When in Wellington, visit the temples of taste. And I’m not talking about Unity Books or Slow Boat Records, the legendary Cuba Street music store. No, I’m talking brewbars. And there are plenty of good ones in the region, which offers, perhaps, the most intense collection of hoptastic temptation in the motu.
But if I had to choose just two – and I do – I’d have to choose legends, a pair of places that perfectly combine ale and ambience. The Beatles and the Rolling Stones, if you will, of the Wellington craft scene. And, yes, sometimes I do wonder how I got to be so lucky.
Garage Project Aro Street
Though I do suffer a little in doing this work. It is a 15-minute walk from Cuba Street, where I’m staying, across to Aro Street, where, a little way up the valley on the left I find Garage Project’s Aro Taproom, a shoebox-shaped gem of a brewbar that runs about 10 times as far in depth as it does in width. It is, perhaps, the prettiest brewery bar I’ve encountered – and, no it’s not my first visit.
Though the Aro Taproom is not strictly a brewbar, being set apart from the industrial side of the brewing process. If it weren’t for the wall of taps behind the bar, it might be a cocktail spot with its mix of low and high seating and little faux booths with red velvet curtains.
But it still counts as a brewbar because the Garage Project brewery itself is only steps away, across the road and down a bit, on the site of the old garage that gave the brewery its name and where it has been from its first brew, 13 years, and 700-odd – sometimes very odd – beers ago.
It’s late lunchtime and I feel like an early customer. The barman has a calm sort of charm and he knows all about the beers behind the 17 taps on offer. There’s the classic Hāpi Daze, and there’s a little creative madness, like the Great Deluge, a 7.8% sour porter.
I opt for something in the stylistic centre, an HBC-Treats, a double dry-hopped hazy, which not only hits the spot, but swings it round the dancefloor. Hops dancing in a citrus fog. It was hard not to have another one, but after a sample of the Pickle Beer (a thrill if you love dill), I had another sort of hazy, a fresh IPA, their currently monthly special. Also, delicious. The menu offers appealing new-world/old world pub snacks, especially recommended is the toasted cheese melts.
By 3.30, people are trickling in, mostly young, often bearded. I trickle out. Though not before hearing the barman inquire of his young assistant, “Have you ever made cocktails before?”
“A bit,” she says. “At home.” Which almost made me hang around to the taste the experiment.
Parrotdog Lyall Bay
Across town, on the coast at Lyall Bay next day, I take lunch at the other local legend, Parrotdog, a place I’ve had a soft spot since drinking their Colin IPA a few years ago, though that one has long since disappeared, along with the Keith Hazy, which was very good as I recall, and also my father-in-law’s name. Which is getting off the point.
Getting back on it, Parrotdog launched the same year as Garage Project. Their Top 10 hit ale is Birdseye, a very tasty and popular mid-octane hazy, available in supermarkets all over the country.
Speaking of popular, I don’t notice the queue to the bar snaking back right out of the room till I try to jump it. Chastened, I line up and it’s worth the (actually quite short) wait for a pint of Fresh Hop Nectaron and cheeseburger with those skinny fries that go so well with beer, damn them. The beer is delicious, the burger is tops along with the place – big roomy areas, indoor and out, with the brewery hulking out the back.
There must be a hundred people here and I can taste why. It’s a lovely spot, not too industrial, one of the country’s best brewbars and one where you can feel comfortable all by yourself in a comfy corner, considering another one.