We’ve been delving into the wild world of hops of late and trying to focus on individual strains through single hop beers. However, let’s face it, hops are typically served in a fruit salad style, layered on top of each other in an attempt to maximise complexity and balance bitterness versus flavour. In fact, there are a few key hops that basically come bundled together, and when they do, they drive styles and even offer a glimpse of the notion of terroir (oh no - I’ve gone and mentioned the T word again!). I’m thinking of the English ale hops, the noble hops of Bavarian/Bohemian lagers and ..read more

Your homework last week was to investigate the Citra hop, courtesy of some single hopped beers that focus on this well known variety. How did you go? Can you now spot Citra’s profile with your eyes shut and your hands tied behind your back (I’ve spilled a few beers trying this)? Great! If not, just keep plugging away. Today let’s take a look at Mosaic - another massively popular hop that pops up all over the place. Mosaic is a newish hop which was bred in 2012 as the love child of Simcoe and Nugget. One of the main reasons for its surging popularity and general uptake is its versatility than ..read more

What’s the most important thing about the beer you drink? Is it the malt, the water or the hops? I’m guessing a fair few of you will be leaning towards the word hops because, at the end of the day, the world of beer is currently pretty damn hop obsessed. And perhaps rightly so. What’s nice about this current fascination, is that we are seeing more and more transparency surrounding the hops used in many of the beers we love. They pop up incorporated in beer names and are fully featured in tasting notes. We’re becoming well versed in what different hops mean for the beers we drink and this is a ..read more

Well, I guess if there was ever a time to buy an expensive beer - it’s Christmas - so with the silly season in full swing, I thought it might be fun to look at some of the top tier offerings currently at Beer Cellar. I’ll be honest, I don't often splurge on beer - and it’s probably fair to say that with a decent search around the $15 mark, you can find some great beer drinking - especially if you look to Belgium. So when should you splash out on a beer and how much should you spend? How long is a piece of string - would probably be the most fitting reply - as with most things in life - the v ..read more

We riffed on the idea of the ebb and flow of beer styles around the world in last week’s blog and it got me pondering on some of the notions of how styles are actually defined - and what shape they will take going forward. Of course, once again, the IPA provides the perfect case study. You know the history of the IPA, so I won’t dwell on it, except to say that it appeared in the 1830s in England as a heavily hopped higher ABV style. It gradually became weaker and less popular through the decades until by the 1960s it had all but disappeared. The craft beer boom of the 1980s resuscitated the ..read more

High strength and big hops may seem like they're here to stay, but if there’s one thing we've learnt about beer styles and trends looking back through history, it’s that nothing is ever constant. With the complexity of all that is involved, change is simply inevitable. For a start, It’s only natural for the collective palate to become bored. Something that was once popular, is more than likely to become tired and passé, it really is just the inevitability of human nature and, after all, novelty can only last so long. Then there’s the macroeconomics of the world we live in, and for which our ..read more

ou may remember I wrote about Harland Brewing a while back when we tasted their Japanese lager. It was top notch in every respect, as long as you’re into that slightly anaemic beer style - which I totally am. So I thought it might pay to try another Harland beer and today we’re running with Rumbler - a double dry hopped pale ale. Don’t know about you, but to me, the term double dry hopped just sounds sooooo tantalising… but what does it actually mean, after all, in this day and age we need to be fully armed with decent beer knowledge as everyone seems to be a ‘pro’ and the impromptu beer geek ..read more

I grew up in the UK in the 80s and 90s, and at that time, Newcastle Brown Ale really did hold a particular place in the drinking culture. It had grit and authenticity, and despite it being a big hit with students, you could still picture it being imbibed after a day at the docks by a line of sweaty workers. It was Newcastle in a glass and somehow stood for something more than just the amalgamation of hops, barley and water. Sometimes beers do this, they transcend the notion of just drinking and become icons in their own right. The beer has a long history dating back to 1927 at Newcastle Brewe ..read more

I’m a massive Pilsner fan, as you may or may not have picked up on over the last couple of years, and I have to admit, I’m pretty excited about trying today’s beer. It’s a SoCal Pilsner from our friends at One Drop and sports a description that mentions a meeting of German lagers and West Coast IPAs. This sounds like a beer that was specially made with my palate in mind as I love hops (I guess you have to be like beer perhaps?) but I also like to taste the malt, and also find descending into the dank armpit of hoppiness just a touch unnecessary. So a decently hopped beverage that still retai ..read more

CO2 is a pretty hot topic these days and in more ways than one! Of course we all know about the gas and its detrimental effect on the environment through global warming, but if you’ve been following the roller coaster ride of the NZ craft beer scene of late - you will also be aware that the cost of CO2 has recently gone through the roof. This is bad news for brewers who use bottled CO2 in many ways; for pneumatic processing (forcing liquids from A to B), to force carbonate beers and also as a preservative (or rather as a means of expunging oxygen). In an age of high CO2 emissions, where we ..read more