Wellington pubs

[mike k]

i'm from wellington but have been living overseas for a number of years now.. which means i'm pretty clueless about the beer situation in NZ. i'm swinging by home soon and was wondering if there are any pubs an ale lover should check out? when i've been back in the past i've wandered about the pubs/bars but any queries about ale (as opposed to lager) have been met with blank stares...

i don't suppose by any chance anyone actually does cask "real ale" there? :) failing that, bottle conditioned?

as i say, i'm very out of touch!

[Stu McKinlay]

The three best beer bars in Wellington all have handpumped NZ ales.
- The Malthouse (Courtenay Place)
- Bar Edward (Main Road, Newtown)
- D4 (Featherston Street), not sure if they have the handpump on yet.

None of this is "real" but it still tastes great.

There has been some talk of getting some real ale up here. Not sure if that is post-BrewNZ euphoria or if it will acvtually happen.

Bodega has a few nice beers and some decent music.
Scopa (Cuba St) and Duke Carvell (Swan Lane) have Emersons on tap. As does Southern Cross (on Abel Smith St).
Mac's beers have been in top form and are all over the city.

I'm sure I've missed a few...

[mike k]

great, thanks! out of those i've only been to the malthouse, and that was back when it was on willis st (by chance the last time i stopped by there was a couple of days before it closed to be knocked down.. good to know it's back!).

fingers crossed on possible cask conditioned in the future.. really going to miss it when i move back to welly from london.

[Aidan C]

As Stu said, there is a handpump at D4, and in reply to "not sure if they have the handpump on yet" it was just set up I believe last friday (5th sep.) serving tuatara pilsner (if i am not mistaken)

[Aidan C]

Correction, not Tuatara pilsner, but Tuatara Porter is being served on handpump at D4

[Reviled]

Can I ask what the difference is between a hand pump and a normal one?

[Kempicus]

Not a hell of a lot really, generally it's less cold and less carbonated (so it tastes a bit better) but the beer is the same beer that comes out of the usual taps.
Hand pumps are traditionally used to dispense real ale from cask which is a completely different beer to pasteurised/filtered keg beer.
The only places that you'll find real ale on hand pump is the Twisted Hop in ChCh, Galbraiths in Auckland and a pub in Nelson (i think)

[mike k]

yeah, if it's coming from a keg (as opposed to cask) then there's not a whole lot different. still, it seems like a step towards cask conditioned :)

from what i've read the beer situation in NZ has improved considerably over the past few years.. i'm looking forward to sampling some kiwi brews!

[mike k]

just to follow up on this.. thanks for the recommendations. i basically had one afternoon to check out the pubs, and managed to get to the malthouse and d4, as well as the monteith's tasting room, and macs.

the malthouse in particular was impressive.. they even had several handpumps there, though i'm not sure if it was a one off thing (there were a bunch of guys in the pub wearing "beernz" (?) tshirts and i think it may have been something to do with tuatara?). overall i thought the beer was very good..

d4 is a nice addition to the scene, but i only had time to have one.. or was it three.. there. memory gets a tad hazy by that time :)

sadly i didn't get a chance to go to bar edward.

all in all a very good time - it's great to see the beer scene doing so well.