Beer

Community

Community

As we were record­ing his pod­cast the oth­er day, former beer writer of the year Phil Cook said some­thing that has stuck with me. He said that 2014 was the […]

Brewurism

Brewurism

I’ve been tri­al­ling this word for a while now: brewur­ism. It’s a clev­er port­manteau of ‘brew­ing’ and ‘tour­ism’. For too long Wel­ling­ton has been the poor cous­in of the Wairarapa […]

Beer and stripping

Beer and stripping

Many years ago there was a brew­ery in town called Bennett’s. Maurice Ben­nett was a great talk­er and always happy to show off his beers. There’s a whole story about […]

A year in Yeastie

A year in Yeastie

I’ve met a lot of incred­ibly nice brew­ers — brew­ers who have offered me their houses to stay in, giv­en me free beer, helped me home-brew. But for me the […]

All I want for Christmas

All I want for Christmas

For most of us, Decem­ber rep­res­ents the end of a long year; a time to look back at what we accom­plished and what we missed out on, and then to […]

Cult Leader

Cult Leader

It seems like Wel­ling­ton has always been the Craft Beer Cap­it­al, but it wasn’t that long ago that The Malthouse—which cel­eb­rated its 21st this year—was the only craft bar in […]

Dem Bones

Dem Bones

Every year Beer­vana organ­ises a Media Brew where they part­ner journ­al­ists with brew­ers to make a themed beer. This year I was paired with Par­rot­Dog and we made some­thing rather […]

Polite Society

Polite Society

It makes sense when you think about it. You’re part of an industry and you want to see people like you suc­ceed in that industry. You reach the top and […]

Fish, Chips, Beer: The answer

Fish, Chips, Beer: The answer

It star­ted, as these things often do, over beers. At a recent gath­er­ing hos­ted by the Brit­ish High Com­mis­sion­er, I had a dis­cus­sion with Sean Gold­ing, own­er of Golding’s Free […]

Hoarders

Hoarders

A friend came to me and asked, “Have you tried this beer before?” I looked at the bottle and replied, “Yeah, that’s Lean Lamb, a really nice sour beer from […]