Before
long, many of New Zealand’s brewers will be making a pilgrimage to
Wellington for Beervana and the BrewNZ awards. It is the highlight of
the beer calendar in New Zealand, and looked forward to by many beer
enthusiasts like myself. I hope to once again attend in my capacity as
Craccum’s resident beer writer, but like many things, I suspect that the
fondest memories will be associated with the first time. Not that I really have much experience to draw on, only having been twice, but I certainly enjoyed the first time I attended beervana more than the second (which I will emphatically say now that I still enjoyed very much). Maybe it was the fact I actually attended the BrewNZ award ceremony. Maybe it was that the experience was new. Maybe it was that Emerson’s won the main trophy rather than DB. Certainly, the craft brewing industry as a whole seemed to be much more congratulatory of Emerson’s when they won than DB last year. And rightly so – Emerson’s is the breweries that has helped pave the way for the resurgence of craft beer in New Zealand, not the least by consistently brewing fantastic beer, whereas DB is most recently known for their underhanded abuse of IP law failings in New Zealand, shutting out anyone else from (rightly) labelling their beer a Radler in New Zealand. So in preparation for Beervana, I went back to one of the highlights from Beervana 2009, wheat beer brewed by Emerson’s. Sadly the excellent festive brew from that year is unlikely to be repeated anytime soon, but this year’s batch of Dunkel is on the shelves now. The Dunkel is a dark wheat beer, and Emerson’s offering has a nice fruitiness, with banana and mango flavours coming through both the aroma and taste of the beer. This is accompanied by chocolate and spice that rounds out the beer well and it is all tied together with the full mouthfeel that is characteristic of wheat beer. I would highly recommend giving it a try. – Stephen 25 July 2011 |
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