Thursday, March 10, 2011

March 10, 2011

Tasting News... On This Week... Charity Events... Further Reading...

Tasting News

Bookings are now open for our two events in April. First on April the 12th is our beer and food night. The emphasis is on approachable, beer-friendly but high quality food and good, thoughtful matches. Because of the constraints of our kitchen numbers for this are limited to 18. We're taking bookings through our web store at http://www.cultbeerstore.co.nz/products/food-and-beer-night

To celebrate the imminent arrival of more sour beers with fearsome reputations from Mikkeller, we're holding a Sour Beer Tasting on April 19. We're negotiating to get some of the Mussel Inn's fabulous feijoa-flavoured gueuze known as Lambagreeny. Added to that will be our last stocks of Nøgne ø's BrewNZ Gold-winning Tyttebær, several from Mikkeller including Cherry Alive, USAlive! and It's Alive!. Bookings are open at http://www.cultbeerstore.co.nz/products/sour-beers.

On This Week

Last week two experimental beers from 8 Wired turned up with very little fanfare and the Saison yeast-fermented Hopwired went on tap on Saturday night. We sympathise with anyone who missed out on this riotously flavoured beer. It has been followed by what Søren referred to as a Farmhouse Ale (we thought that's what a Saison is), which is on tap right now, but might not be for long.

We've been talking up the new shipment of kegs from Baird in Japan for a while. The first keg from this shipment went on yesterday. Fittingly it's Jubilation Ale. This beer was a big hit when we acquired a few bottles last year. It's a big, rich ale seasoned with fully ripened and freshly picked figs and cinnamon twigs culled from a Japanese nikki tree. And coincidentally bottles of this year's batch of Emerson's Taieri George arrived a couple of days ago - anyone wanting a set of warming, spiced ales need look no further. Also back on tap will be Baird's fabulous Teikoku IPA.

The Mussel Inn's Captain Cooker has made an overdue reappearance and in two forms. We were lucky enough to get a keg of the original version straight from Onekaka, Golden Bay and at the time of writing this is on tap. It's 4% ABV and flavoured with fresh manuka, stalks and all. Waiting in the wings is the Invercargill Brewery version, all 5% of it, seasoned with dried manuka leaves.

And while we're going nuts with Mussel Inn beers, we've got a keg of Golden Goose.

We've got some of the latest batch of Yeastie Boys PKB on the handpump, as well Rapture.

And look out for a couple of beers that we haven't had before from two of our favourite breweries - Golden Bear Black Magic IPA and Townshend Three Piece Wheat.

Charity Events

We've been alerted to a fundraising event later this month at Zealandia Wildlife Sanctuary, involving Tuatara beer and accompanying dishes. It's on Thursday the 24th at Zealandia. Details are here. The benificiary, naturally, will be the Zealandia Wildlife Sanctuary.

And Regional Wines and Spirits are continuing their programme of earthquake fundraising events with a special whisky tasting on March 29. Details are here.

Further Reading

Very, very occasionally there appears in print or on the web a piece of writing that makes us nod and mutter "bang on". It really is surprisingly rare. Here are a couple:

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