NZ Beer Festival Tickets On Sale Now

The event will take place at Waitangi Park in Wellington in February, before returning to its birthplace at Auckland's Ellerslie Racecourse in March.

The New Zealand Beer Festival is less about swilling the cheap stuff, than it is craft brewing, featuring the likes of the hop-laden (15 per bottle) Epic Pale Ale and Mexicali's chili beer.'

Tickets for the Auckland and Wellington festivals go on sale from nine a.m on Thursday from Liquorland and www.iticket.co.nz

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SMITHIES, GOAT CURRY AND CRAFT BEER – THE FOUNDERS SUMMER COMBO

The 6th Nelson Beer Fete at Founders Park on December 5th is a special Summer Beer Fete featuring 20+ craft beers and ciders, Jamaican cuisine and the massive vinyl reggae collection of acclaimed DJ Grant Smithies.

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Bottles vs cans

The news for longnecks gets even worse once you put them out for recycling. We recycle about 55% of our glass containers in New Zealand, some 200,000 tonnes a year. That’s more than double what can be processed in Auckland, at O-I New Zealand’s two smelters in Penrose. A third smelter is on the cards, but at a cost of $50 to $60 million it has already faced years of delays.

Our recommendations: drink less … or more, with a refillable swappa crate or two-litre plastic rigger (hey, it worked for jumpsuits). Brew your own. Go to the pub for a pint. Drink Kiwi beer from a can. When in Auckland, drink Kiwi beer from the bottle. If none of that appeals, at least make sure you drink local. Really local. There are microbreweries all over New Zealand; find the one nearest you and show them some low-beer-miles love.

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The Liquorland New Zealand Beer Festival

It’s heartening to know that the Liquorland New Zealand Beer Festival is building a head nicely, just like a good beer should. Make that over 60 beers from more than 20 breweries! Pilsners, lagers, darks, organics, yep even light beer. All good beer you probably haven’t tried before.

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Breweries

Events Calendar (RSVP)
Auckland
Wellington

Lion toasts NZ's beer drinkers

Despite worsening economic conditions the domestic beer market grew 0.3 percent for the year to September 30, with Kiwis consuming more than 171 million litres of Lion-produced favourites such as Lion Red, Speight's and Steinlager.

Beer operations increased earnings before tax and interest by 10.8 percent, buoyed predominantly by recent entrants to the market - among them Steinlager Pure, which increased volume by more than 300 percent for the year.

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DB warns of packaged beer price rise next year

DB Breweries says the price of packaged beer will "inevitably" go up by as much as 5 per cent from March 1 next year due to spiralling costs.

Liquor is living up to its reputation as recession-proof for both brewers. Lion's New Zealand managing director Peter Kean said the performance of premium brands was still strong.

"I don't think it's drinking to forget, it's more a case of not giving up all your luxuries or all your treats."

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Coca-Cola Amatil cool on Lion Nathan bid

Alcoholic drinks maker Lion Nathan says its proposed $8 billion takeover of Coca-Cola Amatil would yield as much as $130 million in annual savings. The soft-drinks maker, though, has given the scheme of arrangement a cool response.

To finance the $4.5 billion cash component of the bid, Lion Nathan will place 327 million new shares with its major shareholder, Japanese food and beverages giant Kirin Holdings at a price of $11.50 per share. It will also take on $800 million in debt.

The company sought to allay concerns over the influence wielded by Kirin, whose stake would increase to 47.5%, from 46.1%, after the issue of the new shares.

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Lion Nathan Offers A$7.6 Billion for Coca-Cola Amatil

Lion Nathan Ltd., Australia's second- largest brewer, offered to buy Coca-Cola Amatil Ltd. for A$7.6 billion ($4.9 billion) in cash and stock to create a company selling everything from beer to soda, juice and wine.

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Lion Nathan in Talks With CC-Amatil About Merger

Lion Nathan Ltd. and Coca-Cola Amatil Ltd. have been in merger talks the past six months that might create an A$11 billion ($7.1 billion) beverages company covering everything from beer to water, juice and soft drink, the Australian Financial Review reported.

The talks also include Lion Nathan's majority stakeholder Kirin Holdings Co Ltd. and The Coca-Cola Company, the newspaper reported, citing people it didn't name. Macquarie Capital Advisers is working with Coca-Cola Amatil while Caliburn Partnership is advising Lion Nathan, the Review said.

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Honey, leaves and flowers in a thymely brew

Emerson Brewing has released a thymely beer to coincide with the festival.

Central Otago thyme honey and thyme leaves and flowers have been added to an ale to create Emerson's Thyme (4.7% alcohol).

Old herbal recipes used thyme to ease throat infections, colds, coughs, bronchitis, for shrinking swollen nasal passages and easing menstrual pain.

In Asian medicine it is a remedy for diarrhoea, itching, toothache and vomiting.

