Boneface
The Champion Beer at the 2021 Brewers Guild Awards pours black and heavily opaque for its lighter 5.9 per cent ABV, with exceptionally tight and creamy coffee-tan head, which may well be a result of its time stored under higher carbonation.  The nose deftly touches all the porter notes of roasted malt, toffee, chocolate and coffee, with a distinct fresh cream aroma despite the absence of lactose.  The hops integrate perfectly, adding a spice and dried fruit character that holds the whole aroma beautifully aloft. The palate starts off rich with sweet roasted malt and stone fruit, before pivoting around almost completely into an arresting black coffee bitterness, with drying smoke and flinty minerality which wind together into the earthy finish.  Full bodied but effortlessly nimble, classic and yet mysterious.  Despite being ‘just’ a porter, Unforgiven takes that one brush and paints a masterpiece in black.

Boneface Brewing Deadlift Double IPA

I’ve said it before, but if you want to precision test a brewery then ask for a double IPA. Everything has to work harder; the ferment, the grain selection, the hops and (in particular) the conditioning.  As the ABV speedo climbs above seven, only the most precisely...

Thief Brewing Frog Wallop IPA

Thief Brewing continues to prove that there’s IPA in them thar hills of Banks Peninsula, adding this West Coast style to the range.  West Coast by way of New Zealand anyway, being driven by Nelson Sauvin, Rakau and NZ grown Chinook.   The...

Double Vision x Baan Bangkok Thunder Struck Triple IPA

The method by which I pick a beer to feature here every week is extremely loose, but usually there’s an equation that balances between ‘interesting’ ‘relevant’ and ‘good’.  Sometimes, one of those spokes dominates to such an extent that the others cease to...

Behemoth Chur-Toberfest 2025

Every year more of our local craft brewers don the lederhosen and kick out a kiwi version of a Munich Festbier.  Historically, the results have been mixed… NZ malt and even more so our hops just don’t mesh well with the peerlessly smooth, crisp and understated...

New Zealand’s Most Awarded Beers

It was Stay Gold that started this … the Brave Brewing XPA that won a trophy in the International Pale Ale class at this year’s New Zealand Beer Awards. I was looking back through the records and realised it was the fifth gold medal that beer had won, and I started to...

Slow Walk Through Paradise — Visiting Every Brewery in NZ

There’s something about beer that’s always been part of my story. From the early days of sneaking sips of Lion Brown at my dad’s feet and walking around the house with my ‘beer mou’, to the $2 jugs of Joseph Kuhtze Lager at the Southern Cross Tavern during University...