Garage Project Tiny But Mighty

Light IPAs have made great strides in the past few years, but a truly alcohol-free example that still drinks well has always seemed like an impossible target.  But this year some brewers have finally begun to make the breakthrough.  The aroma in this sub-0.5 per cent offering is superb, with a Mosaic-led assembly of zesty lemon lime citrus overlaying more pungent tropical and gooseberry notes.  The flavour kicks off with more punchy citrus and a slight (but undeniably present) clean malt.  The flavours move along at a pace too, which is important.  The high velocity of the mouthfeel, allows it to skip over the mid-palate void where these beers usually collapse, and skip straight into the pleasantly full tropical finish. It then levels out and wraps up nice and clean.  It can’t 100 per cent emulate an IPA with a conventional malt base, but it’s a huge step forward from many past examples.

The Generation Game — Mount Brewing At 30

For Briar Harley, born into the brewery life, there’s plenty of excitement in sharing the news that come June a third generation will born into the Mount Brewing family. Briar and husband Niall, who own Mount Brewing in partnership with her parents Glenn and Virginia...

Boneface Knuckle Duster West Coast Pilsner

The ‘West Coast Pilsner’ style continues to wander through the craft beer labyrinth somewhat without a bearing, and drift 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...

Bach Skinnay Ultra Low Carb Hazy Pale Ale

While low carb beers are bigger than they’ve ever been, it’s still uncommon to see the styles range too far from the lager safe-zone.  You’ll find a few zero% hazy IPA’s, but an actual low-carb-full-strength example is rarer.   Never idle for long,...

Eruption Brewing — Lyttelton’s Local Legend

To understand Eruption Brewing’s place in Lyttelton, it helps to zoom out — first a couple of centuries, then a few million years. The town sits inside the remnants of the Banks Peninsula volcano, long extinct but still shaping the landscape and, fittingly, inspiring...

Epic Stout

While not to say that Epic is a total stranger to dark beer (they’ve made some extremely good ones over the years) it would be fair to say that it wasn’t exactly the style they’re known for.  So it was a surprise to see this one show up (and slickly presented too, I...

“Unicorn” Brewery For Sale — Emporium On Market

Here's a big opportunity for someone who wants to get into the brewing game: Emporium — a profitable, successful business is — for sale! You heard that right. Profitable, successful. Given that, why, I asked Paul Finney of Emporium, does he want to sell his brewery,...