November 27th, 2014

Goop

Mikkeller make some amazing, boundary pushing beer. A side-effect of pushing boundaries is that it tends to push prices up as well.
This makes many Mikkeller beers perfect for bottle pour Saturdays, and this Saturday we'll be serving another rare Mikkeller beer by the glass: Malaga Barrel Aged Hvedegoop.

Mikkeller's 'Goop' series is a collaboration with the legendary brewery Three Floyds from Indiana, in which they challenge themselves to make a barley wine style beer using a large proportion of non-standard grains.
So far they've done oats (Oatgoop), rice (Risgoop), corn (Majsgoop), buckwheat (Boogoop), rye (Ruggoop) and wheat (Hvedegoop).
Three Floyds are one of the most renowned breweries in America, which was evidenced when I attended the Great American Beer Festival in October. Of the hundreds of breweries on offer, Three Floyds was the only stand to have a twenty metre line mere seconds after the doors opened.


Saturdays bottle pour beer is their wheat-wine incarnation, which has been aged in barrels which used to house the Spanish dessert wine, Malaga.
At 10.4% abv it's not for the faint of heart, but it should be interesting to see what kind of oak and oxidation characters these rarely used barrels give the beer.

We'll be serving 125ml pours of Malaga Barrel Aged Hvedegoop for $9.

Emptying the Cellar

Instead of our usual new release this Tuesday, we're holding our annual emptying of the cellar - Santa Session.
Tickets went on sale last week and it's once again looking like it'll be a sellout - only a quarter of places remain so get in quick at Cultbeerstore.co.nz. Again, tickets are just $35 - or $25 if you're a SOBA member and we'll be featuring beers from the likes of Green Flash, Almanac, Bear Republic, Bellerose and more.

Surf Funk

This Saturday we’re setting the heat pumps to their highest cooling setting thanks to Vincent Vega’s hot blend of surf, funk, soul and blues.
With Chris Armour on guitar, Andy Russell manning the drums and Nick Lissette’s bass.
The music kicks off at 10pm and is free as always.

Some Beers You Can Drink

We've tapped some great beers this week (as usual), which you probably haven't had before or in a while.

In a market that tends towards big, hoppy and extreme beers, I love that Townshend still releases subtle, balanced and perfectly made English ales.

My favourite of his traditional range is Cathcart's NTA, a beautiful golden ale which hasn't been available for quite a while. I was very happy when we were offered a few casks of NTA, which are now quickly working their way through our handpumps.
Tasi's fifth birthday collab with Renaissance The Fifth Element/Chocolate Thunder is back on. This is possibly the best chocolate beer I've ever had, hopefully Renaissance make it again.

Finally, we have a keg of a limited release IPA from San Fransisco's Speakeasy: Untouchable IPA. Untouchable features our own Nelson Sauvin hops blended with US Centennial, in a 6.8% abv package.

Vive la résistance!

Our staff had a blast at last Thursdays photo shoot for the NZ Craft Beer charity calendar. It's been amazing seeing the lengths our beer peers are going to for this brilliant cause.

Below is a low quality preview of what our photo will look like, head over to PledgeMe to secure your calendar and see us in full 1080p high def.