Beer aficionados

[vifferman]

Aucklanders and beer. What's that all about? My experience of Aucklanders and beer can be summed up in one word. Rheineck.

Aucklanders and coffee. What's that all about? My experience of Aucklanders and coffee can be summed up in one word. Starbucks.

Sheesh, Hitcher - I never expected you to be so uninformed or so careless with the checking of facts. Or are you preparing material for your comedy routine? :spudwhat:
If so, you need to spend more time on research.

Unless when you used the term "Aucklanders" you were referring to the Great Unwashed D'Auckland Masses, the HoiPolloi, the Rabble.

Coffee for me (as a temporary D'Aucklander) means Altura, Zigano, Matakana Coffee Blenders, or Atomic. All good, but I must admit not quite up to the standards of your own Cafe L'affare.

Beer could be any of the aforementioned boutique breweries, but never the appropriately cheap Rheineck.

[Hitcher]

Sheesh, Hitcher - I never expected you to be so uninformed or so careless with the checking of facts. Or are you preparing material for your comedy routine?

42 minutes. Not bad for a Monday, I suppose...

[vifferman]

42 minutes. Not bad for a Monday, I suppose...

Sorry I was so slow.
I may have actually been busy elsewhere.

[MisterD]

Aucklanders and beer. What's that all about? My experience of Aucklanders and beer can be summed up in one word. Rheineck.

Aucklanders and coffee. What's that all about? My experience of Aucklanders and coffee can be summed up in one word. Starbucks.

I've never met an Aucklander, and I've lived here for four years...

[warewolf]

Aucklanders and beer. What's that all about? My experience of Aucklanders and beer can be summed up in one word. Rheineck.

Aucklanders and coffee. What's that all about? My experience of Aucklanders and coffee can be summed up in one word. Starbucks.

You are *SO* inexperienced...

[warewolf]

If you like your beer you need to get down here. We have maybe 6 or so beer fêtes each year; two organisations that run them are Dead Good Beer Events and Hops and Glory. Fantastic events, the beer is at realistic prices and the brewers are usually there to pour it and talk to you. The yobs don't turn up, they don't have a discriminating... anything, really.

And another great thing about Nelson is being able to scoot down to the brewery and get a 2L rigger filled for around $10 - same price as supermarket-special mass-produced slops. And if the brewery is closed, the late-night dairy has some taps!

There are quite a few outstanding "local" breweries: Founders, Lighthouse, Tasman (son of Christchurch-based Harringtons now gone independent), Townshends, Bays, Mussel Inn, Renaissance, just to name a few. Slightly further afield are the West Coast (formerly Miners), Emersons, Harringtons, etc etc etc. None of them brew a bad 'un.

If you are North Island based, the Cock & Bull do some great beers. Galbraith's is good but there's only one of them and didn't think they packaged their product. Oh, and Limburg do good work.

Then there's that mob in Wanaka... better stop now.

[Bikernereid]

Your Yorkshire heritage, it is always with you like a dark shadow. See being from Lincolnshire I am proud as punch cos it aint Yorkshire!!

Thank god there's a 150 yr seperation......

[pritch]

The two main breweries are eventually going to make every beer in the world under licence, and so eventually all the beer in Noo Zilund will taste the same. Then they'll scrap all the breweries and make only one beer, with a multitude of different labels (Heinekin, Steinlager, Stella, Speights, Macs, Monteiths, etc etc).

Sadly that is far too close to the truth for comfort.

[warewolf]

Plus the fact that we dont even follow the original recipe in this country - wtf is that all about????

It's about compensating for local tastes, and habits eg temperature served. Dropping the temperature suppresses many flavours - ever drunk Coke warm? - which is why crappy swilling beers for the masses are served cool and tasty ales are served warmer. Alcohol is a "hot" flavour, so changing the alcohol level changes the taste. Generally as the alcohol level goes up, all the other flavours have to get bigger and bolder to balance it. The Chinese like their beer very sweet, so Rheineck and Steinlager brewed there was to an "export" recipe that was much sweeter than what we get. etc etc.

Guinness has 6 export recipes used in various markets. Only a few years ago (7 or 8) we swapped from one of the export recipes to the original; a big contributor to that was the large number of people drinking it here that have tasted (and wanted) the original.

