries asked about its legality. Other people just call it lunacy. We’re talking about the latest…
A Blenheim winter bites hard. Especially when you’re sleeping on the floor of a warehouse with only mice for company. Sleeping on a fold-out futon on the concrete floor of…
Auckland’s summer “heatwave” (or was it the media’s summer heatwave) reminded of when I lived in Auckland as a teenager – long sleepless nights of little breeze and high humidity.…