March Fest

Well I havent blogged in over a week because I have basically been out of town- spent two days at a vineyard in Martinborough and then Friday, Saturday and Sunday over in Nelson for March Fest.

March Fest is the annual celebration of the harvest of the Nelson hops and involved a tour around several micro-breweries and the main March Fest event at Founders Park on Saturday.

First up was the excellent little Lighthouse Brewery where master brewer and all around decent bloke, Dick, cracked us up with his yarns. While his Pilsener was a tad bitter for me, his 'Dick's Dark' ale was fantastic - strong coffee and chocolate hints... mmmm. This is us standing around at the Lighthouse drinking - its possibly the smallest commercial brewery in New Zealand!



Then it was on to Tasman Brewery, where I especially liked the Doppelbock and the Fern Dark, but what I really dug about Tasman is that they have set up three bars in Nelson all called the Sprig and Fern - one of which was located on the very suburban Milton St next to a dairy and fish and chip shop. They pride themselves on being a small community pub with no pokies or plasma screens - just really good beer. Check them out here - I got to thinking somewhere like Island Bay would be perfect.... hmmm....

The next morning we went out to NZ Hops - which smelt stunning, before heading to the Festival proper.





While at March Fest we checked out one of my favourite breweries - the organic, vegan friendly and now kosher Founders Brewery. I knew Founders was owned by the family of an old acquaintance, Matt, from university, but what I didnt know was that he is now brewing there and is actually behind their gold medal winning Fair Maiden Ale - and he is now going out with another friend of mine who I hadnt seen for five years. So it was basically one big catch up over a selection of Long Blacks (their very dark lager), Tall Blondes (gold lager) Generation Ale and their Marchfest brew - Fat Lip, which was an even darker ale. Good times!



You have to admire the purity of Founders - sixth generation brewers who have put their craft first despite the fact that they have forced themselves into having to be so inventive as there are only 4 organic types of hops in New Zealand and just as few types of malt.

Next day it was a tale of two breweries - the uber-flash, US owned, no expense spared (but a bit shit in terms of taste!) Golden Bear brewery - their kit is the first pic below - and later to the super relaxed, brewery in a shed with super friendly blue heelers, Townshend Brewery.





Wasn't a big fan of either on taste - but give me a Townshend any day!

After that we finished up at the Moutere Inn - who also claim to be NZ's oldest pub... which I always thought was the Thistle in Wellington - but oh well, they have better beer so I'll go with Moutere!



So all in all it was a great weekend of beer drinking organised by SOBA, the Society of Beer Advocates, who are trying to encourage people to be more discerning with their beer - you wouldnt drink cask wine, so why drink crap like Tui??

Some resolutions

Ok so we're back - resuming transmission for 2009. Not that I've really been anywhere or had any great reason for not updating the bloggage, but I have been feeling somewhat bad/lazy on some level (no really...) for not having gotten around to doing any updates.

I have been kinda busy... well there has been golf, stuffing my face, beer drinking and a mixture of b-grade and actually good dvds as well as some constructive activities - ripping out a creeper, waterblasting, painting, ripping out half the garden and so on.

So I thought I would make my first update a resolution one. I don't normally do resolutions so I have made them relatively straight forward. Here they are as follows -

actually finish the house off - replace the shit-spewing drains and the kitchen in other words

complete that bet with Nick

oh and stop using the edge of the kitchen bench to open beer bottles with crown caps... as pictured.

Simple right?

1005 reasons for a quiet Sunday

Yesterday the glorious Hobson St Posse spent its kitty of $1005 worth of Shepherds Arms bar tab vouchers - in one go.

We kicked the day off with brunch and a couple of rounds at the Arms before heading out to the Island Bay Bowling Club to break the day up.

Now what I havent mentioned is that on Friday night we had our work Christmas function at TSB Arena which was a belter - so my head was on the sore side and frankly I had no business being at a pub again on Saturday morning - let alone ordering $6.50 jugs of Macs at the Bowling Club (yes at those prices we are considering joining).

Then it was back to the Shepherds to polish off the remaining $700 - so we all went out of our way to order stuff that we hadn't had before - and I think we just about bought one of each menu item. After a substantial feed of mussels etc it was on to Long Island Ice Teas and other cocktails before I settled on Laphraoig single malt Whiskey.

I did walk home which managed to work off most of the effects - but it all caught up with me when I tried watching the All Blacks this morning with a massive headache.

The bartender, 'Ginga', challenged us to reach $1500 next year - so watch this space I guess.

Told you it was good!

Well I survived Beervana - although yesterday was incredibly dirty and fair to say we didnt make it back after a large night at the Malthouse afterwards.

I tried all sorts of beers including Wellington's newest - Yeastie Boys - Pot Black Kettle (a dark porter-esque brew), Epic's Pale Ale and Lager, Dunedin's Green Man Keller, Stout and Pilsener, Three Boys Golden Ale, Whitecliff's Lager, Renaissance Stout and of course the full range from Tuatara.

Now you will remember Tuatara from our trip out to their Waikanae brewery in May when I raved about it.

Tuatara were almost head and shoulders above many of the other breweries and it showed with the boys picking up Best French & Belgian style ales for their Ardennes and Best UK and other European style ale for their Indian Pale Ale along with the overall Gold prize being crowned New Zealand's Best Brewery.

After we finished up at Beervana we headed off to the Malthouse for a few rounds of Tuatara's limited edition Belgian Ale and Epic's range with Dion (Tuatara's master brewer) and Malthouse owner Colin (the dude serving on their homepage) talking hops and all things beer till the early hours.

All in all it was a ripper of a night - tried some great beers from right across the spectrum and waxed lyrical about beer all evening - what could be better??

TFI next Friday

I'm taking next Friday off for the first 'boys' day I've had in over a year.

With a couple of mates I'm off to play a round of golf and then head along to Brew NZ's BEERVANA at the Overseas Terminal!

Basically all of NZ's best breweries come together under one roof including Dunedin's Emersons, Nelson's organic brewers Founders, Waikanae's Tuatara and my favourite - Epic from Auckland.

I'm sure we'll be able to fit in a dirty slab of cow and eggs at Crazy Horse or the Green Parrot before we start again for the Saturday session.

Tuatara a-go-go

Well frankly im off my face, so please excuse my typos.

I've spent the day on a tour of Tuatara Brewery at Waikanae - it was wicked. It is a small operation and to be honest isn't much more than a glorified skyline garage, but god they make a good drop. They had mixed up the kegs so the porter and the pilsener were coming out the wrong taps - but hey all it meant was that it forced you to try beers from outside your comfort zone.

All the beers we tasted were great - the 'IPA' or Indian Pale Ale (wtf is this with the acronyms - it's not Telecom??), the pilsener or the porter - and I have to say I was into all of them - and drunk an unhealthy amount of all of them too!.

But what impressed me most, was that this was essentially a couple of dudes doing what they love - Dion the brewer (pictured on the right) was fantastic - he essentially gave away his accounting career to become a master-brewer because that's what he wanted to do - what else can you ask? He was great value and incredibly insightful (which means I was too drunk to know what he said, but was interesting none-the-less).

So next time you head down to the Malthouse - or anywhere else that serves Tuatara - check it out!

Haptip to SOBA - who organised the day