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Tui keeping the boys’ hands warm

From realbeer.co.nz

Stuff steak and Guinness, the boys are being catered for by the ultimate in Kiwi pies – mince and cheese, mince, and steak and cheese made with Tui beer.

The pies are made under licence by Goodtime Foods in Hawke’s Bay, with the Tui Brewery girls adding 6 per cent Tui into each masterpiece for good measure and flavour.

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Ale Files - The Beer is Out There

The latest post on the Malthouse blog is now up and is titled "All Hail Pale Ale". It is a balanced look at why pale ales rule.

Of course, New Zealand’s most famous self-proclaimed East India Pale Ale is Tui. It is also on tap at the Malthouse if you absolutely insist. Now, there is no such style as East India Pale Ale and Tui is not an India Pale Ale. It is not a Pale Ale. It is not even an ale. It is a lager.

I was recently asked by Chef Martin Bosley what Tui had in common with real IPAs. My considered reply was “they are both liquids.”

Speaking of which, Martin Bosley's restaurant has unveiled it's new beer list. The chef became a real fan of craft beer after running beer and food matching session at this year's Brew NZ. The craft beers on his list are:

Invercargill Biman
Three Boys Wheat
Tuatara Pilsner
Epic Pale Ale
Tuatara Ardennes
Pitch Black

You can read about Martin's conversion to craft beer here.

Canadian Brewer Targets Foster's for Takeover

Canadian brewer Molson Coors has outed itself as the mystery buyer behind a September 25 Deutsche Bank transaction that snapped up 5.3 per cent of the Foster’s Group.

Speculation over the identity of the mystery buyer has been rife in recent months, with brewing giants Heineken and SABMiller fingered as being behind a potentially hostile takeover bid for Foster’s.

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Beer Haiku Friday -

Today and tomorrow I am a judge at the Great New Zealand Sausage Competition so it seemed appropriate to post a 2005 Haiku from Captain Hops which combines my love of beer, sausages, bourbon and turkey with my contempt for Tofu. It is called "Getting the Menu Ready":

Bourbon brined turkey
with beer broth sausage stuffing
No tofurkey here!

Glass Tip - Beer Haiku Daily Dot Com. Is there anything they can't do?

Win 1 of 3x6 packs of Dux drinks up for grabs

The Dux brewing company is synonymous with quality beer production. Its beers continue to gain recognition with awards from national and international beer competitions. Enter the draw, and you to may be sipping back a couple of very nice beers over summer!

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Lion unfazed by Liquorland sale

There has been speculation over Lion Nathan’s ownership of Liquor King and Super Liquor since Foodstuffs clinched the Liquorland deal last week.

However, Lion Nathan’s New Zealand head of corporate affairs Liz Read says there are no sale plans in the works, and no one has made an offer for Liquor King or Super Liquor.

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Queenstown's Dux de Lux restaurant going on the market

Queenstown's Dux de Lux restaurant and bar owners have written to creditors saying they cannot pay their bills and are hoping to sell.

Dux de Lux director and part-owner Ross Herrick said the Queenstown company had a downturn during the winter and the restaurant business had suffered.

The Queenstown business was separate from the Christchurch Dux de Lux, although he was manager of that business, he said.

Only the Queenstown restaurant was for sale, not the accompanying bar.

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Steinlager - Like a Gulp of Mountain Air

The taste is quite unique: strong, dry and sharp. It seems to have more hops than most other New Zealand beers and, thus, has more of a bitter bite to the finish.

Whenever I drink Steinlager, I always get the impression the beer is trying to transport me to a New Zealand mountaintop, such is the clear crispness of the taste. However, I am not a huge one for bite and Steinlager is perhaps just a little to hoppy to become a regular drink for me.

Steinlager was born in 1957 when Arnold Nordmeyer, New Zealand's then Finance Minister, threatened to cut beer imports in response to a sagging economy. He challenged New Zealand's brewers to "come up with an international-style lager beer". Steinlager was the result -- although it was first known as Steinecker, named after the manufacturers of the Aukland brewery. In 1962, Heineken took the brewers to court, insisting that "Steineker" was too similar to "Heineken". So Lion Breweries changed the name to "Steinlager" and the name has stuck. Ironically, the beer which was first made in order to lure Kiwis away from European brews is now the Europe's most-stocked Kiwi beer.

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Beer O’Clock – Lagunitas

It’s ten o’clock in the morning and I’m sitting on a horse saddle, and that is not even the most interesting part of this story. The saddle is actually the top of a bar stool and I’m contemplating a bristling 8.3% Double American Pale Ale which weighs in at a staggering 100 units of bitterness. To put that in perspective, most New Zealand mainstream beers would be in the teens or early twenties on that bitterness scale.

