And so once again, a number of men were gathering on the street clutching various shopping bags and greeting each other with a knowing nod. We enter on mass letting ourselves in trying not to laugh and disturb the almost sleeping child. And so the amusement begins. We are graciously ushered to the conservatorium, are shown to our seats and we're off with the Wigram Bavarian Pilsner (hoping to stick with the start with the light addage). Ok so its hoppy-ish. Not bad, but there has to better stuff out there. Onto the Lady, the Wanaka Beerwork's Lady, I'm gunna throw down a lady... ok we exhausted those jokes pretty quickly. Its a cherry wheat beer and is a bit like a Lady's armpit.... no wait, was that meant to be about the beer? Its not very fizzy, the usual "interesting" comment arises, its drinkable and oh wait its says its for the lady's.... long pause.... And on to Kaimai Brewery Pale Ale (with the Southern Cross Hops), trying to hit the American market... "According to the surgeon general, women should not drink while pregnant... they should bring it to us." No you did say that out loud! Ok its got lots of flavour, moderately hoppy, middle palate has a mercurial component. Wait on that doesn't sound so promising now! And now its the Yeastie Boys Digital IPA. This is real good. Very tasty indeed. Go out and try some! Back to Wanaka and the Sir Walter. The audience is split. The mid to late palate is bitter. There are separate tastes, an early shandy lemonade, then it changes. There is cardamon flavour apparently. The group is splintered. So we move on. The Moa 5 hops. You can smell the hops. Its dry, very dry, unusually so. But not bad at all. Its a clever drink, its dry and makes you thirsty! Surprisingly good. Harrington's Hop tremor IPA (7.4%), well its a bit too much, its the burping hops thats the killer. Its malty and hoppy. Its the bogan of IPAs. Finally we get to the Wigram Kortegast sparkling Ale. Its gettin' late. Its a beautiful story, hokitika river... you'll have to go and find out for yourself. Turns out its one of the students great great grandfather. They found his hop plants that had gone wild and the rest of the story is in the bottle! Winners were digital IPA and 5 Hops.
Wigram
Wanaka Beerworks
Kaimai
Yeastie Boys
Moa
Harrington's
