dare to diva tap badge

Winner of the 2021 Brewers Guild Awards Fruit & Flavoured category, this scintillatingly ruby sour (5.3 per cent) is brewed with blackberries, boysenberries and raspberries.  The aroma is equal parts freshly reduced jam and mixed berry yoghurt, with the deep and lush fruit ripeness meshing perfectly with the tart undercurrent.  The palate begins with a flush of sweet red berry sorbet, before pivoting into drying champagne sharpness, with just a touch of fresh yeast character on the finish.  A delightful sour with enough heft to carry the weighty berry-fruit flavours, but a masterful agility on the palate that ensures no one note lingers for too long.

Badass Beverages Out But Not Down

Start-up brand Badass Beverages is shutting up the shop with the brand for sale. On face value it’s a sad day because Badass did some cool things — and they were good people too. But, as co-founder Dave Pearce told me, he’s not “sad” it’s over, and he makes some...

I Am Hope Rejects Funding Over “Not For Pussies” Beer

Mental health charity I Am Hope has refused to take money from a boxing fund-raiser because a beer with the tagline “not for pussies” is being co-promoted alongside the event. Swordfish Mojo is a low-carb lager created by Matt Watson, the star of the ITM Fishing Show...

Duncan’s Drop The Lactose For Vegan Beer

New Zealand’s self-professed biggest user of lactose (milk sugar) in the brewing process is set to find new customers after creating a lactose-free, vegan-friendly smoothie sour. The use of lactose in dessert beers, ice cream sours, smoothie sours and milkshake IPAs...

The Beer Project — Karamu Barrelworks

It's a magical drive into Karamu Barrelworks on Daryl Bryant's rural Waikato lifestyle block. The morning light softly filters through the trees he and his wife Lynette planted when they first moved onto the property. Vision, a bit of hard graft, followed by time has...

Sprig & Fern The G.O.A.T Doppelbock

Over the next wee bit I’ll be exploring the trophy winners from the recent New Zealand Beer Awards, starting with The G.O.A.T Doppelbock (7.9%) from Nelson brewing legends Sprig + Fern.  As the name implies, this is a beer with a long history of awards, including a...

Fermented Culture – A Moment of Communion

This column was pitched to me as a vehicle for me to reprise “The Grumpy Brewer” a character I played during lockdown that comedically allowed my frustrations with the world of beer and my general eccentricities out into the world. However I didn’t want to wallow in...