Tiny Wellington brewery Mean Doses captured the 18th annual Malthouse West Coast IPA Challenge with their “no gimmicks” entry, The Scale of Mean.
Mean Doses took out the coveted Golden Gumboots (gold spray paint, barely dried, as per tradition) last week — a big first for the little 600L inner city Wellington brewery — and with only its third entry into Aotearoa’s longest-running beer competition, also co-hosted by Malthouse sister bar, Fork & Brewer.
Second place went to Zeus Skis In Jeans (6.6%), a collab between Queenstown’s Altitude Brewing’s and Colorado’s Westbound & Down. Third place went to Hallertau Brewery’s Maximus XX (6.8%) — coinciding nicely with their 20th birthday celebration the following day and harking back to the original days of the event when Hallertau Maximus and Epic Armageddon went head-to-head. Liberty Brewing Co.’s Kratos (6.9%) nabbed People’s Choice.
The tightly-packed Malty crowd parted as Mean Doses general manager, Dave Wood, strode to the podium (a.k.a. the Malty bar top), arms uplifted like a headline pro-wrestler entering the arena, to foist the Golden Gumboots aloft to the roars of delighted imbibers.
But where was Dean Moses, founder, owner and head brewer of the winning (and Aotearoa’s most cleverly named) brewery?
On the couch at home, partaking in an intensive re-watch of 90s sci-fi series, Roswell.
In his defence, he had popped into Fork & Brewer earlier on in the afternoon to try a few pints of the 31-strong West Coast IPA line-up (“It’s one of my very favourite styles!”) before both venues filled with wall-to-wall beer fiends and industry bods.
However, seconds after The Scale of Mean was announced as the winning West Coast IPA:
“I immediately got a call from my friend, who was there — then all these messages just started pouring in!”
The winning brew was actually a collab between Hutt homebrewer, James Watson, and Mean Doses.
“James had won a homebrew competition, where he had to recreate a Mean Doses beer, and the prize was a brew day with us,” explains Dean.
“I asked if he wanted to help brew our entry for this year’s West Coast Challenge. He was a bit hesitant due to the legacy of it all, but we were able to convince him.”
Dean says the approach — which he was really pleased with — was to brew a straight up West Coast IPA with no bells and whistles: “No gimmicks, no special oils — just straight down the line: T90 pellets, Buddy Yeast from Froth Tech and four malts.”
Sam Collard, Malthouse general manager, said the overall standard of beer was very high, and the team was especially over the moon with the Top 5.
“The common theme from punters and industry was, a lot of the beers were heavy on the fruity side, drinking almost like big APAs, which suggests the hazy influence is still prevalent.
“But Mean Doses brought an especially balanced, big hoppy WCIPA with a great nose. I think the drinkability factor made it a standout — it drank way easier than 7.5%, and drinkability is a massive factor in this comp,” he says.
“Golden Gumboots could not have gone to a better team — they truly are the nicest, most humble team in the country.”
A word of advice: If you’re looking to wrap your palate around this gumboot-winning pint, get to Mean Doses, stat — they are the only one currently pouring it. Though rumour has it both Malthouse and Fork & Brewer will be popping the remaining kegs on tap in time for Beervana (August 22-23), so those visiting the capital should make a beeline there.
Says the head brewer: “I’ll look at doing another brew, perhaps in September. But we’ll keep it to the same format, a keg release only.”
We imagine that will have West Coast IPA fans scrambling to get drop. A pretty mean as feat.
Main photo: Mean Doses general manager Dave Wood with the Golden Gumboots / Photo: Jed Soane