NZ Classics

[Father]

I have brewed many styles over the years both professionally and amateur. During the early years there were two beers, hailed by so called critics, - low hopped, high alcohol (7-7.5%alc/vol) cloying, pineapplely, sweet finish, but immensley quaffable, they were Roosters Haymaker and Ngahere Gold, and somethng else brewed by the Cooper inpsired Dux de lux beers, brewed using 100% lager malt, lager yeast, at 15 degrees celsius, filtered with DE filters and force carbonated and served within three weeks of brewing. Well until today I didnt give that style much credence until i tasted a bottle of Harringtons Ngahere Gold. Wow oh wow. Whoever is the master brewer of this needs a thumbs up from all professional brewers. The hop bite is awesome! Gone is the sweet cloying beer of old, phoenix like the new beer bursts through with that higher alcohol punch but with it you get that awsome hop punch to balance the alcohol and weighty lager within.

This is an honest beer. Its not pretending to be something its not. Higher alcohol, lager, smooth, some bite . End of story. No aspirations of grandeur here guys! Awesome beer by a bloody good brewer. Well done Harringtons. And to the brewer responsible - Slainte. Gold medal in a class of its own.

Father O'Leary

[Father]

Hehe. The only allusions to batch number are the best before date on the bottle - 5/12/09.

Maybe something for the harringtons guys to take on board - batch number would be useful?!

How the hell am I supposed to complement a beer without the brewer being able to identify vintage?

Father

[Daniel Parker]

Just checking our stock.. Our 'Best Before' is 17/11/09..

https://www.beerstore.co.nz/detail.lasso?BeerID=1840&VariantID=...

Regars
Daniel
The Beer Store

[Kempicus]

Right i need to try that now!!

[Stu McKinlay]

This is Stu's friend posting on behalf of him. He has dropped dead of shock - a New Zealand brewer complimenting another New Zealand brewer was just too much for him.

[Kempicus]

Good morning Stu's friend, administer CPR please....thanks
Good point though, you don't often hear stuff like that....apart from dead Stu of course

[James P]

Ah Ngahere Gold, the beer that sponsored my 18th birthday many moons ago!

I would anticipate that so many breweries are underestimated either due to education, marketing and distribution, however since I have been on the RealBeer website, finding all the breweries I have been able to take bottles to BBQ's and help in the education a little.

[Kempicus]

My workplace is a battle....interestingly Women seem more willing to try new beers than men and with those trials have turned into good beer drinkers (a little bit anyway) the men seem more interested in marketing and staunchness with the obvious derogatory comments like beer nerd, beer geek, beer snob etc. Oh they like the flavours they just (in their eyes) get a better deal from the volume of drinking $12-$14 a dozen beers

[Stu McKinlay]

Last night I saw a bunch of guys fussing over whether to buy a dozen corona, summit, steinlager pure or heineken... God knows what the fuss was about, surely the $ per L of alcohol equation would have taken no longer than 30sec.

I grabbed a single bottle of Verboden Vrucht and moved on...


I'll check out Ngahere next time I'm in Regionals (probably today).

[Kempicus]

Oh god shoot me in the face! All 4 beers will not pass my lips even if they were free and i was dying of thirst thanks to my new years resolution....
checked online and i couldn't see it....worth a check in person though.....i'll be filling up my flagons with Golden Boy tonight all going well :0)

[Ian]

Luckily we can get Harringtons Ngahere Gold readily at either our supermarket or off sales here in Picton, as well as most of Harrington's other range, and the prices really aren't bad either. The Ngahere is a gorgeous quaff - I only wish one of our establishments would keep the stuff on tap.
Cheers,
Ian

[Kempicus]

Ask that Pizza place in Blenheim? Black rock? they sound like they'd put on some cool beer....

[Ian]

You likely are talking about Black Creek? They are right nextdoor to Renaissance Brewery and have some of their beer on tap - used to have some Emmersons too, but I think they stopped that. Last I heard recently, though, was that they were going out of business. I don't know what has happened there in the last few weeks though.
It sounds a bit daft, but here in Picton there are so many places for a tipple and some very nice places too, but apart from REALLY good Guinness at the Irish pub, it is mostly the routine stuff to be found on tap. The point is, it is nice to have a local withing walking distance that has good beer too! I guess that's a tall order in Wellies depending on where you live?