BrewZone

Learning to Speak Beer in New Zealand

3. Buying or Making Other Styles

In the US,  we could usually resolve a craving for a locally unavailable specialty beer by turning to imports. This is not always true in New Zealand. Being half way around the world from almost everyone, even finding Foster’s or Heineken is the exception, not the rule. Nelson compares quite favorably to other towns its size- with the high volume of tourism and immigrant residents, we  find import choices in many restaurants and have two grocery stores that stock a surprising range of European singles, including lots of British, Belgian and German choices. For whatever reason, they don’t carry interesting Australian or American brews. And though logistically it’s understandable, the prices can be jaw dropping and their imports aren’t always the freshest. Saddest of all, the selection is still shaped by the local preference for sweeter and less hoppy, so they don’t bother with the big, thick beers we dream about.

Along side all of this arduous drinking in search of good beer, we were also preparing ourselves to begin brewing. One of the ways we learned most about beer is the process of brewing, where you get to smell and taste the individual elements- the grain, the hops, the yeast and even the water, so you intimately understand the complex composition of the beer you are drinking. From the beginning we wanted to understand New Zealand beer this way and it could possibly fill our beer gap.

Unfortunately, homebrewing in New Zealand is very rudimentary compared to the US. People aren’t afraid to try brewing, and beer making kits can be found in virtually every supermarket. But much like California in the 80’s, most home brewers here buy a pre-hopped malt syrup plus an equal part of brewing sugar to make a cheap substitute for beer. A few better homebrew stores exist, but the supply of smaller quantities for all grain brewing or the equipment to make something with them is hopelessly limited. So far, we have made our first mini-mash beer, using a combination of unhopped malt syrup plus some whole grains and pelletized hops. Getting the basic equipment and ingredients has taken many shopping trips plus mail ordering, and we still don’t feel ready to try an all-grain brew. Our resulting brew is tasty, and hoppy, though the limitations of the ingredients is sadly obvious.

Conclusion

So how did we do in picking New Zealand? We have found a limited number of beers we really like; local craft brewers make good quality beer, though not always in styles we prefer. In America we were spoiled for choice in beer as with so many other things. Here, we are learning to settle for the best we can get, which is occasionally exceptional. In just the two years we have been here, we have seen noticeable expansion of the craft brewing scene. Locally, three new breweries have established themselves in Tasman region, Tasman Brewing has opened two new pubs in Nelson and Founders has been making some delightfully hoppy seasonals. And, hurray, the Dead Good Beer guys have just made regional variety permanently available by opening The Free House pub.

Hopefully we are right that the beer climate here is like the US a few decades back. We’ve watched blokey blokes go from fearing beer with more than 4% alcohol (“you’d be too drunk before you realized it”), to regularly filling riggers at their nearest tap house. The nightly TV news magazine program recently featured Epic Brewery as a booming business in a shriveling economy. We can just sense that this country where many small companies still gather for a beer at the office before leaving on Friday night will continue to quickly expand its demand for taste and intensity in beer. Until then, we just need to travel abroad more…

Resources

• RealBeer is New Zealand’s best all around beer site
• SOBA  or Society Of Beer Advocates, by people passionate about beer
• BeerMe! and Rate Beer both  have pretty comprehensive lists of NZ brewers
• The Beer Store in Hamilton will ship a much wider variety of imports than we can find in Nelson

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This article was written on Thursday, April 23rd, 2009 and is filed under Lifestyle. For more articles about: New Zealand (10), Beer (7)

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