And don't forget that beer doesn't travel very well - particularly across the equator. Stella was often "off" and tasted disgusting when it was imported. The stuff brewed here is fresh and fantastic in comparison. Ditto Steinlager in Australia; never touched the stuff it was awful. Here it is drinkable, and wonderful out of the tap at the brewery bar because it was fresh.

Beer is HIGHLY sensitive to light and heat.

[MisterD]

Your Yorkshire heritage, it is always with you like a dark shadow. See being from Lincolnshire I am proud as punch cos it aint Yorkshire!!

Worst f-ing thing they ever did was to lump some of your lot in with the good people of the East Riding and call it "Humberside".

Dunno what you've got to be proud of - one bloody Cathedral and Skegness. What's Lincolnshire contributed to the world of beer?

Yorkshire has given us John Smiths, Sam Smiths, Theakstons, Tetley, Timothy Taylors, Stones...shall I go on?

[warewolf]

The two main breweries are eventually going to make every beer in the world under licence, and so eventually all the beer in Noo Zilund will taste the same. Then they'll scrap all the breweries and make only one beer, with a multitude of different labels (Heinekin, Steinlager, Stella, Speights, Macs, Monteiths, etc etc). And all the beer drinkers will say that the beer they prefer is The Best, and they'll all simultaneously be right AND wrong, and it'll all be weasel piss.

Part of that already happens, part of it will never happen.

Mainstream beer drinkers are extremely parochial - as you may have unwittingly alluded to. A Cantabrian wouldn't be seen dead drinking Lion Red, would decry it as tasting funny, yet the biggest difference is purely marketing and packaging; the brewing recipe is 99% identical. Ditto Speights (Gold Medal Ale) although it is slightly further apart in taste than the other two. Sydney's Toohey's New is very similar, too. Same for the stuff they brew in Adelaide and Perth.

But the breweries won't make all the beers taste the same. There is more profit in nicer beers, and it's competing against wine in many, many respects, such as flavour, marketing and profit!

There will always be the local boutique beers, although the ones that really have their shit together will be bought out by the bigger ones, just like Macs and Monteiths. But that is not necessarily a bad thing. The big corporates have usually got better quality control and distribution systems. Both of those brands have gone mainstream national since being swallowed up (just like Speights).

Plus the big guys use the boutiques they've bought as test & development platforms.

[vifferman]

Tonight'll prolly be the tasting of the beers from those Trappist Monks Wot Live In the Netherlands (the von Trapp family? )
I read the details on the flash carton last night - it seems these nales range in alcohol from 7-10% ! But the alarming thing is they need to be served at around 10-14 degrees. As I don't have a cellar (well... I did, till #2 decided to stuff his hot'n-noisy server box in there ), how does your average punter achieve this? I decided that taking it out of the fridge a while before drinking it would do. In any case, the fancy glasses look like they'd allow the beer to get warm'n'flat pretty rapidly

I'll report back tomorrow...

[Usarka]

It's about compensating for local tastes, and habits eg temperature served.

Which doesn't help those who think the mass produced beer in this country tastes like the plaque scrapped from grandmas false teeth.

[warewolf]

Which doesn't help those who think the mass produced beer in this country tastes like the plaque scrapped from grandmas false teeth.

It doesn't mean that every furrin beer brewed locally will taste like DB Export. The recipe is tweaked a little, is all. May not necessarily be tweaked for the mainstream swillers, either.

[warewolf]

But the alarming thing is they need to be served at around 10-14 degrees. As I don't have a cellar (well... I did, till #2 decided to stuff his hot'n-noisy server box in there ), how does your average punter achieve this? I decided that taking it out of the fridge a while before drinking it would do. In any case, the fancy glasses look like they'd allow the beer to get warm'n'flat pretty rapidly

Either let it warm up after storing in the fridge, or store in a cool, dark place. Internal cupboard is good, not somewhere that gets the sun for part of the day.

Beer glasses need to be squeaky clean; oils and detergent kills the head. If you must wash them in detergent, be sure to rinse with lots of hot water. Or wash them only in the brewers detergent used to wash your homebrew bottles.

Tasty beer should be served in slightly balloon-shaped glasses to concentrate the aromas, just like a wine glass. At the extreme end, the Belgian Abbey-style ales up near 10% should be served in a glass that resembles a brandy balloon. And you drink it in a similar manner, cupping the balloon to warm the brew as you savour it. Galbraith's used to brew one of those, (won awards) two glasses of it and I was anyones! Cock and Bull do one called "Monks Habit".