What sweeter thing to do on a sunny Auckland Saturday, I thought, than hit the road northwest for a bite and a beer in a town called Helen. Just 50 fairly easy kilometres from the city, here’s Helensville, named for a woman no-one much remembers anymore. She was Helen McLeod, the wife of the timber baron who started the town.
Helensville has been several things over the years. After the kauri was gone, it did dairying. A hundred years ago, it was famous for its soap factory, which suffered an unusual fate. The soap was highly regarded and would have been much sought after if it wasn’t for its name.
The soapmaker, Horatio Hjorth, insisted on naming rights, but the reluctance of locals to handle his name meant they invariably opted for something more pronounceable and poor Horatio’s fame – and business – went down the drain.
A much better name for Helensville these days might be Libertyville. And I say that because one of the best, among the many best things in and around Helensville (pop. 3200, give or take) is the taproom that sits on the side of Highway 16, on the town’s outskirts. You can’t miss it and who’d want to. Liberty Beers and Burgers is home to one of the country’s most charismatic and successful brewers.
Liberty bubbled into life around 15 years ago in a shed in New Plymouth before relocating north to the town of Helen. The brewery is notable for its delicious and forthright beers. Liberty calls its style “unrestrained”, which is a fair way to put it. I’ve long held a high regard for Jungle Juice, one of their bolder hazies, which features among the 18 taps in their cozy bar at Helensville.
“I used to buy your Jungle Juice at the supermarket,” I mentioned to the friendly beard behind the bar, “but it’s hard to find.”
“People have mentioned that,” he said.
“Maybe you can you make a bit more of it,” I humbly suggested, ordering a jar of their milder-mannered Invictus, a 5.2% hazy pale ale that seemed perfect company for one of the burgers the Liberty team make, right next door in their adjoining burger joint.
This is an enterprising sort of enterprise. Liberty make gin as well and are forever on the hunt for new taste thrills.
Among the offers on tap, there’s alcohol-free, of course, but then there’s Abstrax, which is hop-free and actually alarmingly palatable, though I can’t endorse it, only because of its inability to endorse the hop. But it is a lot more interesting than it deserves to be.
Also on tap, there’s a delicious spicy alcoholic ginger beer called Fozzy. And a cider, a Japanese rice lager, gin and tonic, stout, a raspberry sour, several of the brewery’s famous pale ale variations and in another taste adventure, a hop soda called Joekatsu that really is very good (hear, hear — Ed).
And then there’s the burgers, which really are excellent and not immune to experimentation either, notably with the cheeseburger tacos.
I opted for a bottom-line basic hamburger, just a smashed beef pattie and sauce in a particularly good bun and only $9.50. I don’t like big burgers. Others at the table ordered upmarket. The deluxe cheese ($15.50) was particularly impressive.
There are tempting sides too, fried jalapeno peppers and mac and cheese bacon bites, for instance. And it’s a nice spot to lounge about and consider what to drink next. Though, really, it had to be a Jungle Juice.
Liberty Beer & Burgers, 64 Mill Road, Helensville