Daring to be different is the mantra of the new league of craft brewers delivering us an ever-expanding offering of bodacious micro-breweries, boutique fill stations, brew pubs, bars and bottle stores. To wet your whistle for the smorgasbord of suds that is the Great Kiwi Beer Festival, Cityscape talks to a four-pack of local brewers and beer merchants about what trends 2020 will bring, and their No. 1 beer and food match for summer. To round out our selection, beer guru Ralph Bungard, of Three Boys Brewery, looks at what is behind the rising tide of sour beers.

Q&A: Chris Ruske - Canterbury Brewers Collective

How have things been going since you opened in Riverside Market? The market has been awesome. We've had great support from our local and international customers. The various breweries that make up the Canterbury Brewers Collective have been a huge help as well.

As well as being a fillery, customers can take a seat at the booth and sample a brew – that must be proving popular? The seats at our bar have been really popular. Many of our guests are international travellers. They sit and have a beer and share their stories of their trip through New Zealand.

Read the rest of our Q&A with Chris Ruske.

FB/canterburybrewerscollective

Q&A: DICKY FYFE - Kaiser Brew Garden

What’s coming in 2020 at Kaiser Brew Garden? Late last year we celebrated the opening of the new spiritual home for the Kaiser Brothers Brewery, the Kaiser Brew Garden. It’s a great spot upstairs in Riverside Market, and we’re loving being right in the heart of the city. We’ve got a couple of exciting styles coming up in 2020. We’re introducing a Saison especially for the Kaiser Brew Garden – this style really reflects this time of year and is about celebrating the Canterbury harvest. It’s a classic style with our New World Kaiser spin. Something different we’re bringing out is our Hoppy Weinstein – a collaboration of beer and wine. This is a pale ale matured with Awatere Valley Sauvignon Blanc and Nelson Sauvin hops in French Oak barrels. You get the aromatic profile of the hops, the flavour profile of the beer, the fresh fruity characteristics of the sauvignon, and the influence of the oak – it’s really quite special. And we’re really excited to be bringing back our popular Tangerine Dream. We use late-harvest Gisborne tangerines to make a fresh citrus-infused lager with hints of ginger and spice – it’s delicious. This was last brewed a couple of summers ago and it was really popular, so we know there’ll be a few people keen to get their hands on it again.

What’s your beer and food match for this summer? My personal pick is influenced by the Eastern Seaboard and North Carolina, which is also the home of IPA. I love the Kaiser IPA with a chargrilled fish taco topped with mango, pineapple and mint salsa.

Read the rest of our Q&A with Dicky Fyfe.

kaiserbrewgarden.co.nz

Q&A: CAMERON BURGESS - Southpaw Brewing Company

What’s new at your brewery? The brewery itself is new! We have only just purchased it and I am super excited about brewing on this awesome system. I’ve also got some new seasonal beers for summer including our new hazy IPA Stablemate, which sold out so fast I had to brew another, and our new Botanical Brut.

What’s your beer and food match for this summer? Can’t beat a juicy, smoky cheeseburger from The Burger Joint matched with our Say Hey Kid IPA, or a spicy laksa at Level One Craft Beer & Coffee Bar with our classic Gold Medal New Brighton Lager.

Read the rest of our Q&A with Cameron Burgess.

southpawbeer.com

Q&A: OSCAR McCAULEY - Brew Moon Brewing Company

What’s new at your brewery? In terms of production, we are scaling down our list of ‘core range’ beers and having a greater number of one-batch brews. We want both our trade and taproom customers to have a new and interesting experience every time they deal with Brew Moon, so it’s more variety and less of the same old.

What’s your beer and food match for this summer? We’ve just made another of our beer and grape fusions, called Hop-over-Vine. Its 75% pale ale and 25% riesling juice fermented in a tank together. It’s fresh, slightly sweet and a little bit tart, and pairs up very well with whitebait fritters. There’s a little bit of acidity as a result of the riesling juice, which almost makes the lemon slice on the fritters redundant.

Read the rest of our Q&A with Oscar McCauley.

brewmoon.co.nz

Sour the new sweet

Sour beers are the new thing this summer and perfect for a hot day, says Ralph Bungard of Three Boys Brewery.

There are five basic flavours that we detect on our tongue: salt, sweet, bitter, sour and umami (savoury). Not all of them, however, have been using the same PR firm! Sweetness has had it all over the opposition and for good reason, because at an evolutionary level, sweetness tells us we are on to something packed full of energy – exactly the food you need when running away from lions on the Savanna, less important when sitting on the sofa!

Sour taste, on the other hand, sends us an important signal that we are about to swallow some acid. Sounds bad when you say it like that, but it can indicate that we are getting some essential nutrients such as ascorbic acid, otherwise known as vitamin C. Recently, however, sour has got a new PR team and they are using fermented beverages such as kombucha and beer to win back lovers of tart.

Sour beers are not new but their popularity has increased dramatically thanks to the crafty boutique brewers looking for an angle that differentiates them from the mainstream multinationals.

There are two common ways to make sour beer. One uses yeasts such as Brettanomyces (Brett to its best friends!), which naturally produce acids during fermentation. You might be familiar with beer styles such as Lambic and Saison that rely on Brett-like yeasts. The second uses bacteria, the same types used to make yoghurt, such as Lactobacillus for example.

In the business of brewing, using bacteria is called “kettle souring” (for reasons I won’t bore you with), and it is the method most favoured by brewers because it’s quick and it’s easy to control the tartness.

The main kettle-soured styles about town are the Berliner and the Gose (pronounced “goes-uh” as in Rosa). Often you will find them with a fruit addition, which is quite traditional, the fruit flavours working so well with the acidic punch of the underlying beer.

At Three Boys, we have a Gose in its pure unadulterated form – tart and slightly salty with a lovely bready, herbal character, and the same beer with a dash of passionfruit pulp. Both are gorgeous, award-winning beauties! Sour can be a bit of a leap but take your time and I’m sure you will be rewarded.

Sour beers are great thirst-quenchers and are well worth searching out on a hot day. How about this Kiwi summer we make “sour as” our new “sweet as, bro”?

threeboysbrewery.co.nz

SUSTAINABLE AS!

Taking sustainability to the next level is the aim of micro-brewery and taproom The Fermentist, in Sydenham. Their Kiwi Pale Ale is the first certified carboNZero beer in the country, which means every emission that results from growing the grains to refrigeration in your home is accounted for. CarboNZero yes but flavourzero no – there’s some serious notes from the Southern Cross and Motueka hops, balanced with 100 percent NZ malt. Sustainability is a big challenge for a brewery – you can go through a lot of energy and resources making beer. The Fermentist is happy to be the test bed for innovation and new ideas that can make a real difference in the industry. The two biggies for sustainability are The Fermentist’s seasonal, plant-based menu, and its commitment to sourcing everything from local suppliers, which supports those working on local solutions.

thefermentist.co.nz

Connect

Sitting in the sun drinking beer and talking with your mates is a great way to reconnect. Put January 25 in your diary – that’s when the Great Kiwi Beer Festival will once again take over Hagley Park. Come prepared for an epic day dedicated to the nation’s favourite amber liquid.

greatkiwibeerfestival.co.nz