After a while, being Mr Good Bar has become a little like living a replay of Groundhog Day, the Bill Murray movie that famously celebrates repetition. And I mention that because making a professional habit of visiting various of the nation’s small army of brew bars does tend to be a case of deja vu all over again, though not in a bad way because it involves drinking decent beer.
But, by voluntary definition, a brew bar is a place where you can take an ale or two, generally in sight and sniff of the brewing process itself, or at the very least strong hints of it. As a consumer experience, the ambience is generally more industrial than cosy and the food on offer — because there is always food on offer — often follows the familiar pizza and burger-loving pub food pop chart with a few add-ons, which is less a complaint than an observation. And, of course, there are exceptions to every generalisation. But there is a point where these craft beer temples do start to look and taste slightly the same and Mr Good Bar is finding himself somewhat lost for new words, which was never the aim of his exercise.
But if there is a place to end this journey through the brew bars of Aotearoa New Zealand, then it should be somewhere special, somewhere a bit back-to-the-beginning of the new-brew revolution, somewhere that’s been mixing hops and hopes for long enough to stand committed in the craft scene. Also, Mr Good Bar doesn’t know why he didn’t visit before now. This one’s in his home town, after all.
And, yes, back near the beginning of the rise and rise of well-crafted beers across our islands was Epic, now a 20-year-old brewery and, after a bit of a business blip, still going strong, making beers even better than before and offering a selection of them at their long-established taproom at the edge of Auckland’s funky Onehunga. There’s no excuse for why it has taken Mr Good Bar so long to get here, but we finally did for a quiet Thursday slightly-liquid lunch.
Epic’s is a bit of a hoony vibe, but happy hoony, with splendid pizzas on the side.
Epic sits just off a frantic Neilson St, out in Onehunga’s light industrial zone, where beer bumps happily up against much rougher retail. The Epic taproom is a barn of a place, but what a barn. It’s big — big enough to accommodate a flickering giant of neon iconography, the Keans Cowboy, once a Queen St landmark, up on its end wall, not to mention an impressive array of other distractions, like the 10 pinball machines lined up opposite the Daytona USA thrill-drive rides. And a stage for the house band.
Epic’s is a bit of a hoony vibe, but happy hoony, with splendid pizzas on the side.
Head of the vibe from the very beginning has been brewer and frontman Luke Nicholas, as ever, spilling over with bonhomie and currently sporting a beard as big as a Christmas tree and an undiminished love of the hop. One side effect of this is his impulse to share his latest hop-driven obsession.
On the day we visit, he’s enthusing about the stout he’s unleashing to mark the brewery’s 20th birthday. It’s been languishing in a whisky barrel for three years. When asked, across a sample, what strength, he says it went in at “12 or so” and, really, who knows? It’s certainly a powerful character, like honey run down a sooty chimney.
Mr Good Bar feels safer on a pint of Neon Haze, an affable IPA and a mere 6.5%. Mr Good Bar likes Epic. If, in the beginning, the brewery chose a tough label to live up to, it has. Twenty years in the Kiwi craft-beer business is epic by any measure.
Editor’s Note: This is the final instalment in Colin’s Mr Good Bar series, which I’ve loved reading over the past two years. The baton is now passed to Brendan Holland, who is trying to visit every brewery in NZ.