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(I think it was actually 9am we arrived at the brewery and started drinking - Luke)

Woolworths loses to Foodstuffs in Liquorland sale

“After several approaches from interested parties, DB Breweries, which felt that off-premise retailing was no longer core to its business, selected Foodstuffs as its preferred bidder after a competitive bidding process, believing the New Zealand owned company the most suitable to own, support and grow the nationwide liquor chain,” the company says.

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Curry in a hurry by Martin Bosley

When you’re looking for a simple dish to accompany pale ale, it’s hard to go past curry.

I am not much of a beer drinker, preferring a glass of wine to accompany my food. So it was with some amusement and a degree of scepticism that I accepted an invitation from the organisers of BrewNZ, New Zealand’s international beer awards, to demonstrate the art of beer and food matching.

Previously, my experience with beer had been limited to the standard brands. So, starting my research with them, I discovered they had one thing in common: they were all wet. It was with pleasure, then, that I moved on to the handsome, locally produced, handcrafted regional beers, and made some interesting discoveries. Committed boutique beer drinkers are just as passionate and know-ledgeable about their subject as any wine connoisseur, and they’re happy to share that passion with you.

Beer, like wine, can either complement or contrast food. But beer has carbonation that cleans the palate between mouthfuls of food, rinsing away traces of fat and richness and leaving the tastebuds refreshed and ready to experience textures and flavours.

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Beer News and Goss - 2 November 2008

This is a reminder that the Great Christchurch Beer Festival 2008 takes place this Saturday (Election Day) at the most excellent The Twisted Hop in Christchurch (6 Poplar Street) from 11am to 11pm. Admission is free and there will be a BBQ and live music. More importantly, the beer list looks awesome:

Pink Elephant Mammoth
Tuatara IPA
Renaissance Blonde
TTH Skull Buggery
Mussel Inn Bitter Ass
Emersons Brewers Reserve
TTH Twisted Ankle
Galbraiths Mr G's
Invercargill Boysenbeery
Townshend No9
Croucher Pils
TTH R.N.A
Epic Pale Ale
Brew Moon Dark Side Stout
Lighthouse Dick’s Dark
Wigram Hefe
Green Man Pils
TTH Golding Bitter
Harringtons Rogue Hop
TTH Challenger
Three Boys Golden

Sadly, I won't be able to attend because I will be judging at the Great New Zealand Sausage Competition. It will take a little explaining to the electoral flunkies about why I want to cast an early vote...

In other news, a new low-carb beer has entered the market with the recent launch of Export 33. It joins Spring Tide and Haagen Blonde in this growing market segment.

Sale St - the Fosters Beer connection???

Ironic or intentional? DB's new joint venture mega bar which includes a mini brewery has a website that has two beautiful women on the front page. Funny thing is that these two women are Fosters International NZ's beer brand managers. WTF? Is it a case of they got snapped while checking out the competition? and then posted on the website? Or a photographer/web developer with a wicked sense of humor

Check for yourself http://www.salest.co.nz/



REVIEW
Sale St Brewery, Freemans Bay

Big Man, Luke Dallow. Big ideas. Big ... without being unnecessarily anatomical, let's say you'd have to be a brave man to open the inner-city's largest meeting and eating and drinking and chatting and gigging venture when the economy is making a mad dash for the nearest long-drop.

Everything is big about Sale St: 52 beer taps serving 13 different types of beer, 60 by-the-glass wines, a micro-brewery and coffee roaster. In a partnership with DB, the company's master brewer offers three beers apparently made on site but in limited quantities: sadly they were out of the signature Ponsonby Gold lager when Jude and I turned up. Settled for Celebration, a slightly sour pale ale, with my seared kangaroo and Asian-influenced salad entrée. It worked.

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Foodstuffs buys Liquorland

Iconic alcohol retailer Liquorland has been bought by grocery co-operative Foodstuffs from DB Breweries for an undisclosed sum.

Foodstuffs said the purchase of Liquorland, a nationwide liquor chain of 70 stores, was a logical extension of its existing independently owned and operated retail brands. The co-operative operates PAK'nSAVE, New World and Four Square

"We think it's a great fit for both the Liquorland brand and our future growth strategy," Foodstuffs NZ managing director Tony Carter said.

DB Breweries said while Liquorland had been a profitable and important part of its portfolio, off-premise retailing was no longer core to the DB business model.

"Liquorland will be in good hands," DB Breweries managing director Brian Blake said.

The change of ownership is effective today.

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Buoyant beer sales defy economic hard times

Harrington's Breweries director Carl Harrington said the Christchurch company had noticed growing sales at its eight stores, particularly flagons of beer.

"We're seeing a big resurgence in flagon sales," he said. "It probably started about three months ago. We're seeing our usual locals, but now we're seeing new people and old ones coming back."

Harrington said sales of two-litre flagons had jumped at least 10 per cent in recent months.

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