Beervana 2011

[JoKing]

It was with great regret that I couldn't make it to Beervana... or the Beer Awards for that matter. In my real life, I maintain a high responsibility position and had some very high priority (for my customers) meetings and duties. Bad timing really - I had a massive import, several customer meetings, now today - a massive export.

 

Such is life.

 

Anyhow... it seems from where I'm sitting that this year has been quite easily the best Beervana year to date. I have been following with great interest the twitter streams... and facebook updates too.

 

While I'm at it - congrats to Soren for taking out champion brewery of 2011 - what a dream right? So so so so much the best result anyone could ever ask for aye: a cutting adge craft brewery taking honours over all the big boys. Awesome stuff!

 

Anyhow... feel free to comment on what you liked best at beervana or whatever you like... Don;t rub it in too hard that I don't get to be there though.

 

Cheers!

 

Joe.

[Stu McKinlay]

What can I say other than the fact that the festival exceeded all expectations for me. I worked one session and attended a full one and a half one.

Favourite beers of the festival, out of about 30 that I tried:

Murray's Icon 2IPA (also the best tap badge - though their Spartacus was one of my least favourites)

Liberty C!tra

Feral Funky Junkie

Golden Ticket Empire Strikes Black (my favourite festive)

Three Boys Black Balls Stout

Emerson's Black Ops

Feral Boris

 

Special mention: I had a very very small sample of Garage Project's Pernicious Weed and was impressed there too. It really was weedy.

 

I was very impressed with the quality of the beer... there is no way I could have tried 30 beers a few years ago without a groaning dud. The food was excellent too. And I bet nobody queued for the loo.

 

Well done Parrot Dog and Adlib for the outstanding success in winning Beer of the Session (twice for Parrot Dog).

 

So pleased with the BrewNZ trophy winning beers all 'round really - but the hugest props reserved for Soren and Monique with their 8 Wired success. Something to aspire to for all those on here fantasising about making the step up...

 

Cheers

Stu

[Paul Harrison]

A few gripes but mainly Beervana 2011 was awesome!

 

I was volunteering on the Oz stand for the first session and it was amazing to see the amount of quality beers coming from OZ but annoying cause most weren't available in NZ normally. According to the boys from Little Creatures the market here is big but there a lot of good breweries here so it would be difficult to crack. Maybe they were just being polite and they just didn't wanna share. they were good guys and apologies for forgetting names.

 

top 5 best beers cause everyone likes a list (in no specific order)

mcduff black diamond - super toffeeish! like drinking a mackintosh (egg and cream flavour we decided)

murrays spartacus - huge! just a great beer. nice and hoppy and bitter.

feral karma citra - another reason why I like black ipas (or whatever you want to call them) and why i wish citra was available for home brewers.

emersons/kierans RSB - kieran has nailed this beer. biscuity and smooth. could drink a lot of this quite happily.

parrotdog bitterbitch - It had to make the list. haven't seen a first commercial brew get so much attention since epic pale ale. well deserved too.

 

only got to try the one garage project, the manuka smoked. Like the smokin bishop, I hated it. no disrespect to the brewers. I just don't think I like smoked beers. it tasted like rashuns.

 

my only gripe were the seminars. you couldn't hear shit. not the organisers fault as they originally wanted it in a room. westpac said no cooking in the room at the last minute so that scuttled that plan. annoying but hey no that bad.

 

brewers walking around instead of serving? I don't know if it works. it works if you know who they are but if its just a name tag that says "brewer" you have to hope that they are wearing the breweries merchandise.

 

A solid event. didn't think the stadium would work but it did. Good work David Cryer and also Steph who hopefully didn't have too hard a time keeping us volunteers in line.

[Hugh Grierson]

Paul, Craftbrewer in Oz has Citra, I love it with Riwaka, they also have Kohatu and Waititi, before the kiwis got it (thats a bit shit i think).

Anyway apart from missing the face time with the brewers (mad eyed epic pourer anyone ?) and the venue being what it is (not the cool old town hall) I thought I went really well.

Feral were impressive, loved the Black Op, enjoyed all the festives.. found the whisky beer a bit sheepshed hardcore, but interesting.

[Raffe]

I'll join the choir - it was excellent.

 

My notes suggest I tasted 35 beers, plus the beer on the North bar, where I worked the Saturday afternoon session. While there were a few average beers, none were bad, and most were very good to brilliant. The food was also fantastic.

 

Especially impressed with the Feral beers, notably the Karma Citra and Golden Ace. Also 8Wired Festivus (best name) and Emerson's Black Ops from the Festival bar. There were hops everywhere, with Liberty C!tra, ParrotDog BitterBitch (terrible name), 8Wired Saison Sauvin standing out.  The Deep Creek Dusty Gringo bodes well for the new Auckland brewpub.

The Pot Kettle Black weemix, RSB, and Twisted Hop IPA were my faves of the handpumped beers. I do however think if Galbraith's send down some Bob's and Antipodean next year, they could clean up the cask ales category.

 

Lastly, it is worth noting that when I was pouring Hop Zombie (that tap was constantly on) for about 2 hours of the Sat arvo session, I would say around 40% of the punters asking for it would have been female, both young and old. Yet more evidence that women don't need to be patronised to nor that they don't generally like big beers.

 

 

[Hugh Grierson]

We need to stop assuming women like Radlers and being condesending when they ask for hoppy beer, Kelly my lady gets really pissy when people say, "Are you sure,thats really hoppy". About 25% of the patrons at the Bvana were female, and loads were pushing the hops. I think the reason they dont generally like beer is that most beers you get around the country at most places (not Welly), are actually, weak bland ,bloating rubbish...

 

[Raffe]

Agree totally - limited access to quality beer has only reinforced female perceptions that it's not for them, especially in brandwashed Auckland.

[Hugh Grierson]

Auckland will be a beer mecca in a year, watch this space..

[Paul Harrison]

Deep creek dirty gringo was delicious.

[Dave W]

Yep it was.... Thanks for recommending it to me, I'd have missed it otherwise.

[James P]

Shhh... sleeping. (Great weekend though!)

[Bambule]

Yeah the Kaimai Golden Rye had gone a bit sour and funky and I don't think it was intentional.  I thought it tasted not too bad but then again I'm partial to a sour beer.

[Greig McGill]

Give it a go? Christ man, I could live on the stuff! ;) Sorry for raving on about it so much, but it was just so so good. Nice to meet you too.