Wigram Brewery wins gold at Aust awards

Wigram Brewery Company's Christchurch-based owners are more effervescent than usual after taking out a gold medal at an international competition.

The medal for their German dark lager – Munchner Dunkel – came at the prestigious Australian International Beer Awards last week, against competitors from 39 countries, said Wigram Brewery founder Paul McGurk.

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New Breweries and a Beer Festival

A couple of interesting new items from the in-box here at global headquarters:

The Dominion Post did a profile on the new K.E.A Brewery saying:

"K.E.A. Brewing is the newest kid on the block in New Zealand's ever-expanding craft brewery market.

It is the shared long-time ambition of Hastings couple Warren and Daveen Elliott, who are looking to make new beers because of New Zealand's developing taste for flavour."

You can read the full article here.

Further south, the new 210 litre Slugtrap Brewery in Rosedale produces a variety of real ales and a farmhouse cider. The owner and brewer is Martin Townshend. Full details of the brewery and their tasty sounding brews can be found here.

The Land of Hops and Glory beer festival on the 5th of May in Upper Moutere will allow people to sample beers from quality craft brewers including:

Renaissance Brewery
Slugtrap Brewery
Lighthouse Brewery
Pink Elephant Brewery
Emerson’s
Three Boys Brewery
Twisted Hop Brewery
Mussel Inn Brewery
Founder’s Brewery
Tasman Brewing Company

Full details (and a map) are available here.

"Are you linking to me?"

Reprinted with the kind permission of the Wellingtonian newspaper, this article starts off talking about Speights, Tui and Emerson's but is actually about the Invercargill Brewery.

The April session at Cellar Vate tested the veracity of that old 17th Century English drinking song: "He that drinks strong beer, and goes to bed mellow, lives as he ought to live, and dies a hearty fellow."

And the safest beer tasting in the history of the world throws up a surprise winner on debut!

Beer 101

Here are the two latest Salient columns:

"While telling students where to drink can be a bit like telling the French how to surrender, there are at least three valid reasons to provide you with some insider information about the best beer places and facts around town."

Read the guide to drinking in Wellington here.

"The stereotypical student bar is not for the weak of heart or faint of liver. The massive booze barns of the past literally poured cheap beer and dodgy spirits down the throats of the sweaty masses who were busy indulging in the kinds of behaviours which would get them banned from most normal establishments.

Such bars were not without their charm but it was difficult to properly enjoy yourself when you were wondering what was the ankle deep liquid covering the entire floor. This happened to me in Waikato University’s Wailing Bongo Bar and the answer is that you really don’t want to know."

Read more about student bars here.

NEWS FLASH: Beer is the basis of civilization as we know it.

Charlie Bamforth, who has the dream job of Anheuser-Busch Endowed Professor of Brewing Science at the University of California, said that computers, the iPod, Silcon Valley and space travel all owe their development to beer.

He says that beer is the basis of modern static civ­ilization. Before beer, humanity wandered around and followed goats.

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DIGG

Best thing to happen to Beer in NZ this year

The Malthouse in Wellington has recently opened in its new location at 48 Courtney Place.

They have really kicked beer up a notch for New Zealand. Beyond the excellent selection of beers on tap and massive selection of beer in the fridges which run at 3 different temperatures they have food.

The selection for food is limited but is awesome. Especially the tasting trays (see picture below). This particular tasting tray is called Carnivore (they also have 2 other tasting trays called Seafood & Vegetarian each priced at $22) Plus a selection of chesses matched, and selection of daily deserts matched.

Carnivore includes:

* Tender lamb pieces on rosemary skewers w/mint ginger raita - matched with MONK'S HABIT

* Cajun corn feed chicken pieces w/manuka honey, feijoa and orange zest aioli - matched with EPIC PALE ALE

* Smoked fillet of beef with watercress, shaved parmesan and tamarillo chutney - matched with GISBORNE GOLD

* Wild rice and pistachio crusted pork fillet with sauteed apples - matched with TUATARA ARDENNES

I'd suggest getting down to The Malthouse and getting amongst the beer and food. So many beers to try so little time.

Cheers
Luke

Dutch beer cartel hit by 275m fine

DUTCH brewing giants Heineken and Grolsch have been fined by European regulators after being found guilty of price fixing.

Heineken received the biggest fine of 219.3 million (£148.5m), as it has the largest share of the market - more than 50 per cent of sales - while Grolsch was fined 31.7m and Bavaria 22.9m. InBev escaped a fine after it provided key information on the cartel to investigators.

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Speight's Great Beer Delivery

Speight's announces the Speight's Great Beer Delivery Salvation on its way to desperate kiwis in the UK... via Samoa, Panama, the Bahamas and NYC

Speight's announced this afternoon the greatest epic its ever attempted - the Speight's Great Beer Delivery. At a launch in Dunedin, South Island Regional Sales Director Neil Hinton, outlined the plan to take a Speight's Ale House to London. By boat.

Full Story - Scoop.co.nz
Full Story - NZ Herald

No news here: Craft beer sales strong

US Craft Beer:

Here are some headlines from past years:

2001: Craft beer sales up 4.2%
2002: Craft beer sales top $3.3 billion
2003: Craft beer sales surge
2005: Craft beer sales soar
2006: Craft beer sales soar

Do you see a trend here? At some point this doesn’t look like news. Craft beer is not a novelty. (That doesn’t mean we should be complacent, or quit beating the drum to make the beers we like even more readily available.) That’s a good thing.

The Brewers Association, having already announced that craft beer volume sales were up 11.7% in 2006 yesterday issued a press release stating that scan data from Information Resources Inc. shows craft beer with a 17.8% increase in supermarket sales for 2006.

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The Last BBIA? Bodega on market.

Kia ora beerlovers

BBIA this week could be one of the last as Fraser has put the Bodega on the
market. (15 years is enough it seems......)

Nonetheless - what we have in store this week is:

Emerson's 1812 (from the handpump)

Schoferhoffer weiss
3 Boys Wheat
Moa Blanc

Kostritcher Schwarzbier
Renaissance Porter
Pink's Imperious Rushin Stowt

Looks good, eh Tiger....

Same bat time etc etc

Neil

Good Bastards brewery born to make the most of the Coast

Sweeney's firm West Coast Brewing yesterday settled the purchase of Westport's Miners Brewery, now named West Coast Brewery. Sweeney wants the firm to become the nation's No. 3 brewer, and it is completing a prospectus which, once approved, will open the door for more shareholders.

He expects to double brewery production within a year and more than treble staff as production increases. He plans to raise $3 million to fund his plans.

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