thief
Sawmill are the second Kiwi craft brewery to come to market with a zero ABV beer, after Bach Brewing’s All Day Non-Alcoholic IPA. Sawmill’s Bare Beer is a completely different beast (and yes, it is possible to have great variation in these products … they don’t have to be boring old Euro-lagers!). Sawmill have gone for a hoppy pale ale and they’ve done a great job with the ferment and the hop character. This is like a refined and more flavourful variation on Brew Dog’s Nanny State. Sawmill are rightly proud of the process, using a full fermentation, rather than reverse osmosis of a finished beer. They used a lot of speciality malts that are by nature poorly fermentable and hit that wort with their lowest-attenuating English Ale yeast. Lots of low alpha hops bring good bitterness and some hop oils to help with the mouthfeel. One thing they are up front about is that it’s well under the legal limit for a ‘no-alcohol’ beer in New Zealand, which is <1.15 per cent ABV. They hope to get closer to the 0.5 per cent mark in future iterations and I’m told this one is around 0.7 or 0.8 per cent.  It’s a kind of compromise they were happy to make to get a superior flavour profile from a  fuller fermentation. The end result is a perfect thirst-quencher with a punchy bitterness and some delicate citrus-pine hop notes.

Thief Brewing Frog Wallop IPA

Thief Brewing continues to prove that there’s IPA in them thar hills of Banks Peninsula, adding this West Coast style to the range.  West Coast by way of New Zealand anyway, being driven by Nelson Sauvin, Rakau and NZ grown Chinook.   The...

Double Vision x Baan Bangkok Thunder Struck Triple IPA

The method by which I pick a beer to feature here every week is extremely loose, but usually there’s an equation that balances between ‘interesting’ ‘relevant’ and ‘good’.  Sometimes, one of those spokes dominates to such an extent that the others cease to...

Behemoth Chur-Toberfest 2025

Every year more of our local craft brewers don the lederhosen and kick out a kiwi version of a Munich Festbier.  Historically, the results have been mixed… NZ malt and even more so our hops just don’t mesh well with the peerlessly smooth, crisp and understated...

New Zealand’s Most Awarded Beers

It was Stay Gold that started this … the Brave Brewing XPA that won a trophy in the International Pale Ale class at this year’s New Zealand Beer Awards. I was looking back through the records and realised it was the fifth gold medal that beer had won, and I started to...

Slow Walk Through Paradise — Visiting Every Brewery in NZ

There’s something about beer that’s always been part of my story. From the early days of sneaking sips of Lion Brown at my dad’s feet and walking around the house with my ‘beer mou’, to the $2 jugs of Joseph Kuhtze Lager at the Southern Cross Tavern during University...

Fermented Culture — The Third Place

Earlier this year a battle was fought in the leafy hills to the north of Wellington. A liquor license was being sought for what was once Dick Mead Motors and the Onslow Service Station. The resident’s association successfully applied for an extension to the decision...