Thank You from The Moutere Inn

[kier]

Just a quick thank to all the people who visited The Moutere Inn on Sunday afternoon on the SOBA trip to Nelson. We hope you enjoyed yourself and that we'll see you again.

Thanks to Nick Paige for organising it all.

Cheers, Kieron, Martin, Dave & Andy

[Dale Cooper]

Well thank you for having such an awesome pub! One of the very best in the country I reckon.

[Stu McKinlay]

Wish I could have been there - where are the trip reports?????

[Dale Cooper]

Ok Stu, here are some of my highlights.

First up was Lighthouse, Dick trout gave us his "brewery tour" which strated with him waving in the general direction of his gear and staying "well thats the brewery now who wants a drink". He has a really small set up but makes some good beer with it and is a real character, had us laughing. Well worth a visit and he did actually talk us through his beer making process, equipment, history etc.

Next was the Tasman brewery, I was a bit underwhelmed there. No one was available to give us a talk on the brewery or the beers although we were free to sample any of the large range available. I thought the beer was ok but not great apart from the harvest pils which is green hopped and tasted fantastic. Then on to a Sprig and Fern pub, then another S&F. Then left to our own devices for the evening.

Saturday was on the bus to NZ Hops and a tour of the facility by Doug the CEO. He has a brewing background and was interesting to listen to. Was a fun place to visit and the smell was awesome!

The afternoon/evening was the main event. Marchfest beer festival, I think there were six festive beers and several other craft beers available. Good food, great weather couldn't ask for much more. Chatted with some brewers and other beer people, funniest thing was meeting Nathan the Aussie beer tourist and sampling the Murrays Wild Thing Imperial Stout with a few of the others including the two renaissance guys, huddled around a table trying to hide the fact we were drinking a beer that had been bought in. The beer was superb and an interesting thing was we were later talking to Graeme Mahy who was disappointed he didn't get a taste as he designed the beer when worked at Murray's and has never actually tasted it! Plenty of beer drunk that night and finished off with a rigger of Graeme's Gabrelle which he kindly donated to us SOBA types which was happily consumed at the back packers where we were staying. Very nice it was too.

Sunday, slighty worse for wear was the bus out to Golden Bear brew pub/cafe in Mapua. Flash place, just state of the art stuff. Jim showed us around, was more than happy to show and explain the gadgetry he's got, I was well jealous. I tried a couple of the beers and they were good, he says hes is still tinkering with the recipies which is fair enough as he had only been going for 5 months. Jim was a nice chap.

Back on the bus and over to Townshend's. What a contrast. Martin is very small (tiny really) and very low tech by comparison, doesn't stop him making some damn fine beer though! He operates out of a couple sheds in his back yard. I love seeing this sort of set up as this sort of stuff is actually achievable to a homebrewer who has lost control of their hobby :-)

Last up was the Moutere Inn with 16 taps, mostly craft brews and 4 of them hand pumps. Just a great place. Nicely decked out, good food and a great selection of beer. Brilliant.

The whole trip was bloody good, the crew who went were all good sorts and the brewers we met were just so open and passionate about what they do. Craft beer lovers are the best people!

[Stu McKinlay]

Awesome, I'm the jealous one now!

shame about Tasman. I had a great tour there are few years back. (I'm sure Craig Harrington would still remember us as we cycled our way around all of Nelson's breweries in a day). Beer was tasting great and the tour was really good too. A great start to a great day.


I've attached my thoughts from that old trip. I had posted them on the old yahoo forum that Luke created on 13/10/2005.