My quest to discover new Zealand’s best fridge filling hazy pale ale continues. I must admit, I haven’t tried too many Double Vision beers in the past, but based on the quality of this beer I’ve been missing out! Mouth Party Hazy Pale Ale (5.3 per cent) is beautifully balanced, a nice mix of tropical fruit flavours, strong body and a nice hint of bitterness.  The marketing team at Double Vision score 10/10 for the label — it’s bloody awesome and one of the best I’ve seen on the shelves for quite some time. So, all being said and done, I now promote Double Vision Brewing Mouth Party to top spot on my list for 2022.  A solid fridge filler that won’t disappoint at any occasion.

Haagen Lager

As consumers, we all have two lines that constrain our habits.  Above, there’s the price ceiling, when the cost of beer gets above a certain point we’ll turn away.  That price ceiling has been talked about to death over the last five years (at least). ...

Boneface X Brave Cold IPA

Cracks are already appearing in the fresh hop dam… but before we’re completely awash in those impending releases — one more conventional IPA. The third in Boneface Brewing’s rolling series of collabs (this time from Hasting’s Brave Brewing) and quite possibly the best...

Sawmill Barrel-aged Imperial Porter

As a tribute to the official end of summer (or perhaps a final nail in the coffin, for those of us in Canterbury), I’ll turn to a more fireside coded drop, crafted by Matakana’s Sawmill brewery. In terms of its principle construction, this is a fairly simply patterned...

Boneface Knuckle Duster West Coast Pilsner

The ‘West Coast Pilsner’ style continues to wander through the craft beer labyrinth somewhat without a bearing, and drifts further from its (admittedly flawed from the beginning) descriptor in the process.  It’s as much as I can do to classify them as ‘good ones’ vs...

My Life In Five Beers — Matt Warner

While still at university in 2008 and after a hot Friday of Wellington hillside landscaping, I vividly remember propping up at the end of The Malthouse bar with my flatmate and being smacked in the face with a pint of Emerson’s Pilsner. It was brash, full of...

Drinking In The Middle Lane

When my recent piece ‘A slow walk through paradise’ was published, a mate joked, “Jeepers BH, you’re a bit middle-of-the-road in your beer tastes to be talking to the craft beer community.”...