volstead_valkyrie

This is the latest in Volstead’s range of Nordic-inspired beers infused with juniper berries and brewed with Kveik yeast.  This edition from the Christchurch brewery also sports a huge addition of hibiscus, which comes through right from the rosey colour.  The pungently piney juniper emerges first on the nose, with soft tropical fruit and sharp red berry from the hibiscus.  The flavour lands somewhere between the sticky pine of the juniper and the soft hazy fruitiness, with the hibiscus providing some lifting tartness.  I’m not sure what confluence of factors causes it, but for a 5% ABV beer the body is staggeringly full, carrying the weight and concentration of something twice as strong.  It may not be for everyone, but there’s a compelling balance of flavours here that you won’t find anywhere else.

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...