I love events that celebrate New Zealand craft beer. New Zealand brewers have been doing a great job over the last couple of decades to increase both the range of styles and the quality of beer available to your average consumer here in New Zealand, and I think that the successes in this area do indeed warrant celebration. Coming up this week are the BrewNZ beer awards, New Zealand’s biggest brewing competition and a great chance to recognise all the fantastic brews we have in Aotearoa. In fact, the judging process is probably already underway by the time you read this.

Last year, the supreme New Zealand brewery award went to Emerson’s, and pretty much all present were pleased with the well deserved result. They provided a wide range of very good beers, from their now classic organic pilsner to the spiced 2009 JP to their amazing festive brew, BeWitched. I was particularly impressed by their wheat beers last year, the BeWitched in particular. It was quite amazing, and I hope there is a similar offering this year.

As part of the BrewNZ awards and general festivities there is the Beervana event, which I will be attending this week. Unfortunately for us Students at the University of Auckland this is all based in Wellington, but if by chance you’re in the vicinity I would highly recommend going along. In addition to all the fantastic New Zealand beers there’s always a very solid international contingent (I’m looking forward to Dogfish Head and the Wig & Pen, among others).

In anticipation of the event I thought I’d sample a newer offering from the reigning champion brewery - this year’s Emerson’s JP, a tripel/IPA hybrid. Immensely hoppy, I found it to resemble a strong IPA in terms of flavour more than the Belgian Tripel style, but it still had that abbey alcohol kick at around 9% abv. Very flavoursome, with a fruity aroma and strong bitterness, although to be honest I preferred the 2007 JP which was more of a standard Tripel.

For more details about Beervana check http://brewersguild.org.nz/beervana2010/