Boneface

This wee new release from Urbanaut is a true lite beer at only 2.5% ABV; well past the dubiously broad ‘session’ bracket.  As such, it has the incredibly hard task of bringing the absolute minimum amount of malt to bear without the flavour falling into an insipid fizzy abyss.  So can this one pull it off? The aroma absolutely does, bringing sweet orange citrus, peach and white grape with an impact you’d expect in something at least twice the strength.  But the nose is the easy part, it’s the palate where the balancing act so often topples for these lite beers, but Juno, I’m pleased to say, lands it confidently.  Rather than presenting any huge upfront fruit, the flavour starts off mild and stays mild, which allows those hop driven aspects to sustain through to the finish, avoiding the trap of collapsing the mid-palate by trying to balance too many hops on top of it. This is a lite beer that really nails it, and it’s also not the first really good low ABV hazy I’ve encountered this year.  As much as I’m not a fan of the hazy application in big double IPAs, I think hazy really has something going for it on the other end of the spectrum.

Boneface Brewing Deadlift Double IPA

I’ve said it before, but if you want to precision test a brewery then ask for a double IPA. Everything has to work harder; the ferment, the grain selection, the hops and (in particular) the conditioning.  As the ABV speedo climbs above seven, only the most precisely...

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...